I was born on a Canadian military base in Lahr, Germany.
I was only 13 months old when I had epiglottitis, which resulted in full cardiac and respiratory arrest and I was pronounced dead for 5 minutes. I was able to talk and walk a little bit before this all happened and afterwards I had to relearn how to crawl. I had to go to physiotherapy once I started school because I didn't have any motor coordination skills - I couldn't even hold a pencil properly.
We moved from Lahr back to Canada when I was 3. We moved to Nova Scotia because out of the postings my father was offered the one in Nova Scotia was closest to a children's hospital should another attack come up. We lived in Nova Scotia for 2 years before moving to Ontario. I started kindergarten and we stayed until I graduated the 4th grade before packing up and moving again, this time to New Brunswick for another 5 years.
New Brunswick was where the first rape occurred. I was 11 and he was a youth group leader at the local church. I had been going for about 6 months before anything happened, and nobody ever felt that anything was off. My father had met him and thought that he was decent, and he was like a big brother to all of us there. One night he asked me to stay behind and help him clean up after youth group, and not having any reason to think anything was amiss I agreed. I was raped at gun point in one of the back pews of the church and was told that if I ever told anyone not only would he kill me, he would kill my family. I still have issues attending weddings and funerals at churches..once I'm past the few back pews I'm fine..but walking into and out of the church is a task in and of itself. My mother and I have sort of talked about that time period and all she can say is that she knew something had happened, something had changed her baby girl - she just didn't know WHAT. I became extremely violent towards my mother during these years - I got so mad that I once stopped on her foot and almost broke her toe. I wasn't even 13 yet. I had stopped caring about my physical appearance - I wouldn't bathe for days, I stopped taking care of my teeth. He always told me that he loved my smile and that it was what made me so beautiful...if that's what guys who think you are beautiful do to you then I'll happily be ugly the rest of my life I thought.
When I was 14 we moved back to Ontario, where I've pretty much stayed. When I was 18, on New Year's Eve 1998, my parents told me that they were getting a separation and that I needed to decide which parents I wanted to live with. I struggled with the decision so much that finally my father told me that I was going to live with my mother. Not even 2 weeks later my mother and I were boarding a plane that was Alberta bound. We lived in a town that had ONE stop light, TWO stop signs, TWO cabs and THREE cops - I was not having any of it. I called my father and told him I was coming back to Ontario whether he liked it or not. Of course my mother called him back and informed him that there was no way she was letting me fly alone and that she was coming back as well. We moved back in with my father for a few months and it was so hard. My parents were getting along better than they were before they announced their plan to separate! They weren't fighting, there was no heaviness in the air...it was really, really confusing for me. It got to a point where I wanted nothing more for them to blow up at each other because at least then I could understand why they needed to be apart.
A few months later my mother and I rented the main floor of a bungalow from my mother's co-worker who lived in the basement. We moved into the house in May, and in August I decided that I was going to move to Ottawa and start my life there in the big city. I worked for a short period of time for an ISP company but the home sickness was too much. I was too worried about my mother being alone and I decided to go home for a week long visit at the end of September.
I was back only 2 nights when I was raped again. I made some pretty stupid decisions that night, and I am so lucky that it didn't cost me my life. I decided to meet up with a complete stranger whom I had been chatting with for 5 minutes on the internet. It was 4 am, and I thought that it would make a great journal entry - I was blogging at this point, but this was before blogs even had a name. I met him at the school that was at the end of my street, and we proceeded to smoke a joint and do some shots of Southern Comfort. We walked to this huge open field and sat down and started smoking and talking. He told me I was beautiful and leaned in to kiss me. I had horrible self-esteem and it didn't matter that I wasn't attracted to him - he thought I was beautiful enough to kiss! The second he tried to go past kissing I started squirming and repeatedly saying "No." He pinned me down and pulled my pants and underwear down to my knees. I was crying at this point begging him not to do anything - I wasn't into him that way. "But I really, really, really like you.." he said. I said "No." "Stop." and even a few expletives over and over and over. I never screamed though. I was too afraid of waking the people who lived around there. I still don't know where this logic came from, and it's probably the one of the hardest things to try and come to terms with - that for that couple of moments in time, people's sleep became more important to me than my own safety.
