My Unapologetic Story Part 1

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War movies have always been my favorite choice. Whether it's the epic Gladiator (2000), the old classic Saving Private Ryan (1998), or the newer hit Unbroken (2012), I find something so compelling and relatable in the stories they tell.

The human will and its ability to survive captivates me. What our bodies and minds can endure is truly a phenomenon, at least in my opinion. In these movies, we watch heroic scenes of men and women fighting to survive, depleted of all their physical energy; soldiers witnessing firsthand the barbaric cruelties that are hidden in the hearts of nations, but somehow, they still find the willpower to hold on to the love that keeps their hearts full of courage and hope that compels them to find strength from within. This kind of fight sparks this swelling emotion of inspiration deep in my core. It is one reason why this genre is my all-time favorite choice. But just maybe, I'm also drawn to war movies because I see a connection to my own story.

I don't want to speak out of ignorance since I've never physically experienced the trials of war, but I've known wars of a kind within my own soul.

My battles began when I was a child. I lacked an empathic father and had no positive motherly influence. My father was consistent and always there but appeared to be emotionless and, at times, abusive. I fondly remember living in Colorado as a second grader, losing a goose-down coat for the second time in a row. It was a thirty-dollar coat because I remember my father instructing me to pull down my pants, leaving just my undies, to bend over and place my hands on the edge of the kitchen buffet cabinet so he could hit me bare with a wooden cutting board. It was the same cutting board he used to sandpaper in front of my sisters and me; it was a cruel scare tactic, which may have been inspired by his twenty-one years of military training. That day, I received thirty bare-breaking hits, one for each dollar of the coat's worth. I remember screaming, sobbing, asking him to stop. He told me he would start over if I continued to beg and if my hands left the edge of the buffet. I had no mother to save me, and my sisters were too scared to advocate because they knew all too well or maybe, because of the normalcy of my father's behavior they thought perhaps it was justified.

My life went on like this for years until I turned thirteen. That's when I started running away from home, trying to seek a safe haven. Before I was thirteen, I had refuge for short periods when I lived with my grandmother. But she died when I was in the eighth grade, shortly before my wanderings as a runaway. During my experiences away from home, I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol. I would hop from house to house, seeking a family willing to host me until I met the Monster.

The man I call the Monster was a friend's father. I could go into detail about my experience with the Monster, but I will leave it up to you to imagine the hell and trauma he caused me. Victims of sexual abuse, at times, when the abuse is happening, don't always understand that it is wrong. Sometimes, the abuser grooms their victims, and for me, that was the case. I was a thirteen-year-old runaway with nothing who needed everything. I am appalled thinking of how the Monster preyed on my vulnerability. He would listen to my constant fears of living on the streets and my desperate need to feel loved and accepted. He took advantage of my trust in adults and tainted my innocence by providing me with a false sense of security. These unbearable memories lasted for months until I found the courage to leave.

At seventeen, I got the horrific news that my father had died from a bee sting. Yes, a bee sting; the allergic reaction caused his heart to fail, and he died at the young age of 48. Though I thought I hated my father for the abuse, I didn't hate him. I loved him, and I loved him deeply. As an adult, looking back, my father had his own demons: an absent wife, raising four rebellious children, and suffering from mental illness. His death caused a deep hole in my heart that I am still trying to mend, even today at thirty-five.

After he died, I told myself I wanted to live in honor of him and do things right. I wanted to make him proud of his little girl. So, I got my GED and went to community college. I failed, of course; I only had an eighth-grade level of education. I had never passed the ninth grade. I needed guidance but was too afraid to seek help. I remember my oldest sister trying to take me in, but I felt like she was too strict; if I lived with her, she would keep me from drugging and drinking. I could not have that. I didn't even give it one night. I still think about how things would have turned out if I stayed.

Again, I lived in this cycle of failure for many years until Mother's Day 2011. A friend brought me to this Christian church; she dragged me rather than brought me. But there at that church, a message was waiting for me, a message I've been waiting to hear my whole life. The pastor's wife was preaching about the power of women's influence. The influence of a woman can be powerful, and it could be used for good or bad. She began to speak about the power of not only a woman's influence but the power of a GODLY woman's influence. It was a message about one of the many things I was deprived of as a child: a motherly influence. I knew then and there that I wanted to be a godly woman, and I refused to influence another gentle soul to live a life like mine. I realized I needed to break the generational curses infesting my family's history.

God radically changed my life; he brought me to a community that I didn't even know existed—a community of good, solid people—honest people with the only agenda to help me succeed and to flourish. They taught me about God and his love for me. I was all in, and a year later, I enrolled in Bible College.

My experience at Bible College was wonderful. Again, life-changing! I was able to travel the world; I experienced things that I never thought were possible. But I was so wrapped up in this wonderful feeling of community and acceptance that I neglected the deep darkness that tormented my soul. The Monster, the abuse as a child, and the neglect from my mother all faded into the shadowy corners of my mind, where I pushed them and assumed they would disappear.

I graduated in 2016, moved to New Orleans, LA, and worked with a ministry that catered to the homeless, went into the juvenile correction facilities, and worked alongside an anti-trafficking ministry. I was on FIRE!

Until I met this charming guy who asked me to marry him after one month of knowing me. Of course, I said yes because it superficially fulfilled my deepest desire to be loved and kept the hurting little child from my past quiet for a while. Six months into my first marriage, I started seeing signs of its potential failure. I stopped going to church, and the wounds from my past started to rise up and plague my soul once again. That's when I picked up the bottle. It was as if all those dark shadows in my mind had just been sitting there, morphing into something even more terrible with time, waiting for me to fall so they could offer me the bottle they knew I couldn't refuse.