Titles

I was 17 when I ran away from home. I was 18 when I got pregnant. Three months later I was married and 6 months later we had a baby boy. I was married to an alcoholic, drug user who mentally and physically abused me for 11 years. Who am I? I'm the preacher's daughter.

Isn’t it funny how we all stereotype almost everyone we meet? Maybe someone doesn’t even stereotype you but you think they are just because of your “title”. I thought that growing up and I’m sure as soon as you heard what my “title” was, you thought of the same thing that has followed me throughout my life. I am the daughter of a preacher a preacher’s daughter, you know how they act; or so they say. This is my story. On October 21st 1969 there was a little girl that was born and that little girl was everything that her mother and father had wanted. See, they had 3 boys already and momma really wanted a girl. Daddy was a preacher of a small church in Northern California with a wife and 4 small children. As far as I know, they were a very happy family. When I was almost 3 I believe, we moved to Central California to a very small town where my father was a preacher of another small church. Again, I remember just a good life living here but I was still a small child. When I was almost 5 we moved about 2 hours north of this small town and again my dad pastored a small church but I don’t think it was for very long before my dad stopped preaching and we joined another church in the same town. I loved that church; I loved all of the people in it. I remember singing from a very small age and I believe that my very first special in front of a congregation was in front of this church. I have a lot of good memories here, sitting in the pew with my dad and just singing as loud as we could together. I felt like daddies girl so much during these years. I loved when my dad would bring home cherries in a bag and him and I would sit out on the side porch and eat them and spit out the seeds. When I was about 10 my dad decided to start a new church in a town that was about 15 minutes North of where we were. It was a hard move I think because I had a lot of friends on my block and in the church, but I felt that it was close enough to stay in contact. For 3 months we lived in a travel trailer on our property while we built our house. It was hectic, but when the house was finished it was an awesome house that is filled with so many memories. This town is where I feel like I basically grew up. I always felt like an awkward child but never an ugly child. I was doing great in elementary and junior high school and even into my high school years. But this was also the time that my dad and mines relationship went down hill. We didn’t have much of a relationship. I wouldn’t understand why until I was in my early twenties. I feel like I was heavily into church at that point. I loved our youth group and all of the fun things we did. I was a big part of youth rallies and other activities that the church’s youth got together to do. I loved church camp that seemed to be a time where my father and I had the best relationship. I guess it started in Junior High where I felt like everyone looked at me different because I was the preacher’s daughter. I thought that all through Junior High and High School. But no one ever said anything to me about it, no one ever teased me and no one ever made me feel like I had to act out because of it. In my head I thought they were all looking at me different, but in reality they probably weren’t even thinking about me. I guess in High School when I was 16 is when things went bad. I always had my moments and caused trouble here and there. But when I turned 16 I had met these girls from school. I had a “sweet 16” birthday party and invited them to come. It was a slumber party, so you know we were pretty much up all night. We walked to the local mini mart store which was about a mile away. That is when they taught me how to smoke my first cigarette. I don’t blame them, but I just wish I would’ve made better friend choices and decisions. But I was 16 and wanted to fit in. I would say that is when a lot of my bad behavior started. I was hanging out with these girls who hung out on “stoner” corner and I started to smoke cigarettes with them. From the cigarettes came alcohol and from the alcohol came marijuana. I was using my lunch money to buy these things and not eating. I started to ditch school, classes, coming to classes drunk or high. My parents never caught on, I don’t know if they just weren’t involved enough or if I just was good at hiding it. I know I came home a lot and just went straight to bed so they wouldn’t talk to me or smell my breath. These great friends that I had decided to run away, they planned it all out and almost had me convinced to go. I thank the Lord that I had great parents who cared and I knew that running away wouldn’t get me anywhere. I didn’t go, but they did and it was a big mess. I was questioned and everyone wanted me to tell them what happened. I didn’t know what to do. They called me a few times, they were prostituting themselves for money, food, somewhere to stay and they wouldn’t come home. I have no idea to this day where they are or if they are even alive. I know they never came home after running away. Of course I moved on and met another friend who I hung out with all of the time; we were best friends and did everything together until I met Chris. He didn’t go to our school; he was a drop out from the next town over and just “cruised” our high school all the time. That is where I met him basically and we became boyfriend and girlfriend. I was ditching school more and more until eventually I was kicked out and had to go to a home schooling course. Six weeks before I was supposed to graduate I got into a huge fight with my mom about Chris and ran away from home. I went from a loving caring family right into a family who I know loved each other but they were totally different from anything I was ever used to. I moved in with Chris and his parents. His dad was an alcoholic I believe and his mother was an enabler. She helped her kids out of every mess they made and they made a lot. I remember the first time Chris’ dad yelled at us for something