One Down One to Go

In March of this year, 2014, I received my Associates Degree in Communications. I actually did it! I graduated with a GPA of 3.67. The lowest grade I received for an associate level class was a B. It sure feels great to look up at the shelves in our room and see my degree in it's folder. My academic adviser is very pleased with the progress I am making.

When I completed my Associates program I got a nine day break before I started my Bachelor program in Criminal Justice. So here I am. I am in the second class of my second degree and it is so different. I have had to get used to working on teams, but that has been a good thing. My classes are only five weeks long as opposed to nine so the classes go by much faster. I have met some very interesting people and had more opportunities to share my story. It seems the more times I share it, the easier it becomes.

Criminal Justice seems the perfect place for frank discussions and sharing of stories. I have met a woman who is a survivor of domestic abuse. She and I really clicked, both of us understand what it means to be a survivor. I have had the pleasure of discussing the differences of military justice and civilian justice with members of the armed forces in Afghanistan. One of my other classmates lived in Ukraine. 

So, here I am, successfully juggling three jobs, mom, wife and student. I take my laptop with me when I take Christopher to swim practice and if I am lucky his coach has his wifi hotspot turned on so I can get some of my online work done while the kids work out. This makes it easier since he has practice every day. 

Christopher is actually getting something out of my classes as well. He is my writing buddy and proof reads every paper I write. It seems to be working, I am getting great grades on my papers, and he is learning whether he realizes it or not. We have even had some very interesting conversations about some of my class topics. 

You know, it amazes me when I think about where I have come from. How far I have made it from the scared child and damaged teenager. It just goes to show that no matter how badly you may have been hurt or abused in your past, you can overcome your fears and anxieties. You can rise above the damages left behind by those who saw you as an object and not a person. There is only one person who can do that for you, it is you yourself. You have to have the strength to carry on and push through the pain and make something of yourself.

I don't know how many hurt and damaged women or girls are out there, but someone needs to let them know that they are not alone and that they CAN make it through the fog of self hatred and self loathing to finally see that you are a person. A person worth loving and respecting. YOU ARE A PERSON WORTH LOVING AND RESPECTING!

Beautiful Bloggable Me

Waiting for a Window

I find myself in an interesting situation. I decided to leave my job in May, the office politics and game playing became too silly for words and then they became down right nasty. It finally reached a point that I could no longer put up with the situation. Wade and I discussed it and both agreed it was no longer worth me having to deal with the garbage.

I now find myself in the position of waiting for my next window to open. I usually have one open and waiting for me, but I don't right now. The only decision I have had to make is what to get my Bachelor's degree in. Could that be considered a window? It does lead to the rest of my educational future, so I guess it could be my window.

My next step is a Bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice and then on to my Psychology courses. I am going for a Forensic Psychology degree so I have to have a degree in criminal justice. I am really looking forward to this next step. I spend so much time watching true crime and reading about real cases, I have always been fascinated by crime, forensics in particular. I start my next degree in March, 2014.

So far school has been going very well. I have been able to maintain a 3.67 GPA so far. No grades lower than a B. My favorite class has been Cultural Diversity so far. We had some really fun discussions. I am also really enjoying learning Photoshop, my instructor is pleased with my progress so far.

I have to keep my eyes on where I am now because I know how far I still have to go. In order to be a Forensic Psychologist I have to have my PhD. This seems very daunting when I consider I will graduate in March with my Associates. My Bachelor program will take two years, my Master's another 18 months. I am really looking forward to the challenge.

I know when I get to the end and finish all my testing for licensure I will be the happiest person on earth. I can't wait to start really studying what I am in all of this for - seriously abnormal psychotic people. You know, serial killers, serial rapists. I really want to know what makes them tick. What happens to them to make them what they are.

I am already familiar with many of them, but I want to be able to get up close and personal and interview them. Spend time and talk to them and get inside their brains and really try to understand them, if that is possible.

I guess the only other window I need now would be a job so I can help take some of the load off of Wade's shoulders. If I could ask God for anything, it would be that. Help me find a job so I can take some of the stress off of Wade's  shoulders. I have an educational window, now I need a professional window if it please God.

Thank you for sticking with me my faithful readers,
Beautiful Bloggable Me

I Take A Really Big Step For Me

This week I took a really big step in putting myself out there. In my discussion group in Fundamentals of Interpersonal Communications I had been discussing how people who had been hurt in their past would have difficulty trusting in their present and future relationships and I didn't want my classmates to think I was just talking to get credit, or to agree with what some of them might have said. 

I have said from the beginning of this project of mine that the main purpose of sharing my past pain, humiliation, shame and fears was to help others. I have also said that if this sharing helps only one person then the sharing has been worth putting it out there, and up to this point I have never shared with this many people. I have to admit it was scary at first, but once I had done it, I felt even more liberated than when I had shared with just a few friends.

