When I was 8 years old, my mother met a man that she began a romantic relationship with. As the years passed by and I grew older, she of course, began spending more time with him and I don't blame her. She had been a single mother for years, raising two kids alone. My brother was now grown and gone and I was a teenager, perfectly capable of taking care of myself. My mother deserved to find love and to finally have some time for herself. As a young teen, this worked out great for me. Not only did I have the house to myself each weekday while she was at work and I was homeschooling, but she was also spending basically every weekend at her boyfriend's house. That meant I had even more time to do whatever I wanted to. By the time I was 13 or 14 years old, it was almost like I was already living by myself. I was pretty manipulative though, and had led my mother to believe that she had a mature, responsible, trustworthy, daughter at home and there was never anything to worry about. Being alone became so routine, I could plan things out perfectly because I knew when she would be leaving and when she would return. All of my friends even knew this weekly schedule. That was one thing that helped me fit in with the "cool" kids once I got to high school. My house turned into one that everybody could hang out at on the weekends because there were never any parents. There were some pretty wild parties that took place in that cute little dollhouse. I'm sorry Mom. I know you're reading this right now. Anyway, this is where I feel this particular saying can be applied to my life: "An idle mind is the Devil's workshop and idle hands are his tools." Schoolwork was no longer a challenge to me because I had all of the answers at my fingertips. As long as I completed a few lessons a day, my mother was happy and I was happy. Homeschool could've been very beneficial to me, if my mother would've had the luxury of being a stay-at-home mom and teaching me herself. Unfortunately, those were not the cards she was dealt. She honestly thought that she was making the best decisions that would benefit me the most in life. She just never realized how very manipulative her daughter had become at that point. With so much free time and so little responsibility, the Devil definitely began working on my mind. Curiosity now began to play a huge role in my life. I knew what alcohol and marijuana felt like, but there was that one voice that said, "Why stop there?" When I was 15 years old, I started dating someone who was 18. We were always together and always partying together. He lived with his dad, who loved to have a house full of people, loud music, and any drugs or alcohol that anybody brought with them. This is where I was first introduced to Cocaine. I soon found out that his father was one of the biggest Cocaine dealers in Hazel Green. The first time I ever snorted a line, I instantly said, "I love that!" and never wanted that feeling to go away. I stayed at their house every weekend and got as messed up as I wanted to. It worked out perfectly because my boyfriend's stepsister lived there with him and his father, so I could spend the night with him all the time, but tell my mom that I was spending the night with his sister, who was a friend from school. The next drug that was introduced to me was LSD. That turned into an every weekend occurrence. There was a group of us that would hang out at my boyfriend's house every single weekend and trip on acid together. Then, we started taking Ecstasy, and then mixing the Ecstasy with LSD. This particular group of people became very close friends of mine because we spent so much time together. There's many crazy memories of being at that house together. My relationship with him, however, started going down hill. He became very possessive and had some trust issues because of past relationships. He also started becoming verbally and physically abusive. He held me up against the wall by my throat a few times and also told me that if I ever left him, he would kill me. He said that if he couldn't have me, then nobody else could. All I can say is this one particular relationship taught me the true meaning of betrayal.
There's more to come..... My next installment will be posted on this page in two weeks, every other Friday. Please be sure, if you haven't already, to visit my Contact page and sign up for my mailing list so you don't miss anything. If you have any comments you would like to share, feel free to post them below. Thank you so much for spending your time with me and please feel free to share this page with a friend.
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Through my early childhood, my older brother lived at home with my mother and I. He was basically my babysitter while our mother was at work every day. We grew up loving each other, but weren't exactly close just because of our 10 year age difference. He was basically beginning to drive when I was just starting to attend school. We never really hung out together or had anything in common, but we also never fought or argued, so that was a plus for our mother. By the time I was 8 years old, my mother had a good paying job in the Computer Sciences field, and was able to buy us a house. This was the first house that she had ever bought by herself and we were so happy. It was the perfect little pale yellow two-story dollhouse with country blue shutters. The house sat on 3.5 acres right next to a corn field in Hazel Green, Alabama. I spent so much of my time sitting in the swing on the front porch of that house. I loved sitting out there at night, listening to the bull frogs croaking, the crickets chirping, and the Whip-poor-wills chanting their songs. That swing is where I first began writing poetry. The book, "Where The Sidewalk Ends" by author Shel Silverstein, was introduced to me at school and I instantly fell in love. I checked that book out so many times in the library, just so I could bring it home and read it over and over. Of course, even at that young of an age, boys were a big part of my main focus. Most of the poems I wrote back then were about the newest crush I had at that particular moment in time. Every now and then, I would write a poem for my mother, but most of them were written in my diary. My mother and I started attending a church for a while when I was about 10. I wasn't sure about it at first, but I began making friends and becoming involved in activities at the church and trips that the youth took. Right when I had reached the point of wanting to be baptized, for whatever reason, we quit going. Looking back now, it's almost as if I can see the young me floating up towards the light, but then a huge dark hand reaching up from below, wrapping it's fingers tightly around me, and dragging me back down. It's so clear, I can almost hear that evil voice say, "You're mine little girl." I had no idea at the time, how drastic of a change I would begin to make. My