When I was a teen and thought I had the world by the tail, I had no idea which road my life would take until I ended up in the middle of crisis.

Being an adopted, only child, I was spoiled for sure, and had the most wonderful Christian parents in the world. It never bothered me much being adopted as a child, but as I got older and had questions, my self esteem took a huge hit. Not knowing why I was given away or what the situation was, hurt me deeply although I ignored it most of the time. And kids were cruel when they knew something. I did find out who my real mother was after years of looking and investigating by myself, and then she died before I met her. My parents, who adopted me, were the right family, and they were from the right part of town and gave me everything, especially love and the feeling of family. They taught me what eventually would come full circle for me — all of that means nothing in the world of domestic violence.

I thought I could do and have anything I wanted. I was smart and a go-getter. My self-esteem issues were within, and I did not even realize the issues until I was a victim and how I got to that place. For many years, I thought the only thing that mattered was having a man to love you. I saw how much my father adored my mother, and he was the most compassionate and generous human being. He truly took care of our family. I guess I thought all men were like that. Live and Learn!

I had money and clothes and new cars and everything I wanted growing up. Adulthood was not good for me. I chose bad men, and got hurt so many times. I lost count of the broken bones. It took the pain of the last compound fractures, which occurred after being run over with his suburban, to finally realize how dangerous my life was and that it had to stop. I had come a long way from the little princess my folks let me be.

Something snapped besides bones that day, and as I drove myself to the hospital to have my legs repaired, I promised God that I would make my life what it was intended to be. As I healed over the months following, I got stronger and stronger, and my emotional health was making leaps and bounds in recovering my real self. I was horrified to see where I had let the need for a man leave me.

My credit was absolutely ruined. I was laughed at and practically run out of the stores when applying for credit to get back on my feet. I made my mind up that I had to find a bank to believe in me and started my journey to that end. I found a smaller town bank and talked to the woman VP who listened to my story of saving my life, by running away and living in a lawn chair outside. I had no conveniences in the country on a vacant piece of land and was scared to death. After eight months and 72 pounds lighter, my life started the road to living again. The banker said, “I will give you a chance if you can prove to me you are working on cleaning up your credit and your situation.” It took me a year to challenge credit-report issues and eliminate some of those that were used by my ex-spouse and his girlfriends to have a good time. A year later, I called the banker up and said, “Look and see what I have done with my credit.” In amazement, I had removed several damaging items. I had paid a company to do this, and they just took my money and did nothing. But I stuck with it and did it myself. I had done enough to satisfy her belief in my convictions, and she loaned me money for a truck. God Bless her. My life started to turn around. I put an ad in a local paper and asked someone to finance a travel trailer for me so I could have my own roof over my head. I would make payments, and they could give me the title when it was paid for. Nothing happened, and I had given up when a man responded to the ad. He said he and his wife never had time to use theirs, to come look at it, and we would talk. I still have that trailer, still make the payments, and now rent to those struggling to get back on their feet like I was.