I know there are many girls who have been through similar bullying situations that I experienced in school who may not have come out of the experience as well adjusted. For those girls I say hang in there, have hope and strength and your perseverance will pay off in the long run. 

For the women out there who had the childhood traumas and have not had a chance to get the help to deal with the after affects I also say, hang in there and have hope. Help is out there.  Look for your own windows to step through and you will find them. 

For so many years my past was covered up by the family members who should have been helping me instead of leaving me to flounder in my own fog of anger, pain, humiliation and dysfunction. It took a near nervous breakdown before I was able to involve other family members in my healing process and then find a therapist to get me on the road to recovery. Without my family, church family and husband I never would have had the support and encouragement I needed to succeed and be where I am today, a happy well adjusted college student picking up the pieces of a life that I have reclaimed for my own.

I encourage everyone who has been through any kind of abusive situation to stop the cycle and find yourselves a good network support group and definitely get someone to talk to on a regular basis. Within a month or so you will find yourself beginning to see a difference in your outlook, and you might just see a window you can step through that will give you more of a purpose in life. If you are a spiritual person these windows may lead to spiritual tasks, if not they may lead you to other forms of working in a socially beneficial area. Whichever way you go, the act of focusing on someone/thing other than yourself helps you separate yourself from your own problems for a while. The benefit is in helping others you actually get to see that some people are actually suffering worse problems than yours and in helping them you get a new perspective on yourself and the world.

Very soon you will find yourself beginning to look forward to a future free of the ghosts of the past and you know that you will be able to successfully move forward. I'm not saying the journey is easy, or short, it depends on you and your past. What I am saying is the journey is worth it, no matter how hard it becomes at times.

Beautiful Bloggable Me

My Future Becomes My Own

So here I am in college, enjoying my classes and my friends and taking control of my future as best I can. I do well in my classes for the most part, but after the date rape I don't put as much effort as I should or could into them. I have not yet reached the place where I am okay with who I am and what I have experienced. I have been judged harshly and found wanting by a person who was supposed to help me. During my follow up visit to the Dr. after my trip to the emergency room, my mother took me to this one, instead of asking what happened or showing concern for me, the Dr. lectured me on Christianity and told me I would not be in the position I was in if I had practiced abstinence as Christ preached. I can still see this man's face and his name was Dr. Douglas. Clearly he missed his compassion classes in medical school. I thought mom was going to go over his desk and throttle him, we didn't bother to tell him that I had been raped, we just took the prescriptions he wrote for me and left and never went back to him. We were careful to see other Dr.'s for any more follow ups. 

I didn't stay in college very much longer, I ended up going to a business school to become a Legal Secretary and didn't even reach that goal. It seems that I didn't have the right last name nor did I speak the correct language so I ended up working at a Pest Control Company, but that turned out to be a really good job and I stayed there for two years working as a  lifeguard as well. I also talked myself into going back for more college. I did this until I met and married my amazing husband and moved away. 

THE WEDDING - My wedding was everything I had always dreamed it would be. I had always wanted a white velvet and satin gown and that is exactly what I got. My mother made it for me. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She hand beaded it and put medallions on by hand. My two sisters-in-law wore dresses made from the same pattern, but in satin and in my wedding colors of white and emerald. All of my nieces were flower girls and my nephew was our ring bearer. My eldest brother walked me down the aisle in place of my father and my other brothers stood with my husband along with his brother and best man. My mother made every dress for the wedding except her own. Each flower girl matched, I made the rings of flowers they wore in their hair and even my Father-in-law arrived in time for the ceremony in spite of threatening not to because of a UIL competition he was involved in. I had  told him that if he wasn't there then the wedding would not happen. He used to laugh at me because I was the only woman who would stand up to him. I never backed down from that man, even when everyone else did. 

After our reception we went to a hotel on the beach for the night and the next day we flew to Coco Beach, Florida for a week. We are still on our honeymoon and always will be. Our love is one of those that feels as new and good today as it did yesterday. It grows stronger every day with everything we have been through and I'm sure there will be more to come, our love has and will sustain us and keep us going for as long as we both are breathing.

Now we are living away from family, working together at the same company and really enjoying life with our wonderful teenage son. We visit family as often as we can and enjoy our family life and the company of some really good friends we have known since we moved away from family    18 years ago. We have our Church and friends, who are really like family actually, great jobs, everything we could ask for. God has blessed us with so much and we are so thankful for all we have. 

A Brief Aside

I started a new stage in my life recently - I went back to school! I have been thinking of continuing my education for some time but never pursued it.  I finally bit the bullet and discussed it with my husband and when he said I should go for it I did. 