brother moved out when I was 11, so after that, I was basically like an only child. My mother still had to work her full-time job, so of course, this meant that I had a lot more time at the house by myself. At the age of 12, you could begin to see a difference in my behavior. By then, I was in 8th grade and that was pretty much the turning point of my life. All the way from Kindergarten through 7th grade, I had never gotten into any kind of trouble at school. I was actually labeled as a "teacher's pet" every year, but 8th grade is when rebellion started to kick in. I was so tired of the teasing and taunting for being such a good student, so I decided to start showing people just how bad I could be. During the one school year of 8th grade, I was paddled twice, kicked off the cheerleading team for smoking marijuana, sent to Alternative school for two weeks for drinking Moonshine at school, started smoking cigarettes, and started sneaking out of the house at night to go meet up with boys. At 13 years old, I was no longer a virgin because I learned exactly how to get the attention that I thought I needed from the opposite sex. By the time I was 14, I had dropped out of high school because my mother presented me with the option of doing homeschool instead. She knew I wasn't happy with the high school I was attending. One male coach, my 1st period Biology teacher, would always put me in detention so I would have to be at school early and in his room with him for an extra hour before Biology class even started. I must have been the only student in the school doing anything wrong, because it was always just he and I in the room together. He would constantly flirt with me, always telling me how pretty I was and hitting me on the bottom with rubberbands when I would walk by. Another male coach, my English teacher, didn't even know the word 'plumber' had a 'b' in it. I think we, the students, taught him more about the English language than he taught us. At the time, I thought homeschool was a wonderful idea, but it turned out to be the worst decision I could've ever made. Homeschool opened up a door to a whole new freedom for me. I was now at home by myself, all day every day, with no real responsibilities. I cheated my entire way through homeschool because I found where my mother kept the Teacher's Guide hidden. I would purposely miss one or two questions here and there, just so it didn't look suspicious. Homeschool allowed me to party as hard as I wanted to on the weekends because I didn't have to worry about getting up early on Monday mornings. With all of this new found freedom, so many bad choices were soon to come.
There's more to come..... My next installment will be posted on this page in two weeks, every other Friday. Please be sure, if you haven't already, to visit my Contact page and sign up for my mailing list so you don't miss anything. If you have any comments you would like to share, feel free to post them below. Thank you so much for spending your time with me and please feel free to share this page with a friend. After we moved to Alabama to live with my maternal grandparents, my mother was given the opportunity to start attending college. She was also able to start working part-time in the computer lab on campus. By the time I was 4, she had earned both a Math and Computer Science degree and was soon remarried. I don't remember a whole lot about that man, but the things I do remember are not good. My mother, brother, and I moved into his house and their marriage lasted exactly two months to the day. He was very mean to my brother and I. He only wanted to be with my mother and never with us. Even being only 4 years old at the time, I still picked up on that. He used to lock us in our bedrooms when my mother wasn't there, just so he didn't have to deal with us. I can't remember all of the details, but I do remember what led to the end of their marriage. I was in the bathroom brushing my hair one day and he came in there, furious about something. He grabbed the hairbrush out of my hand and jerked me up by my arm and started beating me with the hairbrush. I had bruises all along my backside and after that, we no longer lived there. I wasn't exactly sure what having a father was supposed to be like, but I knew that was not it. Through the years, growing up with just a mother was normal for me, however, the feelings of jealousy that washed over me every time I saw my friends with their fathers, never ceased. I envied my friends who could crawl up in their daddy's lap or run and jump in his arms when he got home from work. It was always brought to my attention, that this was something I would never have. I always tried to act like it didn't bother me, but it did. I guess that was my first lesson in keeping my feelings bottled up inside and hidden from the rest of the world. Children that young should never question their existence, but it was something I did every day. My mother used to tell me about the love that she and my father had for each other. She always told me that they were each other's sun, moon, and stars and that they did everything together. At the same time though, she told me that he didn't want any other kids and he wasn't too happy about her getting pregnant with me, so that's why he left. I used to ask God every night, "Why was I even born? Why did you let me come to this world if my existence meant the end of a couple who was so in love? I never asked to be born, so why am I even here?" I used to cry to God and tell Him, "If I wasn't here, my parents would still be happily married. Why did You let me ruin their lives?" Carrying that weight on my shoulders throughout my childhood was difficult. I began blaming myself and I soon developed an underlying self-hate issue at a very young age. On the outside, I was a happy child though. I had one parent that loved me very much and there was never any question about that. I strived to be the best I could be for my mother. Making her proud made me feel better about myself. Every year, I earned awards and certificates for all of my accomplishments in school. One year, I was one tenth of a point away from being named Valedictorian. Another year, I was given the chance to become a foreign exchange student in either England, Ireland, or Scotland, but turned it down because I didn't want to leave my mother. Also, my name was acknowledged in the America's Who's Who Among Students. I used to get upset with myself if I made the A B Honor Roll instead of the A Honor Roll. Deep down, I just wanted to feel like I was good enough, but there was always something missing. No matter how proud I made my mother, I couldn't help but wonder if my father would be proud of me as well. I never received that love and acceptance from him as a young girl, so as I grew older, I began searching for it in other places. Unfortunately, this was the root of many problems that would soon begin to develop in my life.
