The worst thing that ever happened to me

Once upon a time after a 19 year old girl's first suicide attempt she was released from the hospital. The very next day she meet a really attractive man who was 30 years old who looked exactly like Ricky Martin but hetosexual and hotter. He seemed like the most charming guy she had ever meet. He started out what seemed like just overly concerned for her but that turned into  controlling fast. He constantly criticized my body and made me feel ulgy. He would tell me how I wasn't his type and flirted openly with other women so I broke up with him after 4 months . He started calling excessively and even showed up to my house drunk yelling for me in the yard. I avoided him at all cost. He came back while my family wasn't home one day and brutally raped me after throwing me through a glass coffee table and threaten to kill me if I tried to leave him again. I was so scared of him I was with him another 3 months completely against my will. He was a coke head and everytime he got high which was everyday, he would get really mad at the smallest things and go into rages and push me down and rape me whenever he felt like it. He would follow up on his threats if I didn't listen to him so I stopped fighting him so he wouldn't hurt me as bad. I didn't tell anyone what he was doing to me. I was still in complete disbelief of what was happening to me and everyone loved him so I didn't think they would believe me anyway. He spent alot of money on me and my family. He even paid for my sophomore year in college. He gave my son a huge party for his first birthday and was constantly showering me with sorry I abuse you gifts. He would tell me he loved me everytime he would do it and even cry like he was really sorry.  I spent some time away over the summer at my aunts house to get some distance between he and I and he started seeing another girl he told me about. He wasn't around everyday after work when he started seeing her except when he wanted sex with me. My family was renting and the landlord had to suddenly sale the house and my parents didn't want to buy it so we moved within a few weeks is how I escaped him. I was never the same after him. I still feel sick if I see Ricky Martin on tv or magazines to this day.  I have an aversion to overly attractive men or men that want to spend money on me because I see it as a way to gain to gain control. I told my Mom what happened to me a year later and she pretended to believe me but told other people in my family that she didn't.  He had always told me that no one would believe me. I haven't really talked about the full story until this year and there are still things I'm too embarrassed to say out loud about it even to myself. After that happened to me my mind got really distorted and I didn't realize then but I know now that it had completely blocked my ability to both see when I was loved and give love properly.

I had a very close friend who was madly in love with me and loved my son as well. Sadly I actually was in love with him too but I didn't believe he loved me I thought he just wanted to sleep with me so I was mean to him. I didn't take affection very well from anyone. I had started to believe that no one could love me because I was dirty from the rapes and tainted forever. I still don't know why I thought that I just did. When I finally did have sex after him it had turned into a dark experience for me. First I was just scared and then when I did learn to enjoy it again it got worst. I would use sex to torture myself everytime I felt worthless. I would crave just being used and then afterwards I would cut myself or hurt myself some kind of way out of shame. I had begun to only be attracted to unhealthy relationships. When I finally met a decent man (my second husband), Our relationship was kinda sexless and he was good to me but mostly invested in his music. I think the lack of sex made me feel safe in away but it didn't stop me from craving my sexual bad habits. Within our 4th year I cheated on him eventually.  I got pregnant and had a very regrettable abortion. I was a prolifer in the abortion clinic. I felt the child would become a pariah and be hated for my mistakes. I couldn't afford to take care of it either and I couldn't support my son and work while I was pregnant to put it up for adoption. A few months after the abortion I was held at gunpoint by a stalker I was wishing had killed me . I didn't even know the man I had only saw him at my work. I wasn't allowed to stay at my appartment when the man was released on bail. The police department requested I stay with family or a friend for a little while if I didn't want to be in protective custody until they were certain I was safe. I decided to stay with a man who I believed to be my best friend at the time. He took full advantage of my vulnerability and gave me the torture my soul was looking for and used me like I believed I deserved. I had no one but my son. My family had moved way, my best friend moved away and I was alone. I was drinking and partying all the time to make myself believe I was okay to numb out. I was constantly dripping drama and confrontation and that was just how I was through out my 20s. Just a broken damaged girl.

The reason I'm sharing this horrible story is because it's things like this that takes us away from love and if we don't heal we stay that way. I'm not the only one who has lived things like this. One in 3 women has or will be raped in their life time. It's the kind of thing that kills something inside of you forever. 

If you read my blogs often you know that I'm very happy now and is madly in love with my husband. I live a completely different life now I never thought I would ever have. It wasn't always this way though. It's still a hard story to tell and I still struggle discussing it to this day. Every couple of years I tell a little more to my husband about it when it starts hunting me again. 

I sometimes have the tendency to go numb out of no where sometimes without even being triggered. It has taken so many years of my life from me and made it difficult for me to accept and experience healthy love.

