through my veins. Torn down by verbal, physical and mental abuse, beaten, raped, held hostage, degraded, tossed away, and imprisoned, I was left completely defeated. Failure had invaded, in every corner of my life. How would I ever survive and feel value again? How could success arise from such deep, dark failure?
I began putting my life down on paper as therapy to unleash the toxic shame and guilt. Instead of letting this kill me too, I decided to live and fight for my life back. It took courage to face my demons, but one by one I did and learned to confront them with purpose and determination. My four step C.O.P.E. =HOPE method emerged and I began healing by C- confronting my fears and the people that had hurt me. I voiced out loud how I felt and went to those I had hurt and apologized. Then came the O for optimizing my experiences. I humbly recognized everything I had survived and lived through was priceless knowledge to help others who are still trapped in their quick sand of despair. Learning to optimize those life lessons by speaking of them with transparency will help others and give them satisfaction in knowing they aren’t alone in their unfathomable actions. After realizing I had a duty to share my story, the hard part came with the P- pushing through the shame, guilt, remorse, embarrassment, disappointment and self-loathing. Bravery and determination became essential to getting through to the E- embracing the person which evolved on the other side of adversity. We must find, love and become that beautiful person God created us to be. We must pull ourselves up by waking up every day and finding something to love about ourselves and building a relationship of love and approval on our own. When we focus our attention on others around us that are in need, we shift negativity with empathy and compassion and ease a little suffering in the world. We must find our purpose and that comes by no accident. Finding your purpose is how you pull yourself up!
After being blessed with a reduced sentence and only serving two years in prison, I went home and started rebuilding my life. All past failed relationships within my family were healed with patience and the rebuilding of trust over time. In those previous failures, success began emerging. I continued working on becoming a better version of myself. My first grandbaby was born on the exact month and day of “the” wreck, suffered an oxygen deprivation and developed severe brain damage. She is blind, deaf, can’t suck, cry or swallow and is unable to regulate