stupid we did. He yelled so loud I started to cry, I had never been around someone like that. Chris was a rebel; I guess that is what drew me to him. He introduced me to drugs other than marijuana. He had received money when he turned 18 and we blew most of it up our noses. We were kids gone mad, free to do anything we wanted and we did. We were out partying, never had a curfew and never a care in the world. His mom would give us money all the time, alls Chris had to do was ask. Things were great, until his parents got tired of me living there. They thought I was lazy, which I was. His mom did everything for Chris and so I just let her do it for me too. So we came up with this bright idea with Chris’ friend to move to Reno where his friends’ sister lived in a trailer with her husband and 2 kids. We lived there for about a week before we called Chris’ parents crying to get us a bus ticket to come home. They did and when we got back I moved in with my brother and Chris went back to his parents. I only lasted about another week at my brothers before he kicked me out and I went back to live with my parents. Chris and I were still together, we were just having troubles living in the same place. A few months before this Chris had gotten on his knees and proposed marriage to me without a ring because we both felt that we wanted to always be together but knew that marriage this early was not a good idea. Well a few weeks after being home at my parent’s house I was sick on the couch, every morning. My mom thought I should go to the doctor’s to get birth control. Too late, I was already pregnant. My mom said Chris had to come over and we both had to tell my dad I was pregnant. He did, and my dad’s response was that we had to get married. Chris’ parents were totally against it but 3 months later we were married. His parents said they accepted me into the family and me being 18 thought this was going to be the greatest thing ever. Chris’ dad told me if he ever hit me or hurt me to let him know and he would take care of it. I thought that was crazy, but nice of him to say because I thought that he really cared about me. 6 months later, we had a bouncing baby boy; 9lbs. 4 ounces. I was so happy; I had felt that up to this point that Chris and I had a great relationship, I felt that he cared about me and that having this baby would just make us a great family. Wrong, the pressure became too much for him. He was a 19 year old boy who wanted to be with his friends and wanted to continue to party. I was young too, not quite 19 yet and I wanted to go with him. Several times we left the baby with my parents so that we could go out and do our thing. It was hard on both of us, we were living with my parents and Chris was working for my dad. Chris wasn’t into church and he didn’t want to change his life. One night we started to fight over something and he slapped me, I screamed for my parents and he ran out the back door. Needless to say, he wasn’t welcome back in my parent’s house. I of course forgave him because he apologized over and over and I thought that he loved me so much that it would never happen again. So for a few months we lived in separate homes, him at his parents and I at mine. He got a job working for his sister’s husband; they owned a dairy so the job included a house. Our first house, I was excited. We lived close to his sister and she had a son that was just a few weeks older than our son. But it was just like one big party, they were into drugs really bad and we got sucked up right into it. I was still trying to go to church but had to make excuses of being sick a lot so that my mother would take our son and I could sleep off the high or get high again. It was a vicious cycle. And instead of Chris keeping his promise to never hit me again, things got worse. It was mostly when he was drunk or high, but that seemed to get more frequent. This basically happened for the rest of our marriage, and his dad that told me if he ever hit me to let him know and he would take care of it….Well, the first time I went to him in the middle of the night after running through town to get away from Chris, his dad looked at me, told me I probably deserved it and slammed the door in my face. So much for that. We had another baby 2 years later, a baby girl. He came for the delivery and then left and I didn’t see him again for a few days. He was more into partying and having a good time then being with us and having a family. He worked for the first few years and then he started losing jobs frequently and we were on welfare a lot. I had my first affair when my daughter was about a year old; I knew that if I had an affair that he would leave me. He forgave me and we tried to make it work. It continued to be the same and it made it worse because he threw that in my face all the time and seem to beat me up anytime he thought about it. I learned to never tell him anything like that again. Through out the marriage I had several affairs, most of which he never knew about. I left him numerous times and always came back. I don’t know why I kept coming back and staying with him. He was into drugs really heavy towards the end of our 11 year marriage. He left me one summer towards the end, I don’t remember why this time but while he was gone I was having affairs, until one day he called me from a girl’s house. She was some young 21 year old girl that was a cheerleader in high school and supposedly really pretty. Come to find out later, she was very pretty. I had all of those affairs and thought he deserved all of it, until the table was turned and it happened to me. It was the worst feeling in the world. I couldn’t believe what I had done. I blamed everything on me. He drank, he did drugs and he abused me but I still felt it was my entire fault for not being a good wife. I begged him to come home, I told him I would change, I would do anything for him. I was working full time and I told him that whatever it took I would do it. He did move back home and for over a month I went through things that make me look back and wonder why I went through it and wonder how I survived it. One day I was in the shower and snuck out to hear him on the phone with her telling her that he loved her and