I Am Not Defined By Regret, I Define Who I Am

I have many humorous embarrassing stories to tell, being a naturally clumsy person gives you an edge. Like when I was in seventh grade at a volleyball tournament, I was walking down the bleachers when I noticed a super cute boy looking at me. I was so caught up in smiling at him that I didn't see a puddle of water on one of the bleachers and I slipped and rolled all the way down, I landed right behind my Mom, great catch by the way Mom, thanks. I was carrying a coke I had just bought and miraculously managed not to spill a single drop on my tumble down. Either way, I was horrified, but instead of running away with a flood of shameful tears, I stood up and took a bow in several directions, smiling and waving at everyone. I decided to encourage the laughter, and laugh with them, instead of allowing myself to feel shame. Everyone falls once or twice after all, right? I could sit here and tell stories of my epic falls one after another, and I could probably have you rolling on the floor with laughter, but what can you learn from that? The embarrassing story I am about to share is intimate and believe me, it's in no way humorous, however, I have been told that I have a unique way of throwing in a bit of humor, to keep it entertaining. I do this honestly, because it's a pretty sad story. I don't want anyone thinking I am feeling sorry for myself, because I am not, but I know there are people who are living the nightmare I have finally woken up from, this story is for them. I want them to know that there is hope, it isn't where you expect it either, many people expect a prescription, or an idea of something to do that gets you what you want, but those things don't really get you what you need, they simply sweep the problem under the rug, so that it can come back again, uglier and harder to cope with. I know this, because I am guilty of seeking out those things, and all I did was set myself up for the thing I am most ashamed of.

I guess you could say it all started when I got pregnant with my son, I wasn't with his father, and I had no desire to be either. I was seventeen years old, I turned eighteen before I had him. All my life my grandmother lectured me about getting pregnant before marriage. She taught me that good men, respectable men don't want a woman with baggage. Since she drilled this belief in my head, I believed I would never find a good man. A few experiences I had during and after pregnancy only drilled this belief in further. I had basically decided not to even bother looking in the direction of the opposite sex at all. I had a son to take care of, I had an apartment complete with bills to pay, and I was going to be the type of mother a son could feel proud of.

I met my first husband when my son was about four months old. A friend of mine called me to go hang out with her, she was hanging out with some people she had just met, and she was dying to introduce me to some guy. I remember showing up and she introduced me to a few guys, I was thinking please don't let this be the guy with every introduction, then I saw him. I thought he was so handsome. I smiled immediately which pleased my friend, she started grinning from ear to ear, and proudly announced, " And this is Robert!" I assumed by the beaming light in her eyes that this must be "the guy". I can't lie, I was hoping it was the guy. Yes, I was and still am a bit shallow. In my defense, there has to be some form of attraction in order for people to have a desire to want to date them. I am sorry, but anyone who says otherwise is full of crap. I am not saying it has to be something physical, but there has to be a certain degree of attraction, when there isn't you end up in the friend-zone. So for all of you people wondering how or why you get friend-zoned, it's because although your crush likes you as a person, they simply don't have any type of an attraction to you, not that you aren't attractive, but there is more to attraction than what people think, anyway moving on. Robert was very well mannered, extremely handsome, he had a goatee, and faded hair-cut, not bald fade, he had hair on top. He was so interested in everything I had to say, I remember feeling special, wondering if it was the alcohol, or if he was just trying to dazzle his way into my pants, which was not going to happen. I don't care how handsome someone is, I am not easy, I have self respect. Either way, his attentiveness made me feel special, it kind of gave me hope, of course I wasn't sitting there already planning out our lives in that moment, but I was just feeling hopeful, that maybe there are good men, who are attractive, and have jobs that will not see my son as baggage. This ended up being true for Robert, who fell in love with my son before he fell in love with me.

