My Life represents the title of this web site "Turmoil Leads to Hope." Turmoil has been the one word that would best suite my life of pain and struggle. This is how the title of this web site came into being. Thank God, I learned how to turn my turmoil into hope.
My life began in turmoil. My mother had mental problems, and my dad was a hard worker who loved the ladies. One night of fun turned into a disaster. He had kids from another marriage, and she had a child form a previous relationship. Another child was the last thing anyone wanted. I was the unwanted brat that disrupted everyone's lives. After 2 years of constant fighting, they divorced, and I went to live with my mother.
Life with mother was a nightmare of fighting and constant chaos. The screaming and yelling would get so bad I would go hide under the bed. Her and my brother would fight constantly. For a while my dad's visits helped with the pain I was suffering, but she put a stop to that when I was 8 years old.
She never hit me or beat me. My abuse took the forms of shouting matches, mental torture by blaming me for the divorce, lack of food and medical care, and keeping me from things that gave me pleasure. It would take many years for me to realize what this really did to the small child I was. Many of the health problems I have now are directly related to her neglect. This was child abuse no matter how one looks at it. I remained sick all the time and would just lay in a bed and suffer. I found only a few years ago that I had Rheumatic Fever when I was about 4 years. If not for my dad, I would have laid in my bed and died. She refused to take me to the hospital or to doctors claiming they would not take care of me only make me worse. The Rheumatic Fever has left me with heart problems and other health issues.
After keeping me out of school for a straight two months and boarding up the house to keep light and people out, they took me out of the home and placed me with my Aunt, Nancy. She raised me until I was 18. Living with my aunt was great, but the abuse didn't stop. When I was 15, a family friend wanted to touch my breast, and out of fear I let him. It had first begun as just looking, but grew to touching after just a couple of days. After I went home, I told my aunt. What a mistake! I was told I was lying and had to go apologize to guy who had done this to me. I learned then that to tell wasn't good. This probably made keeping secrets so easy for me. From then until many years into my marriage, I was either hiding the abuse or minimizing it's seriousness.
At 18 I was in an abusive relationship with a boy who beat me, and the relationship didn't end until he sodomized me. I didn't report the sodomy. I figured nobody would believe me anyway, so why bother. I just left it alone and buried it in my mind until many years later in counseling when it finally it came out.
Well so far the pattern seems to just keep going and each time it just increases in severity. It continues to do so until the fateful day I married the man who would abuse me for 18 years of marriage. On August 17, 1981, I married the man that would make the next 18 years a nightmare. Some of those years were worse then others, but the control and mental abuse never slowed much.
During my marriage I was beaten, strangled, pushed down steps, hit in the stomach while pregnant, had objects thrown at me, and much more. I have had many injuries to my back, neck, hands, knees, face, head, legs, arms, stomach, etc. There is not much of my body that hasn't been injured by his abuse. I never went to the hospital, and only had him arrested twice in the entire 18 years we were married.
I was isolated from family and friends, not allowed to go anywhere without a time limit, had to account for every penny spent, had to keep the house spotless, take care of the kids, and give him most of the attention. I am sure there was more, but you get the idea I am sure.
The violence was worse earlier in the marriage while his drinking was at its peek. For 11 years of the marriage the violence was almost constant. After he quit drinking it slowed down, but the control over me was still his. I tried to break free from his control, but always came back. I left him a total of 8 times in 18 years. The 8th was the final one. He had begun abusing my daughter, and that was the final act which pushed me out the door. Abusing me was bad enough, but I wasn't going to let him abuse her.
I left and never looked back, but life still was hard. He didn't make life easy for me at all, but most of the problems were directed at my daughter. For 2 years he pushed at my daughter verbally and made things really hard for her. Finally, it was over I was divorced.
I actually was married to him for 20 years and lived with him 18, but I have a tendency to want to avoid saying that. Once I walked out the door that final time, I was divorced in my heart. It was over for good, and I had finally put an end to the abusive life I had lead for so long.
After leaving him, life was still no picnic. His mental badgering of my daughter caused her to turn to drugs and alcohol. So for 2 years after we left, the problems were redirected from putting up with his abusive nature to dealing with an out of control teenager.
I, however, am not totally blameless here either. My daughter's bout with drugs and alcohol was just as much my fault. I was in yet another controlling relationship which kept me away from dealing with my children on the proper level they deserved. No physical abuse occurred in this relationship, but the control was there just the same. I was so mentally needy at the time; it was easy for him to get a hold of me. I was starting down the road of Multiple Sclerosis, but wasn't sure what it was yet. The problem was that my kids had to pay the heaviest price for yet another bad choice. I finally did abandon that relationship after three years, and being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
I do not regret leaving the man I was married to for so long or getting out of the relationship that followed the marriage. The best things which came out of that marriage were my two kids. The other relationship gave me the ability to understand just how easy a person can take control of us. It, also, showed me how careful I really need to be if I am to break the cycle. Everyday I am grateful to have the ability to live my life as I choose. Oh, I have medical problems, but can still say how to spend my money and basically do what I want as I am able.
Getting out was the necessary step to begin dealing with these damaging patterns. It is hard to break patterns while you are still in a damaging relationship which is the culmination of these patterns. Once in the pit of turmoil, it just seemed to keep getting deeper. I had lived my life like that for so long it seemed impossible to change, but I did it. Thank God, I finally did it.