I used to hate for people to touch me. I used to be very feisty and felt easily threatened. I didn't trust anyone and doubted all the love around me. I see now today that when I look back I wasn't as alone as I thought I was. My grandmother took care of my son through the week while I was in college. My second husband's family loved me like I was part of their family. My best friend although she was states away stayed intouch and would come and see me and has always been a gentle and loving person I could confide in and be myself with. 

I didn't see any of them. They were all just distant voices in the dark. That is how broken people see the world around them. I slipped back into the same behavior again during the time my current husband and I were separated for 2 years. I understand that I returned back to it because I still had not learned to love myself yet or see myself worthy of love. Once my heart was broken again I thought of myself as just an object for consumption and that I would forever be punished for my ruin and that God would never forgive me for killing my own baby. I was right back in the car with my demons making my own living hell. 

I did the work this last time though. I have dedicated my life to staying health and villigiant of my thoughts and nurturing of my own feelings. I don't worry about returning there again anymore even though I'm living a healthy lifestyle now I'm still processing it. I know it's never going to go away. I wish I could extract it all from my memory and forget it forever but I finally accepted that is never going to happen. I have to work through it and remind myself that even though my experiences have not been good I can be good. What I'm most greatful for today is how I have learned to receive love from those who love me and how to give it back. I don't over extend myself to people that don't want to show me love anymore to torture myself out of guilt and shame of my past mistakes. I don't involve myself with others that are still riding with their demons that aren't ready to free themselves and are a bad influence on me maintaining a healthy life style and positive attitude. If you are still riding with yours I'm sharing my worst and deepest secrets to show you that it is possible to let it go and heal. When we don't see our worth and that we are worthy of love we constantly perpetuate negative behavior. 

I used to be the kind of person that always had something negative to say. I was dead set on protecting myself because I had been hurt and pushed people away from me that loved me. I was wapped up in childish behaviors and revenge and hatred toward men because I had been abused by men. I had killed the notion that love was possible for me but I was wrong. The key to the door of a completely different life can be opened by changing our perception of that life. Bad things happen to us all but its us who chooses if we want to allow those things to make us bad people. I choose to use my stories to help those like me who are stuck in the dark see the light. What has happened to me has and will help others. It made me a strong person and I think I owe it to myself and others to use my experience for good.

No regrets!

Yesterday was one of those ultra perfect days when everything was good and right in my world. My husband and I went for a walk at the University of Texas campus for my photo shoot, and just to hang out and see some cool shops. I found myself realizing how much I miss school. If I had not had a child so early I think I may have become a professional student and never left.
As we walked the campus we reminisced about those long forgotten college years of our life. Mostly I remember being really scared. I was scared to get out there in the world because I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life yet. I wasn't confident and didn't know or see my potential. I became a mother at 18 and all the fear remanifested it self into fearing not being able to support myself and my child if I didn't get a degree. I did alot of settling in chosing a career just to get enough financial security to support myself and my son. Through my 20s I lived in a state of perpetual regret for not thinking bigger. I finally achieved something for myself and had a decent career and got pregnant with my second son.
I became a stay at home mother after my youngest son was born. It was not what I had wanted to do and was completely unheard of in my family. All the women in my family are workaholics. I hated it and I lived another many more years into my earlier 30s hating it.
My story isn't at all special. Most of the people I have experienced in my age range and older feel as though their lifes just went to hell due to obstacles and they were left with shitty options that built where they are today. We all get caught in the thought trap wishing we had known then what we know now and that we had done better with ourselves. It's one of the big reasons so many people are unhappy. We all have great difficulty forgiving our old self for not taking the path we think would have been better for us; and we believe that a chance to change our life is lost in our past mistakes. As I walked that campus for a little while I felt myself slipping into that though process and then as I picked up the energy of those students I realized that they are as afraid now as I was then. It's a special kind of torture to have to decide what to do with your life before you have even figured out who you are which is why I think many of us end up not satisfied. These young people will live to doubt their choices just as I have. As My husband and I walked past some of the students they smiled sincerely and hopeful at how cute they thought we were together. I was looking back at them and for a second thinking they were the dream while they looked ahead at us seeing us as the dream. Isn't that ironic......
I think the most that we can all hope for is that we gather the strength to be accepting of our choices instead of rolling in our past mistakes and forsaking our futures.
My life didn't turn out the way I thought it would . I don't know for certain it would have been better had I not had a child so early or not taken a break to be a stay at home mother, because I know people with no children that have it harder than I do . I do know I wouldn't be so close with my children and I would have regretted missing that and it would have affected them negatively as well. I may have never made it without their love to motivate me forward being who I was back then. I'm not wealthy but I'm rich in the love and support I have always longed for and wanted so I have no regrets.