Our relationship started fast, really fast. Within three months we were engaged, within another two we were pregnant. Ten months after we met, we were parents to a beautiful baby girl. We had a really good relationship, we rarely fought or argued, which is pretty good considering we were kids ourselves in a way. We were both only nineteen years old. Yes, at nineteen I was already a mother of two and a house wife. I was raised right, so you best believe I cooked for that man every single day, and made sure he had clean clothes to wear. I never once complained either, this was my role and responsibility as a wife and mother. For the first year and a half we were like best friends, not just lovers, or husband and wife. Then things changed. My grandmother had emphysema, she was going to die soon, she had confided in me how worried she was about my Pawpaw, she didn't want my mom, aunt or uncle to put him in a nursing home. I promised her I would not let that happen, she asked me how I could be so confident, and I responded, "because, I will go to nursing school, so that I can take care of him myself, then they will have no choice but to accept what I say." One week later I was at Victoria College testing in for the LVN program. I aced the test, and was accepted into the program, my whole entire family was so proud of me, well my whole family that I have blood relation with. My husband on the other hand, was not happy, proud, or anything pleasant. He was mad, jealous, and that was the beginning of that end. I stuck it out with him a total of eight years, six of them I spent getting my butt kicked on a daily basis. I guess the breaking point was when I was pregnant with our second daughter, Aliana, he got drunk and I think that was the worst beating he had ever given me. Instead of just one or two hits, he literally beat me, he was on top of me with his knees in my stomach and wailing on me. I was so beat up my ears had bruises. He ended up going to jail the very next day, not for hitting me, because I never called the cops, I never told anyone he would hit me at all. I was too ashamed, besides, I knew I wasn't going to leave him, so why tell anyone, it would only cause more problems. I tried hiding from my mom for the next few days, but I couldn't take it anymore, my stomach had been cramping so horribly that it was starting to make me feel sick, I had no choice but to call her and ask her to take me to the hospital. She was livid when she laid her eyes on me, to put it politely, it's a good thing my husband was in jail, because if he hadn't been, my mom would've been on her way to the big house herself. I begged her not to say anything, I told her I wasn't going to leave him, we had a family, I was five months pregnant, and since I never finished nursing school, I could not support myself. My Pawpaw died the week before I started school, in case you're wondering, no, I didn't break my promise, I just didn't have to keep it, he died before her. In fact I lost three out of four grandparents starting with him over an eleven month time span. Okay, back to the story, so I am not sure if it was the pain I experienced losing so many people who meant so much to me in such a short time, or if it was the belief my Mawmaw had drilled in my head, but I was not going to leave my marriage having two kids, one on the way, and no way of supporting myself. There's no way any man with any sense would want me. I was five months pregnant when he did that, the reason I was cramping was because I was going into labor. The doctors managed to stop the labor, I carried her for about another month, then my water broke, there was no stopping it. She had a heart beat, and was crazy active, all the way up until the birth. Aliana Lu Pena, died during birth, I knew she was gone while they were still attempting CPR, my mom kept trying to comfort me, but I told her, " No Mama, I know she's gone, I felt her leave." Losing my daughter was by far the worse loss I had ever experienced, my mom kept me sedated for a whole month. I am the one who told her no more medicine, all I would do was get up like a zombie and dress my two oldest kids, get them off to school and go home to lay on the couch and let silent tears fall all day long. I didn't talk, I didn't care to eat, I just existed, it hurt enough to still cause silent tears, but the medicine prevented me from being able to do much more than that. I needed to feel it, I needed to learn to live with this pain, I had two other kids who needed me, and a husband. I clung to Robert, even though he had hit me, I clung to him, he was all I had left of our daughter, and he knew all my grandparents, it was like I was holding on to him because I felt it kept me connected to the people I missed the most, like keeping him was my only link to the past, when I was happy, before I experienced so much loss, so fast.

