A Gentle Note Before We Begin
This episode includes personal family rupture, abandonment wounds, grooming by older men, teen pregnancy, and a medically traumatic birth experience. Please take care of your heart as you listen. Pause when you need to. Skip what you need to. Come back when you are ready.
Pull Up A Seat
This week, I opened the door to the beginning of my story.
Not the polished version. Not the wrapped-up-in-a-bow version. The real version. The one that is messy and long and full of moments that still echo in my body when I say them out loud.
I have told my story to many people over the years, but telling it here feels different. There is no back-and-forth. No one across from me nodding and grounding me. It is just me, a microphone, and the truth. So I decided to let it be what it is. Tangents. Memories. Emotional side streets. All of it.
Because that is how real stories actually work.
Perfect Childhood from the Outside
I grew up in church. My parents were pastors. My dad’s parents were pastors. I was a PK, a preacher’s kid, and I honestly never knew life without God woven into it.
From the outside, our family looked like the picture of what people think they want. A mom. A dad. A boy. A girl. A neat little story.
And for a long time, it felt like that.
But one thread ran through my childhood so loudly that it shaped everything else.
We moved. Constantly.
Different homes. Different schools. Different states. Even different countries. And when you move that much, the change starts to feel like the only stable thing you can count on. I did not build long friendships. I did not get rooted. My brother became my best friend because he was who I had. We were each other’s steady when nothing else stayed still.
High School Gave Me A Taste of Normal
When we finally landed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and my parents put us back in school, I felt like I could breathe again.
I went to Union High School. I joined band. I marched. I traveled. I made friends. I had a boyfriend. I was doing the milestone moments I had been craving. It felt like I was finally getting a normal teenage life.
But while I was building a sense of stability out in the open, something was falling apart behind the scenes that I did not understand yet.
The Day Everything Cracked Open
After what I jokingly call my rebellious summer, I got pulled into the living room and told my parents were getting divorced.
I was shocked. We did not have the kind of home where the warning signs were obvious. I did not feel prepared.
And then I was told not to tell my brother.
I told him anyway.
Because I was a kid, and I knew one thing for sure. I was not going to carry that alone.
From there, life started collapsing in quiet ways that people do not always see. My mom moved out and felt suddenly unreachable. My dad was physically there, but life felt like we were all just unraveling. I stopped sleeping. I stopped feeling anchored. I started filling the void with whatever I could reach.
I remember the little details that tell the truth. The football games where my family was not in the stands anymore. The school paperwork that never got signed. The constant need for rides because no one was coming. The long hours alone.
And the bigger truth underneath it all was this.
I started feeling like no one cared where I was.
The Moment My Mother Shut The Door
There is a piece of this story that still carries a specific kind of ache.
I followed my mom home one day, just so I would know where she lived. I wanted my mother back in my life.
When I finally worked up the nerve to show up at her door, she told me I could not be there. She shut the door on me.
And I walked back to the car, devastated, crying, thinking, why does my mom not want me?
Looking back, I can see more context. I can see the complexity. But at that age, all I felt was the wound.
Teenagers & Freedom
Eventually, I stayed with my mom, and it turned into a free-for-all. No real boundaries. No structure. Missing school. Cutting class. Staying out. Just trying to survive in a life where the adults were busy falling apart.
That is the part people forget. Kids do not just “make bad choices” in a vacuum.
Sometimes kids are simply unheld.
And in that vulnerability, I ended up in dangerous spaces that felt like attention. Connection. Being wanted.
I was 16, dating a teacher.
Then I met another older man at a concert, and the way he showed up for me felt like stability. He called. He checked on me. He took me places. He bought me things. He made me feel wanted at a time when I was starving for that.
So I attached.
And from there, my life accelerated.
I dropped out of high school. I stepped into a new life with this older man. I lost my virginity. I felt like I was becoming an adult.
By August, I was pregnant with my first son.
Marriage and New York City
Because I was underage and pregnant, the “solution” was marriage.
I still remember the moment in the courthouse, watching my dad sign me over.
Even then, I felt the contradiction.
Part of me wanted the romance and the escape. Part of me felt the darkness of what was happening. Like a transfer. Like ownership. Like something being handed off.
Two days later, I was on a plane to New York City.
Shock to shock to shock.
New York was overwhelming. Loud. Bright. Too big. Too much. I slept all day because I was afraid to be alone, and I stayed up all night because it felt safer when he was home.
Eventually, I just wanted to go home. I was pregnant, scared, and tired. We moved to San Antonio to be closer to my mom, and that is where my first son was born.
My Son
Austin came into my life like a holy interruption.
He was born at the end of May, and I truly believe he saved me. I know many mothers say that, and I believe them. Because something happens when you hold your child and your entire system reorganizes around love and responsibility and purpose.
His birth was traumatic.
An emergency. A rush. His heart rate dropping. A doctor holding his head in place to keep him alive while they prepped me for emergency surgery. General anesthesia. Fear so sharp it made me go still.
I remember begging, please do not let me die.
I remember waking up disoriented, in pain, hearing “press the button,” and then the moment I realized my stomach was gone.
I was not pregnant anymore.
And suddenly I was fully awake.
Where is my baby?
And when they finally put him in my arms, that was it.
That was the first day of the rest of my life.
Key Takeaways
✨Your story does not have to be neat to be meaningful. Real healing usually comes from telling the truth without rushing it.
✨Constant change can become its own form of stability, and that shapes how we attach, cope, and survive.
✨When the adults in your life fall apart, you can end up unheld, and unheld people often reach for what looks like love but feels like danger later.
✨Being wanted is not the same as being safe. Attention is not the same as protection.
✨Motherhood can become a turning point, not because it is easy, but because it can call you back to purpose, responsibility, and your own will to live.
Final Thoughts
This was part one, and I know it is heavy. I know it holds tender places. Thank you for letting me be vulnerable. Thank you for staying with me in the raw and unfinished parts.
No matter what you have lived. No matter what you have lost. No matter what has happened to you or what you have done to survive it.
Freedom is the advantage you already own.
And you can reach for it at any time.
I will see you next week for part two.
