“I begged my loving and supportive parents to please take me home. I begged and pleaded with my dad and promised I’d be good. But there were 11 charges, and a few were felonies. Bail was set at a million dollars.”
‘I was sitting in a hotel room. I had on a tight black dress, listening to my client say what ‘he wants to do.’ My gut was screaming to leave, but if I left, there is no money, and my ‘boss’ will be upset.’
‘There’s not just one healthy baby. There’s TWO!’ My husband fell to the floor in shock. I had a huge pit in the bottom of my stomach. ‘There must be some mistake!’
“She stepped out of the room to give my OB a call. My mind went crazy. She must’ve been calling for backup. I was crying in complete confusion. Two? TWINS? No one gets pregnant and thinks ‘Yay! I’m going to have babies!’ It’s always, ‘Yay! I’m going to have A baby!’ But I had this strange feeling in my chest.”
‘Calm down, it’s not like you’re gonna see the guy you robbed.’ Well guess what. I walked up to the church, and guess whose face I saw? The man I had just robbed. He was the greeter.’
“I couldn’t get out. I was terrified. I walked up to him with tears in my eyes, and he gave me a hug. ‘You are in the right place,’ he told me. ‘When I was your age, I was doing the same thing.’ I had no idea he was in recovery. That I was the first time I believed there was hope for me.”
‘My wife must regret spending her life with me. If she met someone different, she’d have perfectly healthy children,’ I told myself. ‘He is one of 34 people known to have this.’ My heart sank. ‘What? In the country?’ ‘No, in the world.’
“I remember thinking, ‘Maybe we just aren’t the best of parents.’ Little did I know my wife was secretly researching and had discovered a condition. One day, she showed me a video. My heart sunk. I felt dizzy. Straight away, I knew this was what our boy had.”
‘I cheated on you with a woman I met at the gym. She has a daughter, and I’m her father. She’ll be 1-year-old in a few days.’ My mind went blank. ‘Did she know you were married?,’ I asked.’
“If you had told me 4 years ago I would be sitting in a waiting room with my husband, his affair partner, and her mother, I would have laughed in your face. But here I am. I’ll never forget what happened next.”
‘Get out,’ he said. He left me on the side of the road and ran over my phone. It was pouring rain. I was in my pajamas, barefoot. ‘Mom, I think I made a mistake.’
“It was New Year’s Eve and I was four days late for my period. I felt a hot flash and burning sensation spread across my face. I awoke to his voice. ‘Who is this guy you’ve been texting?’”
‘At first, Mickey’s grooming was very subtle. I knew it was something I just had to deal with. He granted me a new home and this was my life now.’
“When I cut my hair short she said, ‘Only old women and dykes have their hair short.’ There is no doubt in my mind that any disclosure would have only solidified her disgust with me.”
‘I had one job: protect my children. The next day he was gone and there was no way to get him back. I felt myself slipping away from reality.’
“On my son’s birthday, I laid on the floor, belly-down, with my hands on my chest to force myself not to hyperventilate. Minutes later, I rejoined the party with a smile on my face. ‘I am fine,’ I told myself.”
‘Dear Anxiety, you have been in and out of my life since I became a mother, and this season, the one I am in right now, is one of the hardest.’
“You used the fear of trying to parent my newborn babies alone to destroy every particle of confidence in my being. I remember calling my sister sobbing because I was so overwhelmed with three crying babies that all needed me.”
‘I was a victim, but I am a survivor’: Woman’s miraculous journey from scarring physical abuse, to severe PTSD, to ‘hope and happiness’
“15 years after my trauma, I am still learning to love my body for what it is, scars and all. It has taken a long time for me to be comfortable showing them, but they are mine and they remind me how far I have come. Your trials in life will make or break you. I was a victim, but I am a survivor.”