A few months passed, I started working for speedy stop in my home town, Robert was working for a landscaping company, we were buying a little two bedroom trailer, he hadn't hit me in a long time. He ended up having to serve a month in county jail for being arrested back when I was pregnant, he had violated probation. While he was locked up I managed my house and paid the bills with ease. I felt myself growing more confident, feeling more independent. I realized I could do things on my own if I had to, and I didn't need a good man, I didn't need anyone. When he got out of jail we picked up where we left off, he worked and so did I . We had an okay relationship, but the damage was done, and because of the damage he became more insecure, the more insecure he became the more we argued, until it came to a head and he tried to put his hands on me, I did not cower this time. I fought back, I left, and I told him either I was staying gone, or he could leave, but I was done. His abuse sent me in premature labor, and although it can't be said for sure it's his fault she died, it is a fact that his beating was what knocked down the first domino. I had promised myself that I would never again allow myself to depend on a man, I would work, I would support myself and my children no matter what I had to sacrifice, or how much I struggled, I refused to ever give another man power over me like that again. I stuck to it too, for a while.

I met Jacob, my second husband in July 2007, I had a career, a house I was buying, car, and I was doing it all on my own with ease. I was single, independent and loving my life. I dated here and there, but the second I seen a red flag, I was done. I mean any little thing, I was simply not having it, I wasn't going to risk being abused ever again. Jacob was like a dream come true, he walked through the door in front of me, as he entered that building, he simultaneously entered my heart. I knew, he was the one, he had to be, I had never in my life been speechless, and seeing him not only took my breath away, but it took my vocabulary too, in fact my whole ability to speak for a moment if we're being completely honest. By April of 2008 my kids and I had moved to San Antonio with Jacob, I applied at Bexar County Jail right away, and I got hired, he was working for a residential HVAC company, he was an installer. Before I could begin the Bexar County training Academy something happened that, although we tried to do it on purpose, I didn't think it would work. I got pregnant. I didn't think I could have kids anymore, that's what I had been told a couple of years after losing Aliana, I had gotten pregnant but miscarried before I even found out, it was then I was told of the damage my reproductive organs had sustained. I was told carrying children would be impossible, and I would most likely never have kids again. Despite knowing this, I agreed to try to get pregnant. It worked. I don't regret my daughter, not for one second, I don't regret any of my children, the ones who were planned and the ones who weren't. My children were the best part of me, are the best part of me. They are the reason I fight to stand back up and fight another round after losing and being knocked down. I don't care how far down I would fall, I always got myself back up, always, without any help at all. Well as you could guess, being pregnant put a hold on employment with the jail, the academy was simply too physically difficult and was too much of a risk, the jail wouldn't allow pregnant women in the the training academy, too much of a liability. So I didn't go to work, I actually attempted to work, I got a job at a sears call center, but a few weeks in I was hospitalized with a bad kidney infection, which started a string of events leading to me being bed ridden the rest of my pregnancy. Nevaeh was born at thirty one weeks gestation. She was due March 24, 2009, I had her January 24, 2009. She was four pounds even and sixteen and a half inches long. She was a little fighter that one, she didn't even have to be put on oxygen, she was breathing on her own. Unfortunately a hole was punctured in her stomach lining when a feeding tube was inserted down her nose. She had to have emergency surgery before she was even a full twenty four hours old. That was by far the longest day of my life. I was so afraid of losing another child, I couldn't do it, there's no way. She survived though, like I said she was a fighter. The doctors told us to expect her to be in the NICU at least two months, she was out before she was even a month old. She surpassed all of their expectations, and did so beautifully there was no medical reason to keep her in the hospital. I initially planned to call Bexar County after she came home from the hospital, my job had been guaranteed for a year. As my luck would have it, my plan was obliterated when I was told I had cervical cancer, and it was pretty bad. My doctor attempted two different in office procedures, but when