Here's my story

This is a lot. You don't have to read all of it. I just feel it's kind of fair to tell you this stuff. And I mean...you've been super honest with me. So it's my turn.

You know my dad died when I was three. When I was four, my cousin's friend would come over after school. He was around 12 or 14. He molested me for years. It finally stopped when I was in 4th grade. The counselors came in the classrooms and showed us some videos about sexual abuse. There were three of us girls who came forward about what was going on with us. My cousin has always been upset with himself for not telling anyone when I told him. But I don't blame him. I learned long ago it was the boy’s fault.

When I was 14, I had a boyfriend who tried to rape me. He hurt me physically and left bruises on me. I finally had to go to the principal at school but still, nothing happened to him. That was when I finally lost control and my depression came about. I cut myself for the first time in my art class in the bathroom. I was hospitalized the next day. I was in and out of hospitals for a few years, placed on all kinds of medications that made me fat, turned me into a zombie, and made my depression so much worse. I continued to cut myself for a few years. It seemed like it was the only way I could actually feel anything. I distinctly remember one of my stays at the hospital, my longest one. A girl who came in snuck in razor blades. No one knew how she got them past the strip search. She gave me one. I was caught one night. Six or seven people had to hold me down, one wrapped a shirt around my head because I bit them. The razor in my hand bit down so hard it cut my one finger almost clear to the bone. I have a scar there. Thankfully no permanent damage to the muscle. I received a shot that sedated me and was kept in isolation for about a week. In isolation they watch everything. You’re kept in a room with windows, you get no blankets or pillows, they watch you shower and all you have is a gown. I never want to go through that again.

Finally, my mom started weaning me off the medication. I actually bounced out of my depression for a while. I still have a lot of scars. I will always carry them as a reminder of what I went through when I was younger. And I'm okay with that.

When I was 15 or so, I was kicked out of public school. I had gone to the counselor for help. Instead of help, she called my grandma to pick me up and remove me from the school property. I ran. I ran through the school and into the outbuilding. I grabbed hold of my art teacher’s wrist and pulled him in front of me like he would protect me. The principal and student aid chased me. They called the cops. I was escorted out in handcuffs and taken to the Emergency Room where I was then hospitalized again. Thankfully, no one pressed charges. But I wasn't allowed back at the school.

I was then placed into a program at a different school. I was there for maybe 2 weeks when the therapist called me an attention seeker who purposefully victimized myself because I like being the center of attention. I threw my chair at her. It missed, sadly. The cops were called. One of them pointed a taser at me. They escorted me out in handcuffs, and I had second-degree assault charges pressed. However, I was allowed to go through the second chance program and only had to take anger management classes. The assault charges were expunged. Anger management was a joke. That woman should never be allowed to work with troubled people again.

Finally, I was placed into a level three school on the mental health campus. It’s called Laurel Hall. That placed helped me so much. At first, I was in trouble a lot. But at some point, I finally decided I wanted to turn my life around. There were always therapists there who you could speak with any time but were required to speak with two times a week. I loved my therapist. He was amazing. I wish I could still talk to him. The school had behavioral specialists who could lay hands on you to restrain you and there were “quiet rooms” that they could put you in.

Once I decided to cooperate and improve myself, I made a few friends and started passing all my classes with straight A’s. There were 4 of us who were super close friends. But just like many high school friends, we didn’t last. Graduation caused us all to go our separate ways. And that’s okay.

The summer before I went to college the first time, I went to an old friend’s graduation party. She and her boyfriend were moving. I knew her boyfriend from public school and he has a twin brother. Josh was super nice to me and we hung out in his room. I ended up spending the night. After that, we spent a lot of weekends together. And, sadly, I finally gave in and we had sex. He ended up being my first. I emotionally connected with him, but of course, he didn’t feel the same. That’s okay. I went away to college.

Sometime during Christmas break is when I met the ex I told you about. I honestly don’t even remember how I met him. Through a friend of a friend? I don’t know. But that’s where my biggest mistake comes in. He ended up convincing me to drop out of college and we…got married. I will never forgive myself for that. Even though I know it was all mental and emotional manipulation on his part, I still wish I had never made that mistake. But you know the rest of that story.

I was on my way home from work on April 18^th, 2011 when I had my car accident. I came around a blind turn and two cars were stopped. I rear-ended the vehicle in front of me. My truck was totaled and his had a small dent. It took the paramedics about 45 minutes to get me out of my vehicle because I broke my right leg and left arm and they had to be careful about jostling me around. The guy who I hit was very nice about it. He called my family for me and stayed with me until the paramedics came. I was taken to the local hospital where they set my bones. Apparently, they induced a type of awake coma where I wasn’t supposed to feel anything, but I screamed bloody murder the whole time. My family said they never want to hear me scream like that again. I had an out of body experience during that time. I remember floating above my body and hearing someone scream. I looked down and saw myself laying on a table surrounded by nurses and a doctor or two. It was bizarre. I was wondering who was screaming and, when I looked down and realized it was me, I flew back into my body.

I was flown to shock trauma in Baltimore. That. Was. Terrifying. All the medications I was on had me paranoid that the people were going to push me off the roof of the building or out of the helicopter. When I got there, it turned out that the local hospital set all my bones wrong and they had to reset them. I remember being given medication, falling asleep, and then waking up to someone drilling into my leg. I screamed. The nurse told me to stop but I couldn’t help it. They were very mean at shock trauma. I was there for a few days, then sent back to the local hospital where I had to do physical therapy as an inpatient. I had an external fixator on my leg and my arm was in a cast. I went through about 3 or 4 surgeries throughout the course of a year-ish. I was in a wheelchair for a while. But I could hop around using a platform walker. That also caused me to gain a lot of weight, not being able to walk for half a year. I had to do swim therapy to learn to walk again. My mom came and watched me walk for the first time since the accident and she cried. I had to live with my grandparents through all of that because they didn’t have any stairs to get into and out of the house, nor to get to the bedroom.

I love my family so much for all they did for me through everything. They supported me when I told my ex I wanted a divorce. I was so scared he was going to get angry and hurt me. I wouldn’t have put it past him. They supported me going back to school numerous times. My grandmother helped my current boyfriend and me to buy our house. My family is wonderful. They mean the world to me.

I’m sorry to put all of this out there. If you don’t want to read it all, that is okay too. I just wanted you to understand a little about what I’ve been through, why I am the way I am, and just who I am in general. All this stuff I’ve been through has made me who I am. I’m very insecure, prone to mood swings and extreme depression, I sometimes get depressed to the point I don’t eat, and I’ve even attempted suicide before. I still get the urge to self-harm sometimes. I have a lot of weight I need to lose thanks to medication and the accident. And I’m not comfortable at all with myself. I have PCOS which makes it difficult to lose weight. I had to have an ovary removed because it was completely wrapped up in a tumor. I feel kind of useless knowing I will forever struggle to have a child one day. And some days I don’t think I should be a mom because of the way I am. It terrifies me to think of bringing life into the world and they possibly go through some of the things I did.

But…anyway. I’m sorry, I think I went overboard.