missed her and he wanted to come back to her. I cried and cried but he just told me how much he loved her. He went back to her, but he kept calling me at the same time. He wanted his cake and to eat it too. I kept begging him to come home and eventually again he came home. I thought if I would drink with him and hang out at the bars with him that he would love me more. The girlfriend was into drugs just like he was, but I wouldn’t do drugs anymore I had had enough of that. One day while the kids were at church with my parents he was getting drunk as usual and called the girl right in front of me, told me that the only way he could get over her was to go to see her and tell her face to face that it was over. He said that when he left her he just left and really never got to say goodbye. He asked if we could meet her in Sacramento which was about half way between where we both lived. He said he wanted me to come to be his support and so that I would know that he was coming back with me. I agreed. We had to sell some things to even have money to go down there. I wrote my mom a note while they were in church telling her I would be back to get the kids the next day and that we were going to Sacramento to see this girl. Chris’ friend brought her up to Sacramento and we drove down to Sacramento and we met at a Restaurant. When we got there Chris went inside and told me to stay outside so he could talk to her alone. I didn’t want to but he made me. He sent his friend out to make sure I stayed out in this parking lot. We sat there for about 30 minutes until Chris and this girl came out and walked to our truck. I wanted to go kill her, but Chris told his friend to hold me back. He said they were going for a drive because it was too noisy in the restaurant. They both got in the truck and drove away, with my purse in the truck. The only thing I had was my cell phone. His friend and I went into the restaurant and sat there waiting for Chris and this girl to come back. An hour passed, 2 hours passed and Chris’ friend had to go home he had to be at work the next morning. He asked if I wanted him to take me with him so I wouldn’t be stuck there but I was convinced that Chris wouldn’t leave me there and said I would wait. He gave me $20 and left me. A few hours later when I was still there and Chris wasn’t I started to call my family and friends to see if anyone would come get me. First I called my parents and my mom told me that I got myself into it and she wasn’t going to come rescue me. I called my brothers and they all told me they couldn’t. I called friends and no one was able to come get me. Finally I called Chris’ parents to see if they would come get me and they weren’t home. I called his sister and told her what was going on and she finally gave me some hope. She heard Chris outside, she had lived by his best friend and Chris and this girl had come by his house to say hi. The way Chris said Hi was very loud so his sister heard him while I was on the phone. She told me to call back in about 20 minutes and she would go tell him to come get me. When I called back in 20 minutes she said that he didn’t believe her, he thought his friend would take me home and didn’t believe that his friend just left me there. She said that she couldn’t convince him and that he was being a real jerk. She told me to call this girls house because that is where they were headed. I called there and told him to come get me and he said no and hung up on me. I called back again begging him to come and get me that his friend had left me and that I only had $20 to my name and my cell phone was dying. He said to call my family, and when I told him I already did and they wouldn’t come get me he said too bad and hung up on me again. I called him one last time and finally convinced him to come get me and he said he would but he was bringing the girl and that he was just coming to get me and take me home and then leave again with her. I said fine, at that point I didn’t care. I had been sitting in an all night restaurant lying on the seat crying for hours. The people at the restaurant didn’t know what to do to help me. It was so humiliating. Finally about 6 a.m. he came to get me, his girlfriend wasn’t with him. I was so beat down I didn’t even care, I just got in the truck and laid down and cried til I fell asleep. It took a few more weeks before he finally stopped calling her and going down there to see her. I begged him to stay and promised I would do anything for him, including giving him money to buy drugs and go get drunk. For the next year I did give him everything he wanted from money to going to the bars with him to taking the blame for anything that came our way. I lied to the cops for him several times. Almost one year to the day he went to his parents for Thanksgiving and I stayed with my family. I didn’t hear from him for a week. When he showed up back home he packed his bags and moved in with another girl. That was the last straw, I did everything I thought I could possibly do and he still left me, I just knew there was nothing more I could do. In the 11 years that we were married he beat me down physically and mentally to the point that it was really hard to pick myself back up. In 11 years of marriage I was pushed, shoved, slapped, punched, thrown into a glass table, thrown into a shower, shoved up against the wall, held on the ground and tormented, chocked, pushed into a car, jumped out of a moving vehicle, threatened, spat upon, pee’d on, called every name in the book, lied to, had cops at my door and in my home numerous times, cheated on, left, abandoned 2 ½ hours from my home with nothing, slept in the back of a truck, begged for food, had to be on welfare, thought about dying, thought about killing, hurt my kids, hurt my family, lost friends, felt psychotic, became an adulterer, lost my way with the Lord, lost self esteem and self worth, felt fat at 115 lbs, lived in home after home, had to have my parents pay bills, had phones, electricity, water shut off and truck repossessed. I hitch hiked, got into fist fights with people I didn’t know at bars and social events, listened to my husband on the phone telling another woman how much he loved her and missed her, gave my husband