I Won A Contest

 From the writing contest I entered for Mother's Day: 

Hi. 

My name is Suzanne and although I am many things, warrior is certainly at the top of that list. 

I was a fairytale lover --- boy-obsessed from 1^st grade until I graduated from high school. Fairytales taught me that I needed a man to take care of me and I believed from a young age that if I was loved by a man, I would have infinite worth.

I was married at the age of 19. And as we all do, I planned to spend the rest of my life building a future with my husband. I didn't expect it to be perfect but I expected it to always be our mess --- not his mess and my mess.

The thing is, my husband truly did love me. That part was not a lie. He was great at loving me when he wanted to. But he loved me conditionally. He loved me for certain parts of who I was and began to tear down the parts of me he didn’t like. I became a pawn in our marriage and learned that I was not the most important thing to him. But why? I couldn’t figure out what was more important.  I just knew things had shifted. He hardly ever wanted to be intimate with me and would stay up all night playing video games, claiming he had insomnia. I got used to marriage feeling mostly one-sided and found myself justifying the way he was treating me --- because at least he wasn’t physically abusing me. But I still wondered if the shift in our marriage was my fault.

I had given this man two beautiful children --- was it my body? Was I not sexy enough anymore?

For a girl who claimed to be strong and independent, I am surprised when I look back and realize how much I lost myself in my marriage. Then again, for a girl who claimed to be strong and independent, I had held the belief that my worth was dependent on a man for as long as I can remember.

Five years into my marriage, I was arguing with my husband one day when he told me he no longer believed in God and would not be attending church with us any longer. This shook me but I held my ground and poured myself into being a better wife and mother. I could fix this. I could mend this part of our world that felt bruised and broken. I felt our marriage falling apart but I wasn’t going to let it. I needed him and I felt he needed me too.

I found myself drowning while trying to save him. Often times, he came home from work angry and unresponsive and he would lock himself in our room or go outside to clean his guns or work on the car he was fixing up. The emotional abuse was weighing me down and I started to have panic attacks about seemingly normal things like what brand of food to buy. My husband would point my anxiety out and remind me how unstable I was and how I needed to continue therapy because I was causing hardships in our marriage. 

I thought it was me. I thought I was the reason things were falling apart. And so I tried to fix myself and allow him space by taking care of the kids with essentially no help. I didn't want to bother him. I didn't want to make things worse. I was sensitive to the fact that I was diagnosed with "mental health issues" and that it was ruining my marriage. 

And in the midst of me trying so hard to fix us, he abandoned our family in August of 2013, after seven years of marriage. Our children were only 5 and 4 years old and did not understand what was happening, so on top of being abandoned by my husband, I was left to tell my kids about the divorce by myself and deal with their heartache. And in turn, they knew I was their safe space and so they directed all of their anger toward me for months while begging me to bring their daddy back home. 

Throughout the 6 month process of separation and divorce, I found out that my husband was not the man he had claimed to be. I started to realize that I was not the only one struggling. He was addicted to pornography, among other things. I tried so hard to stay afloat throughout this time but I began to drown in the form of an eating disorder and severe anxiety. 

I felt so worthless. So used. So unloved. 

The trauma I experienced while learning about that betrayal is something I'm still healing from.

But I don't point that out to tell you how awful he is. Because the thing is, my ex-husband is not a monster. We don’t always get along and he certainly makes some poor choices when it comes to his treatment of myself and our children but he isn’t a monster. He is an addict that struggles with knowing how to treat the people he loves most. He pushes us away in fear of us rejecting him. Does that lessen my pain? No. But it helps me to understand that I was not the problem. I could not have been prettier, smarter, or more subservient. This battle wasn’t mine to win or lose. It was, and is, his battle to fight and he chose to fight it without me by his side.

I’ve endured a lot since my divorce 4 ½ years ago. I figured that the longer we were divorced, the easier things would get. And I guess, in some ways, that is true. But I still find that divorce affects myself and our children on a daily basis. I have endured some pretty awful fights, DCS reports, a difficult court trial, among the daily struggles that come when trying to co-parent with a person who has a hard time with communication. I struggle to help my children as they both deal with the trauma this has caused in their lives, resulting in general anxiety and separation anxiety. 

