(Okay Long Post) ..

(Okay long post) ..

(These pictures are from my past abusive marriage) .These bruises are not "Love" .. it is hatred, it is hurt, it is pain. An yet I stayed.. . October is Domestic Violence awareness month.. be aware that it could happen to ANYONE!! it isn’t something that you “ask” for.. nor is it something you ever think you will face, until one day you meet the devil hidden under the skin of someone you thought was “good” “loving” “caring” ... they wrap you up and completely fool you of who they really are.. you could be with that person for a couple days, weeks, months, hell sometimes years before they snap and next thing you know your hiding bruises, coming up with cover stories as to why your arm has hand printed bruises, or why your face is black and blue.. “I fell” “I ran into something” ... but it also destroys you mentally!!!! You begin to think you “deserve” the best downs your getting at home from the person you “love” so much.. you begin to think that your this awful person who deserves to be treated the way you are getting treated.. your afraid to leave, afraid to talk to someone, afraid of what consequences may come if you open your mouth or if you walk out the door.. you become trapped..

your family, friends will see the marks, they will ask questions, they will beg for you to leave.. sometimes even plead.. yet you will stay in hopes it might all change.. in hopes that this isn’t really your reality. sometimes you even cut those people out because you don’t want to hear their opinions.. but First it starts off small, a punch or throat grab here and there, and then it becomes a every day occurrence even with your children around... Until you wake up in a hospital bed and don’t have much memory of how you got there, until your pushed down a flight of stairs at 27 weeks pregnant and now your in the hospital giving birth to your now still born daughter. Until they break into a friends home and beat the crap out of you and break your friends leg... at what point do you pick yourself up and say ENOUGH!? I did this for 4 years.. lived this nightmare because I was so scared of what would happen if I left, I was scared of everything that could happen badly. Until finally I said no more!! And I took my life back, and I got out of it. But unfortunately some people don’t get out of it.. some people can’t leave and they die in this situation.. because they feel like there is no way out!! I GET IT! I have been there. 😏😣 but you can get out!! You just have to be willing to loose and risk it all!! No matter how scary, no matter how attached to the person and situation you are..

I have come so far from the toxic marriage I left 3 years ago, I often wonder if I never left that relationship if I’d be in a box somewhere because of domestic violence. The night before my divorce got finalized my ex came into my friends house With full intention of killing me, instead I survived! And one of my friends ended up with a broken leg in the midst of trying to save my life because if that friend wouldn’t have stepped in I may have very well died that night because of domestic violence. I was in a 4 year relationship with someone that beat me every single day. I now know that is not at all what love is or what it looks like. I’m thankful today to be happy, And to know what a healthy relationship with someone really means!!! I’m glad this chapter closed and I am alive today. Reach out to the ones that you may think are being abused help show them that there is a way out!!! I will always speak out and be an advocate as a survivor of domestic abuse myself. Be aware!!!

Holy fuck ... 😳 6 years clean an serene today !!! Just wow... if you would of told me 6yrs ago that I'd be happy, healthy, loved, an most of all clean, I would of responded with "Not in this lifetime" .. yet here I am, working it an doin the damn thing an livin the best life I can now.

I no longer wake up dope sick with body aches, hot cold sweats that make your whole body shiver, I'm not instantly jonesing as soon as I open my eyes .. no more body aches that make me wish for death or a syringe... i no longer experience pain of withdrawal, and the mental struggles, including cravings. No more worrying about getting money or selling my body to get well. Absolutely no more fear of getting sick or of dying ..

Instead.. I wake up in a home that I've built an created with a man an children who love me. I wake up energized an happy to face a new day of possibilities, I wake up excited to see another day an to feel the sun on my skin as it comes through the house. I wake up proud that my children have a mother who is doing her best, proud knowing my kids will never know that sick an twisted side of me. I wake up with hope every day. 😁 but of course it's taken LOTS OF WORK, PROGRESS AN PERSEVERANCE AN THE WANT TO BE BETTER AN TO FINALLY ACTUALLY DO THE DAMN THING TO STAY CLEAN!!!

But what I wish people understood is how much I wanted to stop, how much I hated what my life had become. I think people assume that there is a lot more choice involved than there is. But I don't think anyone really chooses to become a addict. I chose to start getting high initially but something changed in me where alcohol wasnt enough and I compulsively sought better ways to get my mind to stop. By the time heroin came into the picture it was too late, I was already gone. Heroin does not sound like a good idea to a rational human being and some people can use other recreational or prescribed drugs and remain rational. Those of us who become junkies are people who are rendered incapable of making good decisions when mind-altering substances are introduced to our bloodstream. You might call it a slippery slope, the regression from casual partying to heroin but it's really a very slow process of accepting different levels of normality.

The first time I knew of one of my friends shooting up I was disgusted, but it gradually became less foreign and one day just didn't seem like a bad idea anymore. After that point it is a quick downhill to rock bottom. The first time I shot up I had just turned 15 an my girlfriend at the time helped load me up an hit myself for the first time..

there's this funny thing about heroin... the first time you do it, you throw up, you feel sick and you can't move. you lay on your back and your head spins and your body flips... you say to yourself, this is the stupidest drug ever. only the dumb of the dumb would ever do it again. heroin, once it became my friend, became like a warm blanket on a cold night. now i couldn't imagine living with it

from that point on I dreamt of heroin every night, And while I knew it was a bad idea, I knew as soon as I got more, I was going to do it again, just one more time. I spent the next three years waking up every day with the intention of getting clean but a few hours into the day I'd think, just one more time, then tomorrow I will do things differently.

It's hard to explain to anyone who's never been through it and I can see how it would be hard to understand because it doesn't make sense, but there was no choice. Even now, I have to keep reminding myself because it doesn't make sense to me anymore either. I have been clean for six years and am happy an loved. I, no joke, have 2 small children and a nice home an drug free life.. Most people don't know and would never assume that I spent any time living in a tent by a the river using dirty needles and rainwater to inject heroin in between my toes so no one would notice... as if they couldn't tell by my sunk in face, an weight loss. So that's the other thing I wish people knew, and really believed, is that we change. We Hate ourselves as much as society hates us but we don't have to stay that way forever, we can change into amazing beings. We don't have to be prisoners to our addiction. We can do an be better, we just have to truly want it for ourselves.

They remind me every day ♡

Write down what you wish to embody. Create your affirmations and just affirm that shit ALL DAY. Persist as if you are that person already. Get those affirmations into your head until it feels normal to say those things about yourself.

You are allowed to grow and expand. Allow yourself to be that version of YOURSELF that you always wanted to be.

It’s 11:11 as I finished typing this💕

just a reminder that happiness doesn’t have an age limit!! that stuffed animal makes you happy? buy it! you like lego sets? build them!! I think it’s so stupid to perpetuate the idea that “growing up” means you have to let go of things that are “childish.” if it makes you happy then do it!!!!