the second one caused me to start hemorrhaging, he asked me what my feelings were about a hysterectomy. I had already gotten my tubes tied, I had no desire to have any more children, I told him "where do I sign, let's slice this sucker out!" Of course this is a major surgery and would require at least a six week recovery, mind you by this time it's already May, my surgery was scheduled for July, there was no way I was going to make the year cut off. So I had to wait, once more. For the most part that first two years Jacob and I had a relationship comparable to a fairytale, I was irrevocably in love with him, when I looked at him, I saw my whole life flash in front of my eyes. I could picture kids graduating, weddings, and grandchildren. I could see everything right up to being wrinkled, holding hands on a porch swing. He was it for me, there was no such thing as anyone else, not in my eyes. I remember when I would get dressed up to go somewhere, I would walk down the stairs, and he would just stare at me, like I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. We laughed nearly all the time, his mother even told me at one time, that she had never heard her son laugh that much. In all his life he didn't laugh as much as he did in those two years with me. He was happy, and I brought out the best in him, and I strived to be my very best for him. He really did bring out more effort from me than anyone ever had. I wanted to give him the world on a silver platter, because I thought he hung the moon. That is how happy we were. Until after my surgery, I stayed at my mom's a week so she could help me with Nevaeh while I recovered a little bit, Jacob acted weird all week that week on the phone, being short with me, getting mad, hanging up. I had never seen this from him, yeah we argued a few times, and looking back now there were so many red flags, but I was so in love. I never fully comprehended the difference between loving someone and being in love, until the day I feel in love with Jacob Suttles. To this very day I am head over heels in love with him, but our marriage has been done for quite some time. He eventually became more and more violent, I left him a couple of times once I was working for county, I knew I could support myself, and I wasn't going to tolerate being accused of things I wasn't doing, and I damn sure was not going to tolerate being hit, or verbally ripped to shreds. We broke up and got back together several times over the course of about three years, then we split for a whole year, I quit my beloved job at Bexar County, moved back to my hometown, and went to work at that crappy jail, with it's high-school popularity contest, or as some call it the "good ole' boy system" where if it's not "who you know, it's who you blow". That was the only way to have hope of promotions or fair treatment in that damn jail. Well I didn't know anyone, and I damn sure wasn't made for kissing anyone's rear. I lasted a year, then I resigned, Jacob and I got back together a month later. This time when we got back together I told myself I was not going to give up as easily as I had in the past, I was going to fight to show him how much he really meant to me, but it seems as though the harder I fought to prove my love, and save our marriage, the harder he fought to destroy me, our family and our marriage. We ended up opening a doorway that ultimately sealed the fate for our marriage. We started using meth, and we started bringing women in our bedroom to share. I thought it would help him trust me, and prevent him from cheating on me. I thought he would appreciate it and be happy finally. It did nothing good, it only caused more problems, it was so bad that it spilled into the eyes of the kids. I had always managed to keep the physical fights with him behind closed doors, but this was different, he would push every button he could until he found the one that gave him the rise he was looking for, and I was ignorant enough to play it out exactly how he intended. I looked like a psychopath to everyone, no one knew or heard what he was doing to me, no one seen how much I let go in one ear and out the other in silence. The difference between him and I was that he picked a fight passive aggressively, or quietly, I on the other hand was far from quiet or passive once he set me off. I was just as violent as him and nothing stopped me, I of course always hurt myself more than I hurt him. Nothing hurt him, he wanted the excuse to leave me, he would kick my ass, put cigarettes out on my face, he fractured my face one time, cut my cheek open with one punch, he broke my nose. He cheated, anything you can think of he did it, he cut me down so much, so low, that I felt like I was disgusting. I hated looking in the mirror, I had no confidence whatsoever. I believed I was old, ugly, worthless, pathetic trash. I endured this for three years, never once did I consider leaving him, I was determined not to give up on him, I wanted him to see how