I was forced to find myself when my husband abandoned me. That event, although extremely traumatic for me, has shaped me into a person that I very much like. I did not curl up in a corner and die --- I fought for myself and my children. I graduated from Arizona State University with a bachelor’s degree last summer. I am working two jobs to provide for my children. I got certified as a foster parent and was the mother of a sweet and sassy toddler for five months last year and last week, I was asked to take in a two-day-old baby boy and have been killin’ it in the motherhood department. My children are healthy and loved.

I still struggle with loneliness, especially when my kids go to their dad’s house but I know that my worth is not dependent on others. I will still live a beautiful life, even if I never remarry. I will continue to persevere when life slaps me in the face because I know for a fact that I can do hard things.

As the 5th anniversary of that traumatic August day creeps up on me, I wanted to share this letter I wrote a few months ago. I ended up winning that contest and was gifted a beautiful piece of jewelry that I wear often to remind myself how brave I am.

It's amazing to me how telling my story is healing, each and every time. This definitely doesn't contain it all and there are parts that will always be too personal but I am grateful that I can look back and remember the bad parts AND the good parts.

You guys, there was so much good. For years, the bad seemed to negate the good but I'm learning to validate those good times too.

They were real. They are real. 

It is still a rollercoaster. I think it always will be. But this is the hand I was dealt. This is a huge part of my journey. And telling my story is not to relive the past and open old wounds---it is a reminder of where I've been and where I am now.

I am grateful for the pain that has dissipated as the years have passed. 

And I am so incredibly grateful for the life I am currently living.

Me Too

You can tell her eyes are blue, even in a black and white picture.

But can you see her kindness? Her intelligence? Her compassion for others?

No. Because those are not things you can tell just by staring at her face. Those are things that come from within her soul.

She is my world and I plan on teaching her all of the beauty and heartache she may experience, being born a female in this world.

I worry about her because she will not grow up in the same world I did.

She will grow up in a world more perverted with sex and pornography being normalized.

And so I will start younger than my mother had to with me. I will make sure she knows that her worth is not based upon a number on a scale or a bra size or the shape of her face or the color of her eyes.

Because what I want more than anything is for her experiences to be different than mine, better than mine. I want her to have the self-esteem to say no and the knowledge to keep herself safe.

But it's sad that I even have to teach her these things. It's sad that we have to worry about safety and that we have to teach self-worth over and over again and hope it sticks.

***
Me too.
***

These are words you've most likely seen.

They've been on your Facebook news feed or you've seen them in articles recently.

After reading why my friends were posting this as their status, I knew I needed to join their voices.

I posted the status that I did for so many reasons. 

In high school, I had pretty low self-esteem. Attention from boys was my number one concern. And because of this, for the first three years of high school, I didn't say no when I felt uncomfortable. Luckily for me, the situations this placed me in were not as bad as they could've been but that doesn't mean they were non-existent.

And as a senior in high school, as my self-esteem started to rise a little, I said no for the first time that I can distinctly remember.  

I was sitting alone in a basement with a guy who I thought was my close friend. After a few minutes of talking, he leaned in and tried to kiss me but I pulled away and laughed a little. And then he tried it again {because that's apparently normal?!} and I verbally said, "No." but in a really kind voice. AND WHEN HE TRIED A THIRD TIME, I got pretty angry and fiery and I shoved him away and yelled, "No!" in his face, before running upstairs to be with the rest of our friends.

This rocked me for a while because I didn't understand why my polite "no" had been ignored. I didn't understand why it took me yelling at him and physically moving him for him to stop trying.

He was my friend. And I had trusted him before that moment.

And he betrayed that trust.

As an adult, I am so proud of 18-year-old Suzanne for shoving him away. I hope he learned as much from that experience as I did.

Sadly, what I learned is that I'm not always heard. I learned that sometimes the giggly "no" registers to the other person as "Not unless you work a little harder for it".

I didn't want him to work harder. I wanted him to stop. And he misread that---except it shouldn't have been misread. 

Because I used the word NO.

This was not the first time and it wouldn't be the last. But it was the most significant one in my memory.

Aside from this experience, I can remember a time in my life when I used to walk the 2-3 miles it took to get to work because I wanted to save money and get some exercise for my upcoming wedding. I remember how often a car would drive by and men would whistle in my direction or try to talk to me and I would ignore them.

I stopped walking because of how uncomfortable it made me.

They were never men my age. Always, always older. And I hated it so much that older men would find that appropriate or funny.

Because it wasn't.

So the "me too" campaign is personal. And I think it's something the majority of us can relate to.

