CHAPTER 1

My Awakening

SITTING ON MY VERANDA, I'm lost in thought as the gently ringing wind chimes dance in the crisp, late summer breeze. Time seems to stop while I gaze at the mountain behind my amazing home through the 60-foot pine trees. When a hummingbird buzzes by my head, the sleeping puppies at my feet start to stir, unmoved for the next several minutes. I think of how far I've come from that dilapidated, blue and white trailer house on a Texas ranch. I recall the green carpet that disguised patches of mold growing along the backside of the living room and the musty fragrance on any muggy, summer day.

I left the ranch at 18 when I moved to a suburb of Dallas to live with my high school sweetheart. Years later, I found myself in Western Colorado with my third husband. Soon after that, we moved to Singapore, traveled around Asia, and experienced the exotic sights and smells of different cultures, and met expats from all corners of the world. Four years later, when I arrived back in the Rocky Mountains, I knew I was home for the first time in my life. Today, I live in these beautiful mountains with my loving husband and two crazy schnauzers in an immense home filled with warmth and love.

Each one of us has a story, and no two stories are the same. This story is just one of thousands of stories out there waiting to be told, and this story happens to be mine.

As a young girl, you could find me riding my buckskin horse Pokey, with my long dark hair flowing behind me just like Pokey's tail. Most of the time, I would be screaming, "Whoa, Pokey! Whoa!" as he ran away full speed down the old dirt road adjacent to my grandparents' old farmhouse. I was the only girl and the oldest of three. My loving mother was a rancher, just like her dad and his parents before him.

Our days on the ranch were full of hard work taking care of cattle, horses, the garden and the occasional pig or goat. My brothers, mom, and I helped my grandmother take care of my chronically ill grandfather, playing dominos most afternoons in the smoke-filled farmhouse, eating my grandmother's baked cookies. Every afternoon my brother and I walked back down the driveway to our old, dilapidated, blue and white trailer house. When dad came home from work, our small house went silent as we all made ourselves scarce, never knowing what kind of state dad would be in. My brothers and I were like the wild rabbits on the ranch - fragile and jumpy, always hiding - only we hid from our dad instead of coyotes.

I was a child who learned how to survive my ever-changing emotionally abusive environment. My dad was a brilliant, eccentric engineer. He was a fearless entrepreneur who was also emotionally detached and full of rage. My dad's words could leave much deeper wounds than the belt he occasionally used on us. For all his brilliance, he knew nothing about raising us kids. He was unaware of the emotional damage he inflicted on my mother, brothers, and me. My dad had to survive his own childhood abuse and neglect, the product of his own emotionally unstable mother and alcoholic father. So, the cycle of abuse and alcoholism continued with us.

Within my rural world, I only knew my caring, creative mom and my hardworking, unstable dad, along with my kind, God-fearing grandmother, ill grandfather, and a modest, sometimes judgmental community. I learned to pay close attention, stay out of the way, and become invisible. Despite my extroverted, optimistic, and free-spirited nature, the real me slowly faded away.

I was unaware of the world outside the ranch, other than our weekly Friday night trip to Dallas for a dinner out. As we drove, I looked out the truck window, longing to live among the bustle and lights of the big city. Most days, when I wasn't helping on the farm, I would sit quietly on my small bed, scanning the pages of the National Geographic magazines, desperately trying to read the captions, wanting to travel the world and understand the difference between people and cultures. Thank goodness pictures say a thousand words since I couldn't read. I was unaware that I had a learning disability, just as I was unaware of my family dysfunction.

I couldn't see that my childhood was preparing me to be the perfect victim, ready for my next abuser. I was an innocent, naïve, skinny eight-year-old girl. I never imagined that I should be fearful of my older cousin until the day he became the ultimate monster. It was like he had been ready and waiting for the perfect moment to step up and claim me as his prey. Before I realized what had happened, my abuse wasn't just emotional anymore - it had turned into a nightmare of physical and sexual abuse.

My cousin lived on the farm across the creek with his parents. Once my nightmare started, I tried desperately to avoid him, but he was smart and manipulative. He was the oldest grandchild and everyone thought he was responsible and protective of all of us younger kids. No one knew he was the monster that lived among us.

His smell turned my stomach, and the hay caused tiny irritations on my soft skin. The old barn across from my house was his location of choice to probe and violate my body. He persistently tried to convince me that I was inciting and inviting his sexual behaviors, but inside I knew it wasn't true! I spent every night alone in the dark, kneeling down on my knees, praying to God to make him stop, but God didn't hear my cries. I began to believe that God had forgotten me, or He had decided I was the dirty little girl my cousin told me I was. For nearly five years, my perpetrator exploited my body and manipulated my mind while I suffered in silence and held on to my horrifying secret. Gradually, I went from frightened, confused and fighting, to numb, disconnected, and submissive. By the time he was done with me, I was internally lost, shattered, and broken.

After years of surviving my cousin's abuse, I was finally freed from his grasp. Over the next few years, I didn't need my cousin to actively torture me to continue living in the nightmare he'd built, my torture continued in the form of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). I became an overachiever in every aspect of my life - from social school activities to my personal appearance.

I continued to cope with my experience and my learning disability (dyslexia) while overcompensating for all of my insecurities. At fifteen, I was primed and ready to take on my next abuser. This time, he came in the form of a handsome football star with blond hair and an unbelievable smile. I couldn't imagine what he saw in me. I was just a stupid girl with a disgusting secret. I believed I was damaged goods and undeserving of love. He swept in, and before I knew it, I was playing the role of the victim once more.

This abuse was different, and it came in the form of gaslighting and narcissistic behavior. One minute he would tell me he loved me, and the next he was criticizing how I looked, along with everything I did or said. He had a special way of making me believe he loved me while convincing me that I didn't understand his sarcastic, cruel humor, and adamantly reinforced that everything was my fault. Then he would proceed to tell me I was overly-sensitive. I lived in a constant state of heightened emotions from "love" to heartache. Of course, I chose to participate in this abuse. My part was to serve myself up on a silver platter for him to devour without hesitation. The whole victim role was all too familiar and seemed normal to me, even if I was always suffering. No one understood why I stayed with him, not even me.

I played this degrading victim role for almost ten more years as he continually dished out the abuse, always expressing how I deserved the abuse he supplied. Then, I found myself at 23 years old with two beautiful children; my youngest was only one year old. One morning, I saw myself reflected in a person on a television talk show, the depressed victim striving to become a survivor. There I was - crying out of desperation while hiding from the world. My optimism and the happy mask I wore shielded me from the truth, from myself, and from years of deep-seated pain. I could finally see the truth that I was a victim who needed to become a survivor. If not, one day I might look up when I'm 50 and find myself living in an old trailer house showing my daughter how to be a victim and my son how to be an abuser.

For the first time in my life, I began to face my fears, step out of denial and choose to seek out help, not only for me but for the health and wellbeing of my children. Once I sought out knowledge, I was able to see the unhealthy dysfunction in my life clearly. The moment I opened my eyes and saw the truth, I left my husband and started my personal healing journey.

My healing journey hasn't been easy; in fact, it felt like a roller coaster of emotions, with dramatic ups and downs, occasional abrupt stops, along with reliving the pain from my past and the challenges of my present life. No matter how crazy the ride, I was determined to change my life and eventually heal my wounds.

In the beginning, I felt alone, and at times, it was overwhelmingly dark. In time, I could see the light and felt hope in my heart. As I healed, I discovered my value, inner-strength and eventually, my self-confidence. I learned to let go of the shame and to forgive the little girl that survived her horrific childhood, as well as the young woman I became. As a young mother, I began to take responsibility for my...