valuable he was to me. I was so caught up in trying to make him happy, and prove to him I wasn't going to leave him, that I completely lost myself. I lost my sanity, I lost everything. It all led up to a fateful afternoon in April of 2016, a day after our 8th anniversary. We hadn't celebrated it either, in fact he had left me a couple of days before, he was not answering my calls, he hid from me, until the day of our anniversary when he finally responded to my text but just to tell me "Leave me the fuck alone bitch, I don't care about you, I am not in love with you, Go kill yourself bitch". I was shattered, I couldn't eat or sleep it had already been three days two nights and mind you, I was not high, I hadn't even used drugs in the past week, it was my anxiety, and the sick depression from him leaving me, for literally no reason. He was addicted to meth, we didn't have any, and couldn't find any to buy, within a couple of days of not being able to use he would turn into this monster, more evil than the devil himself. He picked a fight with me, and he left me laying on the ground unable to breathe, crying and begging him to stay. As I said that first two nights I couldn't eat or sleep, I tried to but I would wake up screaming his name, crying and screaming. The day he finally responded and said what he said, I broke, I took Nevaeh to his sister, to ask if she would keep her for the night, I was a wreck, I didn't want Nevaeh seeing me like that. Before I had gone to his sisters though, I had gone outside for some reason to get in to my car, I think I was looking for my car keys, they had been missing. I found a gram of meth, turned out to be the one some 18 year old kid had who was at my place, the kid had lost it the same night, he dropped in our parking lot by my car, go figure. The thing about meth, was for me, it always was more of a sedative high than a energizing high. It mellowed me out, calmed me down. Complete opposite affect then it had on mostly everyone I have ever met. This is why I decided I was going to do a line when I found the meth. I needed to calm down, I was too scared to do it inside my house, I didn't want the kids to catch me, and I didn't want anyone to see me in parking lot. So I went for a drive in a nearby park, well while there I was scared too, what if park police caught me. So I got the bright idea to stick a straw in the bag and just do a little that way, no big deal. Wrong! My nose was way more powerful than I could've imagined. I snorted nearly the whole gram in my attempt to do just a tiny bit. It was an accident. I was frozen for a good while, trying to let my eyes stop moving so I could drive home. So when I dropped Nevaeh off at his sister's it had been about two hours since I had that little vacuum nose incident. His sister suggested I go home, get some sleep and give him time, she insisted, I know how he is, he'll come around. I decided to listen to her, since I was so calm now, and could think clearly. I went home with the full intention of doing exactly what she said, but I knew my anxiety would not allow me to sleep long enough, I needed real rest like she suggested, she was right. So I took one, two milligram Xanax, and two ten milligram baclofen. All were downers, but baclofen is just a mild muscle relaxer, and I had taken the Xanax before, only I always broke it quarters and would never take more than a quarter at a time. I took the whole pill because I wanted to sleep, I never even though about the meth I had done only a couple of hours prior, not to mention the excessive amount. The last thing I remember was being afraid to fall asleep when I felt the pills kick in, it was like this impending doom, like don't go to sleep, or you won't wake up. I remember trying to fight my sleep, at the time I still didn't think about the meth I had done, I was thinking it was because I had fallen and hit my head pretty hard, all I know, is that I fought my hardest to stay awake until someone got there, then I fought like hell to wake myself up once I fell asleep, but it didn't happen. My son would be the one to attempt to wake me up over twenty four hours later, my son would be the one to find me in my piss, unresponsive, my son was the one who had to pick me up and carry me to the restroom to run water over me trying to wake me up, and my 16 year old son was the one who had to call EMS when I began foaming at the mouth and going into convulsions. I was in the hospital in a coma for three days. I went to sleep on Friday and woke up Monday morning in the hospital, cuffed to the bed. I wanted to check out against medical advice, however I was no permitted to, because there was a detainer on me. Apparently when EMS arrived there were prescription pills everywhere by where I had slept. I spilled them when I crashed. The EMS assumed I intentionally overdosed, so they got a judge to sign a detainer, so I could get help. That whole time, everyone thought I attempted to kill myself. Meanwhile I am