I am enrolled at the University of Phoenix just about to finish my first semester and really enjoying it.  I am majoring in Communications.  I was concerned about starting all over again, but surprisingly I was able to transfer 28 hours from my mispent youth so come this time next year I will have my first degree.  I will then continue on up the educational ladder, as far as I am concerned the sky's the limit.  I didn't think I was going to be able to do this, but I actually have a 100 in one class and a 95 in the other - I wish I had done this sooner.

Everyone is being so supportive I really can't believe it.  The hours are long but I know they are going to be worth it and I know that having my son see me excel in my classes will show him how important college is.  I even try to involve him in some of my discussions getting his opinions on different issues we happen to be covering. I think he finds it interesting, especially my Cultural Diversity discussions.

I really can't wait to see where this takes me, it is so exciting.  I can feel things bubbling up inside of myself just waiting to explode into the world and I know I can do whatever I set my mind to.  There is no stopping me this time!

Beautiful Bloggable Me

My Future Begins

The summer after I graduate, things are pretty normal, if that is a word I can apply to myself. I worked as lifeguard, hung out with my friends and looked forward to starting college in the fall.  I don't remember anything really exciting or life changing happening.  I went to Maggie's Grandparent's ranch and picked up a car that Mom had bought for me from them.  We were supposed to spend a week there, but our trip got cut short when a friend of ours was in a serious car accident back in Corpus Christi.  We wanted to get back and visit him in the hospital.  It was horrible.  He didn't recognize any of us and spent a long time in rehab.  Thank God he was able to recover and today is living nearby in Round Rock and stays in touch.  He is another brother and I speak with him often.

The fall finally comes and I can get back to school.  I love learning.  I love books.  I declare a double major in History and English with a minor in Theatre.  I have my eye on either law school of something in the political science field.  I love my studies and when the swimming pools close for the season I take a job as a nanny and also one at the college in the audio visual department to pay for my studies.  


What a wide new world this is for me.  My teachers are as different as can be.  My French teacher, Madame Sullivan is beautiful and flamboyant and so very dramatic.  My English Professor, Professor Erwin, is a flower child straight out of the '70s.  Any class preceding an exam is a required meditation session.  You could drop into his office any time and have herbal tea with him.  He never closed his door when he was in his office, the opening was covered with   a curtain of beads.  My Math Professor Dr. Patel was a kindly little man who would sit patiently with you and explain any concept you were having difficulty with, regardless with how many times it took.  We practiced Tai Chi in Humanities, and I remember how my Humanities teacher tried so hard to get me to like "The Rites of Spring" a piece of music I despise to this day.


The friends I made!!!! Oh my, how different they were.  I had never before met people who enjoyed playing Chess and Backgammon, Mancala and other games of strategy and thinking.  In between classes and at lunch time we would meet and discuss philosophy, play our games and challenge each other's intellects.  Our favorite was a word game where one person started with just one word and the next person continued with the next word, but the word had to be related to the original word - but also next in alphabetical order.  Very challenging.  On weekends we would meet at the beach and have bonfires and continue where we had left off with our week.  The best beach nights were the ones when the fluorescent algae were running.  We would romp around in the surf and shake our hair or arms and legs and glow green as we ran around.  These were great times that I know I will never forget.

Of course, it couldn't all be perfect roses.  There was a guy in my Theatre class I had a crush on.  He was good looking, and for some reason he started paying attention to me.  I couldn't understand why, I was no-one special, but I was flattered.  One day he asked me out.  Dinner at his parent's house.  How much safer could that be.  Off I went.  We had pizza with his parents and then as we were watching television I realized they had disappeared.  He told me they had slipped of to their room so we could watch t.v. on our own.  He brought me a drink, no problem, I was legal and it was only one.  How wrong could I be.  Drinking that drink was the last thing I remember, until I woke up with him on top of me.  I was able to push him off and pulled myself together enough to get myself home.  I didn't tell anyone what happened until a week later - that's when I ended up in the emergency room in excruciating pain.  It turns out the creep gave me five std's, four of which could be cured, one of which I will have to live with for the rest of my life.  All of those std's cost me four of my children.  I have one. One miracle from God.  One who I am told should not exist, because I am not supposed to be able to have any.  But God will not be denied.


And I have my wonderful husband.  In all the years since this happened I have dated.  I never gave up.  But I was always honest with those I dated and gave them the choice as to whether or not they wanted to date me.  Until I met my husband the answer was always no.  I will tell you this, the minute I saw him, I fell in love with my husband and I knew that he was the one that God had set aside for me.  On our first date I told him my story and waited for him to say that he was sorry, but he did not want to deal with anything like I had told him.  I held my breath and this wonderful man reached over, took my hand in his and said he had made his choice and that if I trusted him enough to share my pain with him, he trusted me enough to keep him safe.  We have been together for 19 amazing years.  We have been through the pain of losing four children, but we have also shared the joy of bringing our amazing son into the world and the joy  of raising him together.  We have also shared the joy of our life together.  And I tell you this, I would go through all the years of pain again if it meant having the joy of the past 19 years that I have had.