money for drugs and alcohol so he wouldn’t leave me, been stranded at home because he would take parts out of my car so I couldn’t leave, be forced to have sex so I could go to the grocery store. I’m sure I could go on and on but out of 11 years of marriage and all of these rotten things that happened to me, the thing that hurts the most is that in all of this I hurt my children by allowing them to see it and go through it. I look in their eyes today and when we talk about the past the hurt in their eyes kills me. I have the hardest time dealing with what I did to them. Why did I do this for 11 years? Even though he was out of my life at that point I had been kicked out of the church. The kids were still going but I wasn’t. I spun out of control. I was partying, drinking, smoking and everything I was so against when I was married to Chris. I got addicted to chat on the internet and between work and going out on the weekends I was chatting in chat rooms. I had no time for my family or my kids. Thank God my parents picked up where I was lacking for my kids. I was a horrible mother and daughter, very self centered and on a path of self destruction. A part of me felt like if I slowed down I would think of Chris and go back to him, and that is the last thing I wanted. I had done that for too many years and I was tired of how he treated us. I knew in my heart that a man that would go to church with me and love my kids as much as I loved them would be the only thing that would make me happy. I thought that was just a fairy tale dream that would never come true. I was picking all the wrong men and some of them were becoming stalkers. I would have to hide with my children in my room and not answer my phone because these men wouldn’t leave me alone. It was a scary time. Eventually I stopped going out much and just stayed home and online. I would never suggest to anyone to ever chat online and meet online men. I, by the grace of God, was the luckiest woman alive when I met my husband now online. He was having his own problems and just happened to be online one New Years day when I ran into him. We talked very briefly but sparked enough interest to continue to talk for another 5 months before he finally decided to come meet me. He drove from Southern California to Northern California and we hit it off right away. I was in a desperate situation at the time, I didn’t know where I was going. I was tired of all the men with all of the broken promises. I knew that moving to Southern California would be a big step, taking my kids away from my parents and their home. I knew that I would have to find a job and support myself and just date this man to see how it went. I knew that a long distance relationship wouldn’t work. I got a job transfer within a month and found a nice little house and moved there the following month after meeting him. Sound crazy?? I know it was, it was just the drastic measure I needed to take to come out of the tail spin I was in. God knew exactly what he was doing. I’m not going to say that it was an easy ride, it was very hard. But my husbands now, boyfriend then, was and is the most loving and understanding, caring and fun loving man that God could have ever put me with. I thank my parents for “making” me go to church when I was a kid. I thank my parents for instilling the morals and values that they gave me growing up. I thank my parents for always being a constant in my life and my kids’ life. When the bible says “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” I thank God for my parents following Gods word. I understand and realize today how important it is to raise your family in the church. God promises to never give you anything you can’t handle. I feel the Lord gave me a lot, but I know that I am a stronger and better person now with the Lord than I was without. I know we all make mistakes and I know that sometimes it feels like we will never make it out. I am living proof what God can do for you. There are so many more things that I could say about me and my life, what I have been through. There are so many blessings that God has given to me since I have come back to the church. I have been through a lot, and I’m sure there are a lot of women out there who’ve been through as much or more than I have. There is help, there is a way out and there are people who love you if when you don’t think there are. It’s hard for family and friends to stand by and watch their loved one when someone is hurting them. If you are standing back and not letting them help you then you can’t feel like they are not there for you. When I finally let go of my husband and decided to get a divorce my family put up a HUGE wall around me to protect me and have been there ever since. But God is my biggest protector, he helps me every day through prayer and his love to show me that his way is the best way and his way is where I am happy. Today I live in a nice home with a loving, caring man who takes care of me and my 2 children. He also has a child so there is a total of 5 of us in our family. We have 3 dogs, 1 cat, 3 horses, 1 snake and 1 turtle. We go to church at least 3 times a week and we are active in our youth group. My husband and I have great communication and my husband is the head of the house and I try to be the best submissive wife I can be. God’s plan is truly what can make you happy and I know because when I was 18 I married a man that was not in God’s church and never wanted to be. It wasn’t until I was 34 that I got back into church and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I hope my story helps someone and I hope that if you have any questions you’ll write to me or to the pastor of this church (which is the greatest pastor in the world!!! Trust me, I know because he’s MY dad). God bless you and God bless your life. Never let someone put a title on you that doesn’t fit.

I wrote this almost 5 years ago and although everything in it is true....my life didn't stop after that story....my life goes on, and nothing is as perfect as it seems. I still struggle with most of these things and it is a daily battle to work on being a better person and a better Christian. God has truly blessed me and I'm thankful to be where I am today.