Brenda's Story: Turning My Pain Into Strength
TW: Abuse & Assault
To begin, growing up had been a nightmare I thought I would never wake from. As a child, I was molested by my father, grandfather and one of my dad's friends. My dad had friends that wanted to buy my virginity. Another that wanted to teach me and train me how to be a woman to pleasure men. This was all before I was 10. By the time I was 13 I finally got the courage and I ran away from home. Of course, I got caught by the cops and they brought me into the station and called my mom. I absolutely refused to go home. Their only choice was to put me in foster care. Between the ages of 13 and 17 I had been in several Foster Care homes, a couple different group homes and juvenile hall.
I went through several different emotions and changes during these times. I was scared, I was angry, I blamed the world and everybody for what I went through, I was in four different schools in one year. I had difficulty making friends because I was never in one place long enough to even bother with it. I felt alone most of the time and I didn't feel like there was anyone I could trust to talk to. At this point, I descended into depression. I don't think I ever really fully came out of it, I just learned how to deal with it better.
At the age of 17, I got out of state custody and I got to go home. But I never stayed there. I left home and moved in with my boyfriend. Well being with him, I partied a lot. I got into drinking real heavy, started smoking pot and even tried a few recreational drugs. But I never stayed on drugs. I really did not like how they felt, but with all my friends trying it I didn't want to be the one not doing it. It was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made. I lost track of myself and who I was. I lost my dignity and I didn't care about anything that happened to me anymore. I didn't care about myself and because of that people took advantage of me. I got caught on video doing things I never should have been doing sexually. Which I was tricked into doing but it didn't matter how drunk I was I never should have done it and my friends that were with me should have never allowed it to happen.
After one night hanging out with a friend that I thought I could trust, I learned the hard way that I was wrong. One night we went out cruising and he stopped out by his school just wanting to goof off in a playground. Instead he took me up by the side of the school where there was a wall on the other side, and he proceeded to rape me. He shoved my face into the ground and got me from behind. I began throwing up and that still didn't stop him. So I decided to never go anywhere unless I was with friends. Just to find out that it didn't matter if my friends were there, it was still going to happen. One night at a party with several people I knew there, a huge fight broke out. It was a bad one, people ended up in the hospital, the house got shot up, and everybody just split up and ran by that time once the guns were out. My friends bailed leaving me there, and one of the guys there forced me back into the house by gun points and proceeded to rape me. At this point I decided I needed to get away from everybody that I hung out with. I learned there wasn't anybody I could trust and I didn't even think I could trust my own decisions.
By the time I was 18 I had moved to another state to be with a guy I've known for most of my life. Of course I ended up following the same road I had already been on. He was abusive in every form of the word. He hit me, he cut me, he stalked me when I was away from home at work. He slept with all of my friends so that I didn't have anyone and I would have to depend on him solely. And the worst part of that was he made me watch. All the time he would tell me how useless I was, how worthless I was. He was always cutting me down, insulting me, physically and mentally hurting me and making me feel like I was nothing.
I felt like I was stuck, here I am in another state with no friends and I know nobody but his family. The only reason I stayed as long as I did was that I had two beautiful children with him. I was afraid of losing them and I was also afraid of what he would do to them.
After 5 years I was able to finally get away from him. The night that it happened when I left him, we went to a friend's house for New Year's Eve party with just his family. I wasn't ready to leave when he was so he threw me over his shoulder and forced me to go home with him. Within the process of him doing that, he tilted my uterus causing me to never be able to bear children again. By the age of 24 I had to have a hysterectomy. Meanwhile I left him and gotten another relationship, and he moved on as well and got in a relationship with a 15 year old child. I didn't care that he was in a relationship, but I had a really crappy lawyer and his family had the money to back it up and he got custody of my children and I only got weekends and summers with them. I hated the idea that he was with a child because I did not want my kids believing that was okay. I saw him the same way I saw my father; I saw him as a child molester. It didn't matter how big of a fit I threw about it to the lawyer he told me just wait he'll mess up and then you'll get your kids back. But the more I called and reported things that had happened with my children, the state just started looking at me as the crazy mother. They just missed everything I had ever said and when they would go and do home checks to follow up on my reports he would just tell him that everything was fine and they would believe him and drop the case.
There has been so much more in my life that has happened and most of it is a due too bad decisions that I have made. I had to come close to dying to realize that I really needed to change my life and turn it around because I didn't want my kids seeing me the way that I was, I wanted to be a better influence on them. I went from 84 pounds, now being overweight at 152 pounds. From a size 1 to 1X. I knew I needed people in my life. That I could not do this on my own. So I found some friends that I actually could trust and I opened up finally for the first time ever I opened up to somebody. After several years of friendship, I started working more and working through all of the mental and emotional issues that I had going on in my head. I learned how to be independent, I learned how to make myself strong and my mental being and my well-being. I started taking better care of my body and I've learned to love myself. I met a man with a beautiful soul and I fell in love. We are together now and we were together before. We had been married for 5 years at one point together for six and we divorced not hatefully, but just we were going in separate directions. But we must remain friends the entire time. Now that we're back together everything is going wonderful. He supportive and he's strong, patience and very loving. He's compassionate, he listens and he talks - the communication is wonderful. He helped pull me from a very dark place and also help me to find God. I also opened up enough to find my own families religion. Even though I believe in God I fully embrace the wiccan beliefs due to family history. Once in awhile I still have urges to bolt, to run. I don't even know why it's just something that's inside of me that makes me want to go go go all the time. I think it's from all the moving around I've done between my childhood and being in foster care I was moving all the time growing up. Sometimes it makes it hard to stay in one place, but one thing that helps is that the man that I'm with loves to take vacations. And that helps a lot in keeping me calm as far as my restless spirits.
I believe in this clothing brand and what you women do. I believe that some of the sayings on the shirts really helps women to open their eyes and open their heart and realize that they are better than what other people say. That we are all strong brave women. And all we need is ourselves to pull us from any dark place that we're at. We just have to look inside ourselves and see that that strength is there, that love for our self is there. Sometimes we just bury it so deep that it's hard to find. I believe that the stuff you put on your clothes, I believe it speaks to women you know. I believe that some of us have experience things that your quotes say and that we've pulled ourself from those dark times and those dark places and we've rising above and found our life. I'm grateful that there is a company out like yours that has clothing that fits women's life women that were misunderstood or thrown away. Clothing that finds makes us all uplifting that shows that women are brave and we are strong. We don't need anybody to make us that way because it's inside all of us. I am a Beautiful Disaster because I have beauty in my heart and soul which are now full of love instead of aggression. I am still a disaster because I am never going to be perfect, but I always strive to improve. I learned from my mistakes. I use all the pain I have endured to make me stronger.
There are several of your collections that fit the things that I've gone through and the way I feel now and to narrow it down to one thing that I think fits me the most is very difficult. I guess my top favorites are the grey Timeless scoop tee, Defiant long sleeve tie dye and Perfectly Imperfect mineral wash pullover.