A Little Background Check

I suppose the only way I will make sense to you is if I start from the beginning, so you will fully understand.

I was birthed into this tragic, yet thrilling world on a sunny Saturday afternoon at the Farm in Summertown, Tennessee. It took all the mid-wives in the commune, including the famous Ina-May Gaskin, to help my mother through the delivery. My mom says that I was stubborn even in the womb; during the last few days of her pregnancy she drank kaster oil as an attempt to convince me it was time to move out. I was three weeks late coming and it took two long, miserable days of labor to finally pop me out and I've been late ever since (to school, church, work, appointments, you name it).

I grew up in my own little imaginary world. I was always putting on my own costumes that I made and running around in the woods and fields. My imagination was so vivid that sometimes my pretend games seemed more real than made up.

At four years old, I discovered Star Wars. That may have been my point of downfall because I became obsessed with it. I ditched my Barbie dolls and begged for action figures. By the time I was eight, I was officially labeled "geek" at school.

Kindergarten through 8th grade I attended a private Christian school called Bill Egly Seventh-day Adventist School. Its student population was usually around 20 and my graduating 8th grade class was probably the largest in its history...there were five of us.

During my 1st and 2nd grade years I had Epilepsy. There was constant seizure activity in my brain and the doctors tried everything they could think of to treat me. I was on every medication there was at the time and even some experimental meds. Nothing worked and I was getting worse. The doctors told my parents that they were down to two options: surgery or institutionalization. My parents took a different route and changed my nutritional habits. After changing my diet and shoving vitamins down my throat (and with a lot of prayer), my parents began to see improvement. Soon I was off the meds and my EEGs showed no seizure activity. It was a miracle. To this day, I have not had a seizure since.

Public high School was a bit more exciting than the sheltered little private school I had attended before. However, it was quite a culture shock for me at first. I ended up dropping out and homeschooling the rest of my freshman year. I returned the following year only to switch schools my junior and switch back again for my senior year. I suppose I was restless and needed some change.

As far as boyfriends go, I didn't really care for the dating scene. I've only had a couple of boyfriends.

Honestly, when it comes to past relationships, I don't think that names or details need to be shared. So, I will sum them up like this...

Boyfriend #1: Freshmen year. Very immature. More like an elementary school relationship. We're still friends.

Boyfriend #2: I was bored. We dated. He was a pervert with emotional problems. I grew to hate him. We are not friends.

Boyfriend #3: Sociopath. (Need I say more?)

Though BF3 is not a favorite subject of mine, he did play a major role in my life.

We first met at Youth With a Mission (Y-WAM) in Tyler, Texas during the summer of 2006. He was there to work off a couple hundred community work hours (he had stolen 13 golf carts from his high school campus and was arrested on "Hippie Day" during Homecoming week. He was escorted out in handcuffs while wearing a long grungy wig, tie-dye shirt, bell-bottoms and a peace necklace).

Our relationship began the summer of 2007 in Chicago, Illinois with karate chop fights, toasts to everything wonderful, palm readings on the beach, and fairytale stories. I can't explain what happened during those three weeks. It was an instant connection and we became best friends immediately.

It was a long distant relationship that we made work by talking every day on the phone and taking turns visiting each other. He lived in Tyler, which was only about an hour away from some close friends of the family so it was not hard to convince my parents to make the trip.

However, our relationship began to take a drastic turn. What started out a fairytale slowly became a nightmare. His trust issues got the better of him and he became possessive and controlling. He stifled my independent nature by giving me rules I could not follow. I was miserable, but I was "in love" with him and couldn't leave him.

After graduating from high school, I moved in with close friends of the family, Jack and Brenda. They had just moved into a new house in Lindale, TX (half an hour from Tyler) and offered to let me stay with them. My parents and I made a deal that I could only live with Jack and Brenda if I got a job and worked until September when the Discipleship Training School at Y-WAM began.

So, I got my first job as a hostess at a Mexican restaurant called Pesado's Cafe. BF3 and a couple of our friends would come visit me at work sometimes. After working there for three weeks, he became suspicious that I was cheating on him with one of the "chip and dip guys" and forced me to quit my job. I had no idea what to do next, so he and I decided we would do the Discipleship Training School that began in June instead of the one in September.

When we moved onto the mission base and started the school, things seemed to get better. Though it didn't last long.

He became insane and our relationship got out of control. The arguing never stopped. He would yell at me and cuss me out for the littlest things. One night he even threatened suicide and acted violently. It was the scariest night of my life. I've never cried as much as I did that summer.

The school staff did their best to help us, but in the end they asked us both to leave.

My last memory of him is seeing him sitting in his car on some country road sobbing.

I wanted to vomit.

I left Texas last August vowing never to return.

I came home a completely different person. I didn't feel like me at all. I would look at pictures from my life and could not relate to the girl in the picture. It was kind of like how I imagine waking up from amnesia would be like. I guess it was the shock and trauma of the months of abuse I had suffered from BF3, combined with the feeling of being rejected from Y-WAM who I had sought after for help and guidance, that changed me. I walked different. I talked different. I dressed different. Everything about me was different. I was nothing like I had been before.

As for God, who I had lived my entire life for, I felt betrayed by Him for leading me (or so I thought He had led me) into the relationship with BF3. I watched as everything I had been working toward for the past year crashed and burned up in flames. My friends, my plans for my whole life, the one guy that I wanted to spend it all with. They were all gone. Forever. And I had no idea who I was or for what purpose I was to live.

It has been a year now, since I came home to Tennessee and it has been an interesting one as well. However, I believe I will save that story for next time.