I believe that our past helps shape who we become, but it does not define us.  If my past defined me, I would be a bitter hateful person. Instead, I like to think that it has helped me understand better the pain that people feel as they travel through the tribulations in their lives.  I have always said that my past is a part of me but it is not the whole of me.  All things happen for a reason and I believe that I was meant to travel the road that I have travelled in order to help others, and if I can help just one person, then it has been worth it.  My goal is to reach as many people as possible.  I know I am not the only person to have experienced these things, if I can reach others so much the better.  I honestly believe that this is the plan God has for me. This is the window He wants me to step through.


Beautiful Bloggable Me

Post Traumatic Stress...

Senior Year!!!!  I made it!!!  I had my cocoon of friends around me - those that hadn't graduated the previous year. I had spent two weeks at Stephen F. Austin State University at a their Summer Theatre Workshop for the second summer in a row.  My school sent two students each summer based on grades and performance in Theatre Arts.  I was the first person to be selected to go two years in a row.  I know Mr. Mangrum had something to  do with it because of what I had gone through the year before.


Mags and I had our college plans all made and were set to have an awesome year.  I know it was a good year, but to be honest, I don't really remember it.  I was kindof working on auto pilot.


I had yet to grieve for my father, but I didn't know this was the problem.  I wasn't even aware that there was a problem until my mother realized that I hadn't gotten my monthly visitor in a long, long time.  I was taken to the doctor, but there was nothing physically wrong with me.  It wasn't until the Dr. asked me if I had thought about suicide that I realized I had been thinking about it.  Welcome to the psychiatric department.  Here comes the long questionnaire, all the questions and my mother telling the shrink that my father had died the previous December.  Here we go.  


These are the stages of grief - which one do you think you are on?  I wasn't on any of them.  I had gotten over it and moved on with life - that's what I do.  Can I change it? No? Carry on then. But, wait, wasn't I angry at my father for dying?  Why should I be? He didn't choose to die.  Was I angry with God for taking my father?  Why should I be?  God puts us on earth to serve a purpose, and when we have fulfilled His purpose he calls us home - what is there to be angry about.  I kid you not, I spent at least 6 months going back and forth with this guy over the anger issue.  Of all the shrinks in the world, I get stuck with the guy who insists that you HAVE to go through each and every stage of grief - and in order no less - before you can move on with your life.  


He successfully brought me through most of the stages of grief, but in all our time together I would never say I was angry at my father or God - and I had yet to cry. I would not release the control.  So, I learned relaxation exercises, I learned self hypnosis that to this day has messed up my ability to meditate (a very dear friend has given this ability back to me via an alternate process). 


It wasn't until later in the year, while on a Theatre trip to see a play in San Antonio that I had breakthrough.  We had gone to see On Golden Pond at a dinner theatre and on the way back to  Corpus I suddenly broke down and completely lost it.  Again, Mr. Mangrum was there for me.  He sat with me while I cried for almost the whole 2 hour journey.  It was then that I realised what I had been feeling all those long months and it wasn't my shrink who helped me figure it out - it was the great - and I mean great google him if you don't believe me - actor Pat O'Brian and his wife.  They played the principle parts in the play.  I remembered that my father had been ill shortly before he died - and I blamed myself.  It was guilt I had been feeling.  My father worked so hard to give us all a good life, and he was a student at the local college carrying a 4.0 average.  Well, I used to usher at the theatre in Corpus and my junior year they put on a production of On Golden Pond.  I was, of course, ushering, but that meant my mother had to keep the car (we only had one) so she could get me to and from the theatre and then we would pick my father up from school after the play ended.  When we finally got to pick Dad up, the classes were finished and the school was locked up and there was Dad standing in the rain waiting for us.  He got ill the next week and it was shortly after he recovered that he passed away.


All this time I had been blaming myself and it was the play that finally brought it out.  To this day, I have not felt angry at the death of my father and I have since learned through other therapies and my training as a Stephen Minister that the stages of grief are not set in stone.  Not everyone goes through them in the same order, and some skip stages,  nor is there a set time for the grieving process to begin and end.  I like to think of the grieving process in the same way the Amish view forgiveness.  One day you grieve and feel better, but then another day you may have to grieve again.  It is an ongoing process individual to each and every one of us.  It is our own personal window that we have to step through on our own terms.  My hope and prayer is that if you are grieving, you have someone by your side to help you through it.


Beautiful Bloggable Me