back to the root | part two

The party years started and it was normal to be out at parties in the middle of the night out in the middle of nowhere with drugs and alcohol. Tried many drugs, smashed at the young age of 15, getting in cars with people that were drinking or on drugs, and it was all normal for me. I watched my mom be physically abused by two different men and she did nothing while they raged and became more and more abusive. Numerous nights would I wake to hear the bed being thrown across the room and hearing her say something like “shhh…don’t wake the kids…calm down…I am sorry.”


When I turned 17 I met a man and fell head over heels in love with him. That did not last long as the age difference was an issue and we were both young, none the less I never recovered from that relationship. The pain was so great, the disappointment, betrayal of a best friend, and the abandonment from another man caused me to close up and start building a wall that would not let anyone hurt me again.

My mom then started to date a drug dealer and he later lived with us and that was the start to the end of her abuse. I left for school one morning to find the car sideways in the driveway with the car door and the front door to the house wide open while she lay passed out on her bed. We finally forced her to go to rehab and start a treatment plan, so she went away for 8 weeks and then never came back to live with us during my young teen years. My brother joined the Air Force and I lived with my grandmother until I was 19 and then went to live with my boyfriend at that time. Two weeks later she died of a massive heart attack and I was the one to find her. That was severe traumatic damage that I stuffed really far away. My life as I knew it would never be the same; the rock of the family was gone. I called to tell my mother who was living back east at the time that she had died and she moved back shortly thereafter.

I married my boyfriend I was living with shortly after and that was the start of another chapter in my life. The hurt and issues carried over from my childhood and I graduated to stuffing my issues into a suitcase instead of the backpack I was carrying for years.

See…if you never unload your problems and deal with your feelings they grow and then you need a bigger bag to put them in.

My turbulent relationship with that man lasted 4 years and included his emotional abuse, controlling me, living in fear like a child with a parent, sending him to a drug rehab, and his temper. I was repeating the pattern of what I watched my mother do and that was not acceptable to me. I was so desperately looking for a man to take care of me and I thought because he had money that would do it and I would be happy finally. At the end of this relationship I became pregnant and we both agreed that adoption would be the best route. He wanted me to not have the baby but for me that was not an option. I went through the pregnancy knowing that my daughter was going to be a special gift for someone and that I loved her so much that I wanted her to have a good life, a better life and environment than which I grew up in. That was a torturous year and the outcome left me depleted emotionally, spiritually and physically. I ran from my life and vowed never to visit that part of it again. The pain was so intense; I lost the strained relationship with my dad over it and did not speak to him for 8 years. I was alone, lost and fully cooked. I moved to New Mexico looking for a fresh start and leaving everything behind never looking back. I was making a new life for myself and that life was going to start when I left AZ. Shove down…shove down…all that emotional stuff.

Two years later I met another man at my job. He seemed so different than my past relationships and it intrigued me. We eventually got married, had two beautiful girls and I built a new life. I severed my past and all the memories and who I was and created this new person and did everything opposite. That worked for many years, I was happy for years. We moved around a bit and then found our way out to California. We started having struggles more than not and I started playing the same roles as my past. I took the blame for all of the issues, I was told I was too closed off, my love was not good enough, I would not let him in, and why did I have no deep relationships with friends and so on. The wedge became deeper and deeper as he wanted more from me and I was not willing to let him in. Both of our pasts were coming up to haunt us. His past of rebellion and self sabotaging behavior started to take front and center in our relationship and my needing to have a man take care of me was right there fighting for a position. The relationship blew up and I did not know to the extent of the damage until it was too late. I ignored the warning signs, and put my head in the sand. My life as I knew it was over, almost homeless on more than one occasion, the lies, the betrayal and the girls seeing a relationship that was better as friends than husband and wife. My life was consumed with anxiety; health issues were coming out, nightmares, and yes the drinking to cope with the pain. Wow…this was all feeling familiar…hmmm. I was creating the same pattern in my life as what I witnessed my mom do and what I was familiar with.

The last year of the marriage was an incredibly hard one to deal with. The 14 year marriage failing, my business was tanking due to the Real Estate meltdown and my father died just as we had been restoring our relationship and we were able to actually talk and for the first time he was emotionally available to me. I was able to tell him and my mom all the things I needed to. I realized that they were just trying to deal with life and make the best decisions they could with whatever skills and tools they had. I had a serious expectation problem and I realized I did not expect anyone to do anything wrong and for them to almost be perfect. I would set myself up for emotional and relationship failure! I never told them what I needed; I never had the emotional maturity to. Healing had come with my parents and then he was gone.

When I got that horrible phone call in the morning while I was helping the girls get ready for school…I fell to the floor and started weeping uncontrollably. I decided that I was going to deal with it; I was tired of running from my emotions and the pain. I packed up and drove out to AZ where he lived. I was there to go through his stuff, remember, laugh, cry and hold his ashes when we had him cremated and said good bye. That was the hardest and most wonderful thing in my life. I was dealing with the emotions and it was ok. It hurt like hell but I did not vanish or keel over dead from it. Every day, little by little it got easier. I will never be the same, it is different once you lose a parent but the pain and memory of him is ok now. It has been 3 years this week and I can still get chocked up and I still miss him.

I stayed another year in the marriage because it was just too hard to deal with everything. After another very bad nightmare, this time of deadly snakes that I am convinced was my dad giving me a final message, I was done. I had enough and one day I found the strength to say enough. Enough! Within a month I was moving out with the girls. He left us in a horrible financial situation and I left with two hundred dollars, a failing career and not enough funds to get my own place. I found another mom that was single and raising her son and it worked out for the next 8 months until I was on my feet, found a job and saved money to get my own place. I never looked back; piece by piece I was slowly putting my life back together.

The first year was hard and rewarding at the same time. My life was in a 10 x 10 storage unit and my girls and I shared one room together. It was hard but it was also a great bonding time for us. The three of us talking, watching movies in bed and laughing. The laughing had not happened in a really long time. My ex husband has always been a great dad and very loving to the girls so they would go with him 3 nights a week so that gave me time by myself to figure out who I was, why I did the things I did and how to make better decisions and learn how to unpack my emotional luggage. Every week I was down at the beach, praying, seeking, crying and being still. I went to work and my confidence slowly came back as I was appreciated and my abilities were respected. I was getting stronger and stronger every day. I was able to get myself my own place and the first night in my new place I remember sitting on the ground just crying till I could not cry any more. I did it. I was providing for myself and I did not need another person to take care of me. I grew up in that moment, the empowerment of becoming a strong woman, on her own, caring for two young children. I learned that I could take care of myself just fine. The new and strong foundation of my life was being laid.

That year was one of my best years of my life. I found myself and I liked who I was. I was flourishing in my personal life, my relationships with my children and girlfriends were getting deeper and I was letting people in.

All of this was possible with me being ok with being open. Open to everything and anything.

To be continued with a part three