We all want to be seen for more than what is on the outside.

I guess my hope is that we change.
My hope is that we continue to take a stand and say, "That's not right!" when we are put in positions that are uncomfortable and inappropriate.

Because I want better for the world my children are growing up in.

The Togetherness Project

I've been feeling all sorts of emotions throughout the past few days. 

The truth is that most of these emotions have been extremely high. I have been so happy. 

But it's almost like my body was saying, "No! You can't be happy this week! This is the anniversary of the day your world fell apart." And I'd have to try and fight it off. 

Because the truth is that this anniversary IS hard and important and a big deal to me. I had my life planned out and part of that plan was being married and staying home with my babies and making more babies. That plan did not involve divorce. 

But I guess the reality is that most people don't "plan" to get divorced when they get married. 

And I guess the reality is that addiction can overturn a lot of your plans. 

The other day, a friend posted a Fight The New Drug article on Facebook. {Is it weird that it makes me smile when I see these articles being posted/shared?} If you're not aware of what FTND is or more specifically what "the new drug" is, this company brings awareness to the harmful effects of pornography. 

And maybe you know this about me or maybe you don't but I am a huge believer in what FTND promotes. 

Because not only have I studied the harmful effects of pornography for college courses. 

Not only have I met many people who struggle with pornography addiction. 

Not only have I come to know some pretty brave women who have had a great deal of marital strife directly related to pornography addiction. 

I have witnessed these harmful effects firsthand as a wife. 

And as I was a newly divorced woman, struggling to see any worth within myself, a friend pointed me in the direction of The Togetherness Project. 

And shortly after, I attended my first TTP conference. 

Since then, a lot has changed. 

When I first went through my divorce, I leaned a lot on the women in my TTP support group to help me understand the situations and feelings I was living through. 

I am so grateful for that time in my life. 

But I spent less and less time with my family and the friends who weren't a part of Togetherness. I didn't think they'd want to hear it and I doubted they'd even understand. 

I almost lost some of my dearest friends during this time. 

And since then, over the past two years, I've rearranged my boundaries of what these support groups look like in my life versus how much I rely on my friends and family. 

Because the truth is that they don't need to fully understand me to be there for me. 

And I had to learn that on my own through my experiences these past few years. 

(And boy was I lucky that they stuck around for me to figure that out!)

I no longer rely on The Togetherness Project support groups or participate in them often. 

A huge part of that can be attested to my healing process and needing to rely less on others. 

But Togetherness will always be a part of me. 

Always. 

Today, The Togetherness Project held it's very last conference in Midway, Utah. I had planned on going but then decided it wouldn't be the best thing for me right now. 

It was hard for me not to be there. 

There were so many people I wanted to see and connect with. 

I've spent a lot of today thinking about Togetherness and everything the founder, Jacy, has done for me personally by starting this foundation. 

Because of Togetherness, I was able to find resources that helped me realize a lot of missing puzzle pieces in my failed marriage, which brought a lot of closure for me. 

Because of Togetherness, I was able to be supported during some of my worst panic attacks. 

Because of Togetherness, I found another support group for eating disorders and was able to (with the help of friends, family, and a therapist) save myself at a point in my life where I was literally dying. 

Because of Togetherness, I have a whole slew of online friends who understand some of my darkest fears because they have endured very similar challenges. 

Because of Togetherness, I was able to meet many incredible women but two in particular who have stuck around during some of the messiest challenges I've faced. These two women live close to me and are two of my very best friends now. 

Because of Togetherness, I have answers and more questions and I have been able to learn some very beautiful things about myself and what I want out of life. 

When I was first introduced to Jacy's blog, I had no idea what that would spark over the next two and a half years. Some of it has been really dark and difficult but a lot of it has been life changing and beautiful. 

And I will forever be grateful to Jacy for being brave enough to create The Togetherness Project that has changed so many of our lives. 

As I've sat here today and reminisced about everything that has happened over this past two years, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for everything I've conquered and learned. 

I used to have this vision in my head of what my life would look like in my late twenties and this wasn't it. 

That being said, in so many ways, it is much better than what I had imagined. 

Vulnerability. 

Empathy. 

Compassion. 

I am so thankful for everything I have learned through The Togetherness Project. 

I am thankful for the message of hope that it sends to women who have found themselves in situations that are extremely dark and messy. 

And most importantly, I am thankful for the hope I have found in my own life to continue on despite the many times I wanted to give up.