My husband and I were watching the t.v. show Intervention last night. While watching the sad story of one women's struggle to over come years of drug addiction and not feeling loved as a child my husband asked me a question that made me think. He asked me what would I have become if I had not met him. This made me think really hard, of coarse I have asked this very thing to myself many times but it had never really sunken in till he asked it. Where would I be? What would I have become?
See as a child I grew up in a very troubled house hold. An alcoholic father, a mother that was not very affectionate or supportive. My parents eventually divorced when the news that my father had sexual abused my older half sister came out. After that we moved on and out of our family farm house and my mother was feeling the stress of having to raise three children by herself. She worked all the time which left my sisters and I alone a lot. Lets just say I was not the greatest kid ever and neither were my sisters. I slowly fell into a deep depression that needed to be managed by prescription drugs and problems sleeping which also had to be managed by perception drugs. On top of that I was a user of many illegal drugs as well. I had no desire to do anything with my life and never received any encouragement from my mother or our family. I eventually weaned myself of the depression drugs and sleeping pills but still had no idea what I would do with my life. Fast forward about a year I was 17 almost 18 and still in need of some big changes. I was really into chat rooms at this time and this is where I met my husband. We chatted almost every night and after about 6 or 7 months of this we finally met and it was amazing. I moved in 2 months after that and a year after that we were married. He has been amazing to me. Telling me that I can do anything I set my mind to and being completely supportive of me. That was something I was not use to but desperately needed.
So this brings me back to the original question. Where would I be? It is so hard to wrap my head around this. I could be some drugged out 25 year old right now. In a different life I could have been just another statistic. I obviously have no way of answering this question. I will probably continue to ask myself this question every day for the rest my life. And when I do think of it, it will make me appreciate everything my husband has done for me. I do not think he will ever know how thankful I am to have found him. He has helped me grow into an amazing person that is not only a functioning part of our society but a pretty damn good person. I work, I pay taxes, I vote and because of him I will never become a statistic.
I do not look as my childhood as awful nor do I look at it as a reason for people to feel pity on me. It has helped make me who I am today. And I refuse to be that person that blames all my problems on the past. I am stronger then that!
8 hours ago