begging and pleading with God to let me come back home. I knew they would think I tried killing myself, and I never intended for any of that to happen, my only intent was to get good rest. I would never take myself away from my kids like that, I don't care how emotionally painful living is, nothing is too much to endure for me, not when it comes to being here with my kids. Because I lost sight of every part of myself, I had become someone I wasn't, someone I didn't even know. I watched helplessly as everything in my life that ever mattered to me fell apart. Who was I , what the hell was I thinking? My kids mother would never use a hard drug like meth, and she sure the hell would never have her 16 year old son find her in such a way. I was more than embarrassed, I was ashamed, I hated myself, I hated who I had become, I couldn't even look anyone in the eye for months, not because I was embarrassed that people thought I attempted suicide, because I knew I hadn't and my blood toxicology report supported that. I was ashamed because I had failed as a mother, as a person, I failed my kids, and I failed everyone who depended on me and every one I loved. I let everyone down and disappointed everyone, but worst of all, I put my kids through having to wonder if their mother was going to make it, I put my son through the nightmare of finding me. I know it still haunts his dreams, I feel it when it does. Every time I jerk awake because I catch a glimpse of whatever my son is having a nightmare about, I sit alone and I cry, still deeply ashamed for having put him through that. I used to say that I had no regrets, yeah, I made mistakes, but I never regretted anything, I took it as a lesson and tried to apply it, so that I wouldn't repeat the mistake. For the most part I have managed to keep from repeating the same mistakes, but the one mistake I never should have repeated led me to the moment I will regret until the day that I die. I swore I would never depend on a man after the first marriage, I would never not work. When I got back with Jacob, I did work, rink a dink crappy jobs for the first year and a half, but when he got a really high paying job he told me to stay home, I never should have done that. I have known that my confidence came from the ability to support myself and my kids. My confidence was always fragile, see, I was broken long before these two men came into my life, I was broken as a child, but I always found strength in love, not for myself, but for other's, like my Mom, then my kids, I never believed I was worth anything, but I knew I could take care of myself and my children with out needing anything from anyone, and that was enough for me. That was the foundation of my confidence, when I sacrificed my foundation, I set myself up for failure, and boy, I failed epically. I will regret those decisions for the rest of my life, even though, I have also learned and grown so much as a person since all of that happened. I have gone to college and earned my Associate Degree, I have learned to be alone, without feeling sad or lonely, I have overcome anxiety and depression without medication, and I overcame a drug addiction. I did all of this alone, there wasn't anyone to help me, I struggled being homeless, sleeping in my car for a big part of the time I was in school. I would do whatever it took to make sure my schoolwork was done, I maintained a 4.0 the first three quarters, and made the Dean's list. I am glad I did this alone, that's why I have hope, I found it in myself. I am by far a stronger and better woman than I have ever been my entire life, but I hurt my son in the most traumatizing way back then, and that will haunt me for the rest of my life. My kids are all grown up now, well the two oldest are 21 and 20. My 2o year old has made me a Grandmother just this year, despite everything we went thru, I still managed to raise two very good kids. They are both hard working, respectful, and independent, most importantly, they do not accept being treated the way they saw their mother get treated, they aren't bullies at all, they are caring, selfless individuals, but they do not allow anyone to hurt them, and they don't do that to anyone either. Nevaeh is still young, she is only 12, and it's a struggle, she has been through a lot, with both her Dad and I, it has taken me a long time to pull myself together this time. I am only now fully coming into my full potential and really taking control of my life again, I may have many accomplishments, but those were all stepping stools as a way to figure out how to heal myself, when I left Jacob in 2016, I was completely broken, I might have been worse off than after losing my daughter and being sedated. I was so numb from feeling so much pain, It has really been an uphill journey, but I am getting there, and it does get easier, I may regret what I have done, and feel ashamed for the rest of my life, but I will not let it define me. I define who I am , and I am not my regrets.