There's more to come..... My next installment will be posted on this page in two weeks, every other Friday. Please be sure, if you haven't already, to visit my Contact page and sign up for my mailing list so you don't miss anything. If you have any comments you would like to share, feel free to post them below. Thank you so much for spending your time with me and please feel free to share this page with a friend. So, I feel like I should start at the very beginning in order for you to understand more about me. Actually, I'm going to back up all the way to the time before I was born. There was a man that I was related to, but would never get the chance to meet, who changed the course of my life with one selfish decision. My father's youngest brother was heartbroken after his wife left him. He was on the phone with her one day, begging for her to come back, but she had already moved on. He couldn't stand the thought of not having her, so he did the unthinkable. He grabbed his gun, put it to his head, and pulled the trigger. My mother was pregnant with me at the time that this had occurred. My paternal grandmother asked my father to go check on his brother because she had not heard from him and was beginning to get worried about her youngest son. He did exactly what my grandmother asked him to do and drove over to his brother's house. After arriving there, he knocked and knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He went around and started knocking on the back door, but there was still no answer. He then, walked around the house looking through windows and when he came to his brother's bedroom window, he saw his lifeless body lying across the bed with a gunshot wound to the head. My dad was the very first one to find his baby brother dead. After this incident, my dad decided that he would never let any woman get close enough to him or affect him like that in any way, so he disappeared. He didn't even have any contact with his own mother for at least three years after his brother's death. The time came for me to be born and my mother ended up at the hospital without my father. He was not there to help her through the labor and delivery and he never came to the hospital to see me after I was born. My mother not only had my 10 year old brother, who my father adopted after they were married, but she now had a newborn baby to take care of as well. My maternal grandmother had booked a flight to Houston as soon as she found out my mother was in the hospital giving birth to me. My mother knew she couldn't go back to work for a while and she no longer had my father's help, so she decided to move all three of us back home to live with her parents and file for a divorce. My maternal grandmother didn't work, so she would always be there to take care of my brother and I so my mom could work and go back to school. At 10 days old, I was flown from Texas to Alabama and my parents would never be together again. That was the beginning of my life with a single mom instead of with happily married parents. Growing up without a father had a huge impact on my life, and not in a good way.
There's more to come..... My next installment will be posted on this page in two weeks, every other Friday. Please be sure, if you haven't already, to visit my Contact page and sign up for my mailing list so you don't miss anything. If you have any comments you would like to share, feel free to post them below. Thank you so much for spending your time with me and please feel free to share this page with a friend. So, your life turned out exactly like you planned it would? If you answered Yes, I'm extremely happy for you. If you answered No, well I'm right there with you. All of the events that have occured in my life, I never expected to happen. Ironically, the events that I did expect to take place, never came about. I never went to prom. I never graduated high school. And let me be the first to admit, I was already pregnant at both of my weddings, so I obviously didn't get married BEFORE starting a family. My life has been nowhere close to what I had planned as a little girl. I guess now I can say, I've been on both sides of the tracks. I went from being spoiled and having everything handed to me, to living in addiction and having everything taken away from me. I went from living in nice houses, to living in rehabs and a homeless shelter. I went from making straight A's in school, to being arrested five times and locked away in jail. I went from being a cheerleader, to trying to commit suicide because I couldn't take it anymore and I wanted out of this life. I started traveling down the wrong path at a young age and completely lost myself along the way. I've started this blog with the intentions of it becoming like my personal diary. I lived a life where I was being suffocated by the weight of all the secrets that I kept buried inside. For years, I was sinking deeper and deeper, drowning in guilt and shame. Writing has helped me to release all of that while learning things about myself that I might not have realized before. This has helped me tremendously in staying sober. Welcome to my writing for sobriety blog, where secrets will be revealed and truths will be told. My hope is to possibly be able to help other people who are struggling with the same issues that I've dealt with in the past. I found that it was easier for me to learn how to forgive myself if I talked about my problems. In my case, a pen and notebook just so happened to be the ones that I talked to. I am in no way a counselor, but I do have experience in many areas and I'm willing to share that with you. Feeling like you're all alone with no one to talk to is the most helpless feeling in the world and no one should have to live like that. So hold onto your hats because this blog is going to be a bumpy ride.
There's more to come..... My next installment will be posted on this page in two weeks, every other Friday. Please be sure, if you haven't already, to visit my Contact page and sign up for my mailing list so you don't miss anything. If you have any comments you would like to share, feel free to post them below. Thank you so much for spending your time with me and please feel free to share this page with a friend. |