**Content Warning** This piece discusses graphic physical and sexual violence in multiple forms, including against children (resources available at the bottom of this page)
If you need help, call The National Sexual Assault Online Hotline in the US at 800-656-HOPE (1-800-656-4673). You can also find resources and get help online at RAINN (https://rainn.org).
When I look back over my life, it has been filled with many roadblocks, bad choices, deaths, and adversities--yet, somehow, someway, I have always found the strength to carry on.
I sometimes wonder whether it was my friends, my family, my children, my mate, or God himself that gave me the strength to keep a positive attitude in the midst of the storm--All I know is that I have always found the strength to carry on.
When I was seven years old, I saw my mother being brutally raped, and I saw my stepfather murdered right in front of me during a home invasion--yet I found the strength to carry on.
At the age of nine, I was forced to perform oral sex on my 26-year-old babysitter and was threatened that if I told my mother or anyone, he would kill both me and my mother, so I kept this deep, dark secret until I was grown--but I found the strength to carry on.
My family was evicted from the projects and we lived in a homeless shelter for three months. While we were moving some of our things to the homeless shelter, I was in an accident which left me with a broken neck that Friday afternoon. I woke up Monday morning and I was paralyzed from my neck to my waist. We walked 20+ miles to the hospital. I could have been paralyzed for life or even died during the surgery, but yet I found the strength to carry on.
At 14, I became pregnant, had my neck broken a second time when walking away from a fight, contracted the HIV virus from a blood transfusion during the surgery to repair my broken neck, and lost my child's father in a car accident by a drunk driver when he was on his way home from a job in Kentucky. My family became homeless because my mother had to quit her job to take care of me. I was still homeless when I went into labor--yet I found the strength to carry on.
I was married at the age of 20. Six months later I found out my husband was having an affair with a 14-year-old and she was carrying his child. I developed PCP (an AIDS-related pneumonia) and was hospitalized for three months. During my stay, my right lung collapsed, I developed a pea-sized blood-clot in the main valve of my heart due to an infected PICC line (a kind of long-term IV), I lost temporary custody of my daughter, and my foster son was placed in foster care. I had a nervous breakdown. Then, when I was finally released from the hospital, I found out I did not have a home to go to, so I was homeless again--But again, somehow, someway I found the strength to carry on.
When I was 25, I made the worst decision of my life. I started smoking crack cocaine after being influenced by my second husband. I became instantly addicted- but I still found the strength to carry on.
At 26, I lost custody of my daughter again, this time she never came home. My adopted son was placed in foster care never to return, all after I had gone through a drug rehabilitation program. Then on New Year's Eve, my mother was found dead in her apartment. She had died three days earlier from liver failure due to hepatitis C. Three weeks later my daughter died from AIDS-related complications while in foster care. The day before Easter-I committed suicide by taking a bottle of muscle relaxers-I was pronounced dead for two minutes and spent 48 hours in the Intensive Care Unit. My second husband left me for another woman, then I tried to commit suicide again by smoking myself to death. When I rushed to the hospital I was told I had lethal levels of crack cocaine in my system. I spent 72 hours in the ICU, only to come home with nowhere to go again. I had become homeless again; this time I had no family, no children, no husband and no will to live--but by God's grace I found the strength to carry on.
From the age of 27 to 36 I was completely addicted to crack cocaine. I did things, unspeakable things that I would have never done in my right mind. I was arrested several times for shop-lifting. I turned tricks until one of my tricks strangled me until I blacked out, and he raped me and left me for dead. I became homeless yet again, and when I was admitted to the rehabilitation program I weighed only 88 pounds, but through some force greater than my own I found the strength to carry on.
When I was 45-years-old, I found out that I had severe cervical dysplasia for the eighth time, only this time they found cancer on my vulva. I had my ninth surgery in eight years on June 6, 2016, but I knew God had brought me through too many trials and tribulations to die-so I found the strength to carry on.
I am now 52 years-old and over the last five years I have been homeless, but found a new lease on life. I was reunited with my son, found a good man who is now my husband, moved into my own place, been clean for eight years now, and launched an Internet-based business. I'm going back to school to receive a bachelor’s degree in English with an emphasis in Professional, Technical and Creative Writing, and through it all I will find the strength to carry on.
So, whenever you are faced with hard times or adversities, just think of me and do what I do, which is praise God to give you the strength to carry on.
If you or someone you know would like resources or support in relation to the themes above, please see:
