Jaime and I became connected by a mutual friend. We share a past experience of being victims of domestic violence, but today we are THRIVERS. Here is Jaime’s story:
October 12, 1998 was supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life, the day that I delivered my second son. My best friend brought me the most beautiful flower arrangement and sat on the end of my hospital bed holding my newborn in her arms, but was also secretly carrying my husband’s child in her womb.
That is when my world changed and so did my husband. We were only 19 when we got married and the first 5 years of our marriage was full of love. We built a successful business and a family. Being a stay-at-home mom and doing the books for our business was all I knew so when I found out about my husband’s affair, fear of not being able to make it on my own kept me in the marriage for another 4 years. During those years, my husband projected his guilt onto me. I believe he feared that I was going to hurt him in the same manner, so he did everything to prevent that from happening. My husband checked tire tracks in the driveway, footprints leading up to the house, he tapped my phones, made it so my car would not start when he was not home. I was allowed out once a week to go grocery shopping and have coffee at Big Boy, but I had to have my sister-in-law with me. I lost all my friends and never got to see my family. I was trapped!
After years of being emotionally abused and secluded, I finally did it: I left! I took my children and their belongings and that was it. I left behind all that we worked so hard for… our home, business, cars, etc. Unaware, I also left behind my self-worth, dignity, self-esteem, and boundaries. I felt very alone and scared, so it was without effort that I “fell in love” with the first man that came into my life and showed some kindness.
This man seemed to have it all. He was building a home at the time, had a great job, was close to his family, and he wanted to share it all with my children and me. We were only dating a month when he surprised me by building an extra room for my boys in his home. The gesture made me feel truly loved and gave me a sense of security. This man loved me and my children and was going to take care of us. I did not realize how short-lived this would be.
Before I fully got a chance to get settled in, this man’s inner rage started to show. Alcohol seemed to release his inner demons and became a lifeline for me. I was never much of a drinker, but I became one fairly quickly. At first it was to “fit in” and then it became a form of survival. Shortly after we settled into this man’s home, he quit his job. While he stayed home drinking and playing video games, I went to work and took care of not only my kids but his son as well.
This man had a gift of instilling fear into my children and me. We learned very quickly to walk on eggshells and to go out of our way to make his life easy so we wouldn’t awaken his dark side. Our efforts failed mostly but thankfully he took it out on me only. I may have been the one to take the beatings but unbeknownst to me, my children were hurting just as bad. They knew far more then I ever thought. Closed doors and walls can only filter so much.
I did not know how to save myself, so I tried to save him. I paid all the bills, pampered him with gifts, kept his home spotless, and even paid for him to attend anger management. I was just trying to be good enough for him to love me. I took his lack of love very personally. If I could just do more, be more, he would be the man I thought he could be.
After many trips to the doctors with broken fingers, sprained wrist, etc., it all came to a crashing end. This night I was drunk enough that I fought back. Because I refused to allow him to lay his 6’4”, heavy body that wreaked of alcohol on me and force me to have sex unwillingly…AGAIN, he retaliated by yanking me out of bed and throwing me around like a rag doll. He pushed me down and pulled me back up so many times that he tore all my lung tissues and muscles from my neck down to my stomach. I literally could not move. See, I could not save myself, but my family did. My best friend called the police and my brother was on his way to come get me. Of course, I was too fearful to press charges and begged my brother to back off. He gave me one week to move out or he was going to do it for me.
So again, I moved out and had to start over. This time I not only moved out with just my children and their belongings, I also moved out with an addiction to alcohol, broken ribs, and pneumonia from the weakened lung tissues. This was the ending of being abused by this man but the start of me abusing myself.
The years that followed were a whirlwind of black outs, toxic relationships, losing my job and my home, bad choices, going bankrupt, and landing myself in jail because I finally got caught drunk driving. I thank God everyday and am so grateful for my DUI because that was when I realized my true abuser was not my ex-husband or that physically abusive, alcoholic man…my worst abuser was ME! I could not escape this abuser unless I was dead and thankfully, a small piece of me was not ready for that.
Being a child of an alcoholic and taking care of my drunk father was all I knew and that’s what I subconsciously looked for. Someone that I could take care of, someone that needed me! It was time to break the cycle and the only one that could do that was me. Checking myself into a rehab was the start of my transformation from living as a victim (living at the effect of life) to living as a Ninja (embracing life and taking control of it).
I did not want to just SURIVE through life, I wanted to THRIVE through it!
After getting stable in my sobriety, I went back to school to become a Certified Professional Coach (aka. Life Coach). It was my coach training that showed me how to dig deep, peel back the layers of my being, and get to the core of who I was. I had to do this myself so I would know how to guide my future clients through this life-changing process.
So many people give us advice and tell us things like “just get over it”, “let go and move on”, “put yourself first” but… HOW??? The HOW TO is what I learned in school. It was tools like knowing what a comfort zone was and how to live outside of my comfort zone so I could grow as a person. It was knowing how to control my inner blockers by toning down that voice in my head that tells me that I’m not good enough, pretty enough, smart enough. It was learning about accountability and how to “Own My Own Sh*t”. It is accountability that showed me how to stop giving my power away. See, as I was blaming my childhood, life, alcohol, and other people… I was giving them all my power. I could not control my outcome if I blamed others because if they didn’t change, neither would my results. I learned to find my part in everything even if it was just the way I perceived a certain situation. This is how I started to shift my mindset therefore I broke the cycle of victim thinking. I wanted to live life as a Ninja, so I had to think like one!
It has been almost 6 years that I changed my route on my journey by admitting I was an alcoholic and got help. That opened so many new pathways for me. Desired and undesired life events will always happen, but I now know, it’s how I react to them is where my power is. It’s ironic that my fears of making a mistake, not being good enough, or admitting I was wrong, is what ultimately gave me all those undesired life events (toxic relationships, alcoholism, etc.). Trying to be “perfect” was a battle that I brought on myself. Now that I look at mistakes as an opportunity to learn and grow and owning my mistakes, I can now proudly say that I am perfectly imperfect and I’m perfectly ok with that. What an empowering concept!
In a four-month period, I lost my father, step-father, my only sister, and my 15-year-old daughter spoke out about being molested and raped by her step-brother since she was 8 years old. Now, I had a choice… I could live like a victim and let these devastating life events control me or I could be a Ninja and take charge of what I could control.
My reaction was the only thing I could control. I decided to be grateful and not hateful. I was grateful that I was in a good space in my own life and could offer my daughter the love and support she needed to start healing. I could be a positive role model and show her what self-love and self-worth looked like (something I could not do in the past). I used my energy purposefully and only on things that were within my control. I did not allow hate or resentment suck all my energy.
My daughter and I started our own seminar called The Hope & Jaime Show. We share our stories and the tools we used to not just SURVIVE physical/sexual abuse, addiction, self-harm, etc., but THRIVE through it. We use our stories to help others and not as an excuse to be anything less then what we deserve!
One of the most powerful things you can do for yourself is to give yourself permission to not be OK sometimes. It’s ok to feel however you are feeling! It’s ok to check out for a bit to recharge! It’s ok to take a day off from adulting! The key is to not unpack your bags and live there. The more we fight feeling these things, the more energy we drain from ourselves and it’s harder to bounce back.
If you are yearning for a better life, then simply start by realizing that only YOU can make that happen. The power is within you! Stop waiting for the perfect moment; it will never come. Stop letting fear get in your way. You will never overcome fear completely so just do it scared out of your mind. Remember that what you tell yourself is what becomes your truth. If you tell yourself that you are going to have a bad day, you will look for evidence all day to prove that to be true. If you tell yourself you will never get that promotion, you will stop trying, you may blame your manager, etc., but the end result will be what you told yourself. With that being said, if you want a better life, start finding the evidence to support your new truth! Are you a victim or are you a freaking ninja? Get busy living!
You can learn more about Jaime and her mission as well as reach her at reallifecoaching @ yahoo.com and visit her website Real Life Coaching.
