My Story
Part 4

Before We Begin

I want to be honest with you before we dive in: recording this episode has been one of the hardest things I’ve done. I’ve had to start and stop several times—technology failing, distractions in the house, and honestly, the emotional weight of it all. Listening to my own story from beginning to end, without the breaks that come from casual conversations, has brought up things I thought I’d already worked through. It’s shown me patterns I hadn’t fully seen before. And it’s reminded me that healing isn’t a destination—it’s a journey we keep walking.

So if you’re feeling overwhelmed by your own story, know that I’m right there with you. This content includes discussions of divorce, custody loss, alcoholism, emotional abuse, physical intimidation, and moments of deep despair. Please take care of yourself as you listen.

Pull Up a Seat

Welcome back to part four of my story. If you’ve been following along this month, you know I’ve been sharing my life—the raw, unfiltered truth of it. And I’ll be honest: I got on the struggle bus when my parents divorced, and some days it feels like I never got off.

Right now, my husband and I are rebuilding after he lost his job a couple of years ago. We’ve lost our home, vehicles, almost everything we owned. We’re living in two tiny bedrooms in a family member’s house, and I’m almost 50 years old. That’s a hard pill to swallow.

But here’s what I want you to know: just because some things look alike doesn’t mean they are alike. The situation I’m in now is vastly different from where I was 20 years ago, even if my trauma sometimes tries to convince me otherwise.

Losing Andrew

After I left my last husband, he suddenly became everything he couldn’t be during our marriage—employed, stable, responsible. And because I had nowhere to go, both of my boys stayed with him while I tried to figure out my life.

My dad was putting me in a constant state of shame about who I was and what my decisions had led to. Maybe I didn’t deserve to be a mother. Maybe I didn’t deserve to have my children. Those words started settling into my bones.

When I finally got my own place with my new boyfriend, I called my ex about bringing the kids home. Austin came back—he wasn’t my ex’s biological child, so there was no legal battle there. But Andrew? My ex informed me that Andrew would not be coming back.

Standing in that courtroom, hearing the judge say I would have to pay child support, I was flooded with PTSD from giving up my second son for adoption years before. I couldn’t give up my rights again. I couldn’t lose another child. But when I walked out of that courtroom, I felt like my whole world had crumbled.

Andrew was three when I lost him. I never spent another birthday with him until he turned twenty-one.

The Alcoholic

The boyfriend I was with during all of this turned out to be a severe alcoholic. What started as fun nights out with his friends became a daily pattern of him coming home drunk, not remembering the night before, and me having to piece together his evenings for him.

He started pawning me off on his best friend for anything that required actually spending time with me. His friend became my pseudo-boyfriend—we went to movies, shopping, did everything together—while my actual boyfriend got all the benefits without the relationship.

When we moved to the country, things escalated. The fights became physical—shoving, pushing, getting in my face. He would come home so drunk he’d punch walls, break windows, pee in closets thinking they were bathrooms. His parents blamed me, said I was emasculating him.

It got so bad that I would lay in bed at night plotting his demise. When your mind goes homicidal, you know it’s time to go.

On January 2nd, I drove him to work like everything was normal. Then I came back, packed up everything I owned, and left the car keys in his parking lot. That morning was the last time I ever saw him.

The One That Broke Me

You’d think that would be my rock bottom. It wasn’t.

I reconnected with that best friend—the one who had confessed his love for me years before. We started talking, then dating, and by September we were married. We were done by the following February.

He hadn’t forgiven me for what happened before. He got into the relationship for resolve or revenge. The abuse was emotional, mental, verbal—constant and corrosive. He didn’t even want anyone to know we were married.

When I got into a bad car accident and ended up in the hospital, he asked who was going to deal with the car because he had to get back to work. Then he went back to work and left me there alone. I didn’t even know what was wrong with me for hours.

On Valentine’s Day 2010, he threw twenty dollars at me and said, “Go buy yourself some flowers.” When I tried to talk about our relationship, he got in my face and said words I’ll never forget: “You have no monetary value. You’re a worthless piece of shit. Get the fuck out of my house.”

The Litter Box

My stepdad drove three hours to get me that night. His nephew knew of a house for rent across the street from him—$500 a month, but it needed cleaning.

You could smell that house from the street.

The previous tenant had been a drug addict who fed stray cats through her windows for five years. There was cat waste from floor to ceiling, on the walls, in every window track. Animal control estimated they caught almost 150 cats.

I stood there looking around, thinking: This is where I live with my son now.

I spent weeks on my hands and knees, scrubbing and weeping. And somewhere in that mess, I realized the house was mimicking my real life. I had created this box of shit that I was living in, and now I had to physically clean it up.

That was when I finally understood what my mama meant when she kept asking, “How many times are you gonna go around this mountain?”

This was the last time. I was done.

Rising from the Ashes

I cleaned that entire house. Repainted it. Refinished the floors. I graduated from hair school in May and got a job at a salon down the street. For the first time since before Andrew was born, I had my own place with Austin that was truly mine.

Then in September, I caught a cold I couldn’t shake. The doctor looked at me and said, “We think you have cancer.”

After all I’d been through, after all I’d survived, it came down to this. Except it wasn’t cancer. It was parvovirus—the same virus I’d had when pregnant years before—causing an aplastic anemia crisis. My mom figured it out by researching online when the doctors wouldn’t listen.

I spent months recovering, unable to work. I lost my job. But I was finally in a space where I had my head screwed on right.

Four in the Morning

Late one night, my mom and I were goofing around on a dating website, making fun of the people on there. I winked at some guy’s profile and forgot about it.

A few weeks later, he messaged again. At four in the morning, I wrote him the most random email of my life—stream of consciousness thoughts about Dr. Pepper and my favorite ring and the fact that I’d been married four times with three children by three different men.

By nine the next morning, he wrote back the exact same way.

When we finally talked on the phone, I laughed so hard my mom came to check on me. I had never laughed that much with anyone.

I asked him to come watch the sunrise with me for our first date. He showed up at five in the morning. When he got out of that car and put his arms around me, it was the first time I had ever felt home.

I walked back inside, held up my hand to my mom, and said, “Number five.”

Sean and I have been married 15 years this year.

Key Takeaways

✨ Just because something looks like your past doesn’t mean it is your past. Circumstances may seem similar, but you are not the same person you were then.

✨ When your mind starts going to dark places—when you’re plotting someone’s demise or wishing for their harm—that’s your signal that it’s time to leave.

✨ Sometimes the physical mess in front of you is mirroring the internal mess you need to clean up. And sometimes you have to get on your hands and knees and do the hard work yourself.

✨ Rock bottom isn’t always where you think it is. Some of us have to go deeper before we finally understand what we need to change.

✨ Freedom and home can show up at five in the morning in a driveway when you least expect it. Don’t give up before your miracle arrives.

Final Thoughts

Through all the hell I have lived and experienced, it was all worth it for what God brought into my life with Sean. He has been the grace that has covered my life.

I want you to know that no matter what you have gone through—no matter what you have seen, experienced, endured, or struggled with—freedom is the advantage you already own. Life is out there. Freedom is waiting for you to take hold of it.

Thank you for being here with me. Thank you for listening, for enduring my story alongside me, for letting me be vulnerable week after week. I’ll conclude my story next week, and then we’ll move into other people’s stories—other raw, honest transformations that I can’t wait for you to hear.

I am so grateful for you. I’ll see you next week.