My Story

When I was 7 years old, my mother passed away after having lung transplant surgery. Her body ended up rejecting the organ. Only 2 years later, my father remarried my step mother after only dating for 3 months. She seemed okay at first.

But that quickly changed.

It didn’t’ take long for the fighting to begin between my father and my step mother. My older sister and I took the brunt of that, as well. Her anger at my father was taken out on us…and the majority was taken out on me.

The abuse was psychological and emotional, mostly. There were a few times when she put her hands on me. I went from being a child who was carefree to one that was constantly assessing situations, was fearful and was cautious. My father knew what was going on, but did nothing except tell my sister and me to “pick our battles” which essentially meant don’t fight back at all.

I grew up in a household where everything from the way I dressed to how I chewed my food to how I did my hair was critiqued. I was constantly fat, ugly, stupid, useless, worthless…the list goes on and on.

Its no wonder to me, then, that in college, when I was 21, I got into a physically and emotionally abusive man. I stayed with him for 4 1/2 years, eventually getting out thanks to my sister’s support and love. But the mental and emotional scars have been slow to heal.

My goal in this blog is to help others by being open and honest about my past experiences, what I’ve learned through therapy, and to offer support and resources to those who are currently in and have been in domestic violence situations – either growing up as a child or as an adult in marriage or dating relationships.

I don’t know if my story will help, but I do know that once we start talking about it, we take away the power of domestic violence. These things are done in private, behind closed doors, often with outsiders believing how “wonderful” the abuser is. Let’s break the silence and talk about this issue openly and honestly.