true nature. Immediately after hearing the news, he became abusive. When my mother found out that I was pregnant, she attempted to force William to marry me. The outcome was disastrous. Mother had invited me to go shopping with her and my older sister. I was excited because we were going to get things for the baby, and I interpreted this act as mending our relationship.
Unfortunately, there was no planned shopping trip; the next thing I knew, I was at William’s parents’ house. Feeling like a sheep being led to slaughter, I soon realized my mother had planned this. The room was darkened by heavy drapes and the darkness was deepened by the coldness of the attitudes that surrounded me.
In her usual, embittered tone, my mother told William, “My daughter is pregnant. You’re the father, and you need to marry her.” The shock and humiliation of my mother’s statement was like a heavy cement band that kept me bound to the chair. If I could have snapped my finger and disappeared, I would have.
William’s response was the rope that tied me down for the slaughter. Still dazed by my mother’s statement, I vaguely heard him adamantly deny ever being involved with me. With total contempt in his voice, he declared that I was “beneath him.” He went on to tell why he suspected I had become pregnant: “She screwed around with a lot of different men!”
While William’s statement wasn’t true, it led to a silence that seemed to strangle life out of the room. With my head dropped in shame, I could feel the hate emanating from his eyes. The very look he gave pierced my soul like red hot coal burning through silk. The same man, who had previously taken sexual liberties with my body, now spoke of me in total disgust.
As I walked away from that humiliating situation I felt extremely filthy. It was as if the ultimate scarlet letter of shame had been stamped on my forehead. The shame was embedded more when my mother vowed, with the same measure of disgust, that she would never help me in the support of my baby. In the years that followed, she stayed true to her word. Oh, just so you know — we never went shopping for the baby — not that day or any other day.
I was determined not to be a statistic or a financial weight on society, so it was critical that I finish high school. I attended summer classes to make up for the time I lost during my pregnancy. Back then, a girl wasn’t allowed to attend school once the officials found out she was pregnant. When word began to spread, the boys I knew and the few friends I had avoided me like the plague! The girls acted as if my condition was contagious. The boys — well, none of them wanted to be accused of being the father of my baby.
My mother forbade my sisters to talk to me, and my oldest sister who attended the same high school, did just that — refused to talk to me. My younger sisters decided to defy mother. They would lie about having to stay after school and would come to my house instead. When my mother found out, my younger sisters were punished. But despite the punishments, my sister Sheila continued to sneak to see me. Sheila still has that defiant spirit, but sometimes it sabotages her in emotionally unhealthy ways.
I miraculously finished school on time and walked across the stage a proud mother, with my sisters and daughter cheering excitedly as my name was announced. It was one of the proudest moments of my life, but my mother and father were nowhere to be found. Even then, they were unable to give me love and approval.
With no help from my parents or my daughter’s father, I felt totally abandoned, betrayed, and afraid. I sought assistance through the state welfare program and received help in the form of childcare and food stamps. In my mind this was another symbol of shame.
I had hoped to raise the status of our lives by attending college to become an ophthalmologist, but those hopes were quickly dashed when a college advisor told me to try something that I was more qualified to do. I can’t remember his list of suggestions, but they were service-oriented jobs, like hospitality and entry level office support. In that moment I gave him greater authority over my life and my hopes because I never challenged his opinion, nor did I continue to pursue my ambition. By accepting his view of my life and potential, I also accepted a life of mediocrity. Thank goodness that cycle eventually changed by giving myself permission to be and do more!
Struggling to break free from this hell resulted in years of arguing with God and emotionally exhaustive debates with myself and anyone else who would listen. There were periods in my life where I indulged in elaborate pity parties. There were also times when playing the role of the martyr was preferable to engaging in another wrestling match with life. Without a doubt, I’ve done my share of whining, complaining, blaming, and excuse-making.
Getting Fed Up
One day, I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. That’s when God began to prepare me for the truly conscious journey of giving myself permission. When I reflect on what triggered my turning point, I have to consider a series of questions: Was it just one thing, or a compilation of disappointments, failures, betrayals, and habitual behaviors that yielded the same drama, hurt and pain? Was it the year and a half I spent in counseling? Maybe it happened when I looked back over my life and realized that my grandmother, my mother, my sisters and I embodied three generations of emotionally broken people. Whatever the trigger, the coup de grace came on a cold winter night in January when I found myself on a dark street in my car trying to figure out how I could commit suicide and still leave my children with some kind of dignity.
While I won’t go into great detail, I will share with you the essence of the event. But let’s just say I journeyed through several layers of consciousness in one night. I don’t think Ebenezer Scrooge, from the story A Christmas Carol, and his ghostly visitations had anything on me. My journey started with a psychological sense of being in the depths of hell, and ended with the ultimate, conscious commitment to always maintain a higher level of self-awareness.
At the time, I had been married for six months to a pastor of a church who was physically, spiritually, and emotionally abusive. I’ll tell you a little more about this in the next chapter. But the events that led to this decisive moment had sent me spiraling to a very dark place. On this particular day I had not seen my husband for two days. That evening, I received a phone call from a man who was the husband of one of the members of the church. He called to tell me that his wife had changed the locks on their home and that the pastor, my husband, was now living with his wife.
Numb from this insane news, I tried to wrap my thoughts around what I had been told. After awhile I called my husband and in the most uncaring and nonchalant voice, he confirmed what the woman’s husband had said. The “good” pastor went on to tell me that God had revealed to him that I was there to destroy him and that the other woman was the one who would uplift him and his ministry.
By this time, I had two children — a daughter and a son. Because of my husband’s abuse, my son’s father had demanded custody of him. My daughter was attending college in another state. So there I was living in this small, roach-infested house my husband owned before we were married. His five children lived with us. He had not taken them to live with him; he left them behind with me.
There was absolutely no food in the house, utility shut off notices were on the counter, the needle on the gas gauge of my car was on the mark before empty, and I had five dollars to my name. Trust me, how I let myself get to this level is another book in itself. Realizing the situation I was in, I began tumbling fast off an emotional cliff, and all I could think about was suicide. In a desperate attempt for help, I called a spiritual counselor. It was nine o’clock at night, and I pleaded with her to see me. She agreed.
I drove to her house as fast as I could. When I arrived, I found myself in a dark cul-de-sac. There were no lights on at her house. After knocking on the door several times I went back to my car. I decided to wait, thinking that she might have left for a quick run to the store or something. My thoughts of suicide intensified as I shivered in the cold winter night. I was trying to preserve the little gas I had in
