YOU ARE NOT ALONE

Everything in my life has been far from easy. It has taken me years of healing to build the courage to face my biggest fear. Which is fighting for the custody of my daughter. Being an unspoken adolescent with no guidance and opportunity to prove myself to the courts, I wasn't able to speak for myself. I had nothing or anyone to help provide the proper financial care needed to raise my daughter. Everyone was always speaking for me, I was forced to do things I didn't want to. Because no one listened to me I fell victim to a tremendous amount of abuse and crimes. Because I didn't know how to speak up and didn't receive the appropriate mental and health care. I was blamed for my behavior and left to fend for myself. Meaning there were alot of unreliable adults doing all of the talking, painting an image for me that may seem troubled. While the court system dealt with each situation through the outside influence. The physical abuse started when I was a baby. Neglect started when I was very young. Sexual abuse began when i was fourteen years old. Being forced to be a motherly role model towards my siblings caused me stress and anxiety at a very young age. It was hard doing things for myself growing up because I was always caring for my siblings in survival mode.Throughout the era of my childhood up until 15 CPS had been involved in our lives countless of times. My family was constantly homeless. In the first few months of being fourteen years old I was vulnerably touched by the father of my child then coursed into having sexual intercorse with him. I fell pregnant instantly and had never had any sexual intercourse before that. Because I was so young I wasn't able to speak up for myself and take legal action. When i was fifteen years old i was the victim of sex trafficking/kidnapping crime.These people drugged me and kept me hostage for 2 months. They did horrible things to me. When I made it back home from dealing with this crime only two weeks later after being back in the home of my biological mother I had to push the system to remove me from the home. My mother had already sent my daughter off to the state to be placed elsewhere. The environment was already targeted as unsafe and the system failed to help remove my siblings and I from the care of my mother. When i lived in group homes I was facing the real world alone and had been raped again. This is why in my records you will see that I was AWOL a lot. I had been jumped, and beaten up by other females living in the same facility. I did file a report for this sexual crime but I chose to not move forward with this case because I was being tormented, threatened and beaten up by the defendant's sister. I was afraid so I gave up. Between seventeen and eighteen years old I fell into the life of drugs. I was then again manipulated into another sex trafficking situation. This man kept me locked up, he electrocuted me with a taser gun, and shot me with BB guns and held me hostage for weeks. I finally agreed to to the sex work he forced me into. As soon as I found a way to escape from this man I did. Soon after, at nineteen years old I got into this shelter for women who are suffering from domestic violence. I had been beaten horribly by a man who was supposed to be helping me with a place to stay. I found two programs that would help me start something positive in my life. I chose to attend Milwaukee Job corps to obtain my highschool diploma and adapt to the manufacturing career path. The program was a success. I took on the role to be a pure mentor for other young women like myself. At this time drugs were no longer a part of my life. I graduated highschool and shipped out to the US ARMY. During boot camp I was still fighting my kidnapping case. I injured my hips and back so bad I was sent home on con-leave. When I returned to my home city I reconnected with my younger siblings and they expressed to me how bad things were going on at home with my mother. My anxiety overcame me and I tried to find the quickest way to get out of the military to try and go home and help my sisters. I failed to finish boot camp because of my injuries and finally went home.Thinking I would get home faster to help my sisters in an unpredictable way. Finally I was sent home on an uncharacterized discharge. I ended up moving to New York with my husband and got married. We built a life together and I started to reach out to CPS to help my siblings. Again, CPS failed to care to help. Soon after my husband beat me so badly I wound up in the hospital in critical condition. When I left that situation I became independent. I started to work with the VA and became able to handle taking care of myself. Now I have been building positive habits, healthy requirements for myself and my financial life is coming together. I have been living on my own for two years now. I have taken control of my own bills, responsibilities, my mental health and physical health. The VA has provided me with counseling, therapy and anything else I need health wise. For most of my life I have battled anxiety and depression as well as ptsd trauma. For the past 5 years I have had to retrain myself, my brain and become healthy. For a long time the adults in my life silenced me for their own protection. The system was always involved in my life and the only way I could get them to listen was through bad behavior. They gave my daughter to the family of someone that manipulated me into a sexual crime, who was never charged because the adults in my life didnt care about my well being. Today I still suffer from the trauma that was forced upon me and now all I want to do is fix it by helping other people through their journey.