I came across this quote and I guess it meant enough to me that I prompted myself to write a blog about it:
"Resiliency is the capacity of humans to come out of extreme shock, damage, injury and trauma and get back to normal life."
If you are not familiar with my story, then this won't mean much to you. But my middle name should honestly be "Resiliency." My history is littered with experiences that are not supposed to be everyone's life, but it is mine. I think of my life in chapters based on where I was living and what was happening. If I could title chapter 1 it would be:
Ohio- where I was founded. I was born in Ohio and my life there was great. But I remember when my innocence was lost (for lack of a better phrase). It started when my cousin moved in. My cousin used to molest me. There must have been a part of me that didn't know it was wrong because I didn't really say anything.
Then my second loss happened when my parents decided they were going to get a divorce. This shaped entirely the next 10 years of my life. My mom kicked my father out on my birthday. My parents' divorce was ugly. There were huge arguments, big scenes and my cousin and I at the center.
Into the divorce, my cousin acted out and I was on the receiving end one afternoon of a blade to a butcher knife. I didn't get stabbed or anything just threatened- 12 years old and fearing that the one person who kind of understood, was not a friend anymore.
My third loss came when my mom breached custody and moved me to New York and then California. I learned later that the word is abduction, but it took me a while before I could actually say it. During that time I was told I couldn't talk to, or have any interactions with my friends, my family, anyone that was part of my founding.
Chapter 2 would be titled California- where I was formed.
I didn't know who I was. What I could share, what I couldn't share. I learned in California however, how to stand on my own. My mother suffered from deep depression and in that I lost out on being "raised" for the most part. So my raising came from the high school I was placed in and the friends I bonded with.
End of my freshman year I started using drugs, and continued to use through the middle of my senior year. I don't know what made me different from my friends who had to spend stints in rehab and years after recovering. But I was able to walk away, and while there are days that the memory wakes me up at night, or a smell draws me right back to those days, it's not the forefront of the life that I am walking through.
Junior year was a breaking point, the secret I was holding boiled over when the Feds, the DA and my father "found me." The secret of my abduction was no longer something I could run from. I had to share with my friends around me what had been a truth I was hiding. Although it wasn't immediate this breaking point would ultimately lead to the healing I needed. What it did do was provide me with a sense of stability. Stability in that I had a family to return to and one that has continued to literally nurse me back to life. I could be a shell of the child they last saw at 12, but if it wasn't for their love, I would not be where I am today. .
Chapter 3- DC and this is where I grew up.
This chapter is still being written, but everything about my life has changed. I have control, I am no longer responding to actions of my parents. I am merely responding to my life. And it is in DC where I found who I am, and continue every day to be blessed with the discovery of this great woman.
So this is me:
If you were to hear the first two chapters of my life, without knowing how it ended, you would expect me to be broken. You would expect me to not be where I am today. You might even expect me to not be smiling, happy or put together. But my life is about #ShatteringExpectations and living beyond the circumstances that have defined me.
(Photo Credit of #DearWorld taken at NASPA 2015)
No comments:
Post a Comment