I love taking care of people. It’s one of my good qualities. I notice it within myself even today.
I suffered psychological and physical abuse for years. My mental capacity was ruined, I was emotionally unbalanced, isolated, and ashamed of speaking up about what I endured through the years.
The shame of my abuse, my crime, and fear of being alone and abused verbally, tormented me daily. I had no one and nowhere to turn so I stayed in shelters and in abusive relationships.
As a result of my mother growing up in the foster care system, I suffered from abuse and lack of love. Therefore, as a child growing up under these conditions I had low self-esteem and lacked communication skills.
I neglected my family by leaving the house at 16 years old to live in a youth shelter called The Safe House in Schenectady, New York.
I looked for normalcy so I enrolled in the Job Corps in Cassadaga trying to better my life. I tried to get my GED, I also took vocational courses, certified nursing assistant classes because deep down I knew that I wanted to be a nurse.
However, my life choices were negative, as I did not know how to make the right decisions. My capacity to make logical decisions was vague and it kept me from accomplishing my goals. I wanted to be more productive, yet I could not find the tenacity within myself to find a true purpose in life.
I left the Job Corps, went back to my hometown and met my first abusive partner. He found me when I was 17 years old and naive to what a healthy partnership consisted of. I thought this relationship was normal even after the thump upside the head. His aggressive and abusive behavior continued throughout the four years while I was with him and I stayed. I thought this type of conduct he exhibited was love, because I did not have the stability of normal nurturing and love from my parent’s household.
Despite my troubles I was in college throughout the entire trauma. I attended Mildred Elley in Latham, New York for medical billing because I wanted to be in the medical field.