I reported him to the cops, only to be told a few months later that they would not be pressing charges because there wasn't enough solid evidence. They had performed a rape kit, but because he admitted to having intercourse with me, it was my word against his since he was saying it was "sex" and I said it was "rape".
This did nothing for my self-esteem but bring it down even lower. I got involved in my first "real" relationship about 6 months later. He and I are still friends, and looking back on it, I really wonder how he was able to forgive me. I hated myself so much. I was cutting, I wasn't eating, I stopped taking care of myself again...I became verbally abusive and extremely manipulative - I knew he hated when I cried so I would cry each and every time he wanted to do something without me. The guilt-trips I would lay...it makes me feel so...bleh! We dated on and off for two years before finally breaking it off for good. We still slept together though. Yeah. Self-esteem issues again! Finally, one morning I woke up and decided that I had enough of the "friends with benefits" and started telling myself that if I was good enough to sleep with then I was good enough to date.
Two years later I got into my second serious relationship. The first 4 months were fabulous. Then he finally admitted he was a drug addict. Then we moved in together and I paid for everything - including his drugs. Then we both became abusive towards each other - mentally, emotionally and on one occasion - physically. We broke up for a week, we got back together and four months later I broke up with him over the phone because it had gotten to the point where I was afraid to say it to his face without it turning into a physical argument. The next day I had my lock changed, and I haven't been in a serious relationship since. That was almost 3 years ago.
The first two years were the hardest. I'm a homebody, and I would much prefer to spend a night in with a few friends than a night out at a bar. I had been so wrapped up in my own stuff that I let my friends fall by the wayside and wouldn't you know it - I was totally alone aside from my family. I started to really take some time and figure out who I was and what I was really all about.
My father remarried in October of 2005 and it took me up until last spring to really come to terms with that. I went from being raised as an only child and having a half-sister that I saw once every 10 years or so, to having this freaking GIGANTIC family who loves nothing more than spending time with each other. It's been an adjustment for all of us - I now have a step-brother who is a few years older and a step-sister who is a month and 3 days older than me. I also have some two nieces and a nephew, numerous new aunts and uncles and cousins..and that's just thanks to my father's second wife. My mother's side of the family has always been huge since she's the oldest of 7 children. My half-sister had her son two weeks after my step-brothers son was born.
In 2006 I had three huge goals. My half sister was getting married in July, I wanted to buy a car and I desperately needed dental work. The years of neglect from not wanting to be "beautiful" had finally caught up to me and like everyone on my mother's side of the family, I had to be fitted for dentures before the age of 30. I had 27 teeth removed in one day, and was fitted for a complete upper denture and partial lower denture. By August, all three of my goals had been realized! I had a new car, a beautiful smile, and I was able to fly out to my sister's wedding and see my mother's side of the family for the first time in 13 years.
In May of 2007, I saw the documentary, Searching For Angela Shelton, and my life was changed forever. I was no longer alone with these thoughts and emotions. It really opened up the doors of communication between my father, step-mother and I about me being raped. My father no longer gets up and leaves the room when I bring up what happened. He's not like..super talkative but he listens and offers advice when it's called for. It was a HUGE wake-up call in that I could so relate to all of the Angela Shelton's and what they had been through and what they had done to themselves. I really began paying attention to my self-talk and my thoughts, and I started noticing some huge changes. I suddenly had friends again! I had a social life! I was spending time with my family and ENJOYING the time I spent with them. The first big clue that it was working was when I was sitting and chatting with my step-mother and I told her that in the beginning I struggled with my step-sister because we were both kind of thrown into this family, and since we had both been the "babies" of our families we struggled to find our place. What do I hear come out of my mouth next? "I realized the other day that it doesn't matter where we fit. The point is - we fit. We are all exactly where we need to be, doing exactly what we need to do."
We are all exactly where we need to be, doing exactly what we need to do regardless of where we've come from and what we've been through..it has all happened for a reason.
