I want you to know my story, not because I want to parade my life issues around, or that I want you to feel sorry for me, but because I hope that someday, maybe, today, or tomorrow or even years from now, my story can help you or someone you might know.

I was your normal little girl, I played with Barbies and I thought the worst thing in the world was when my brother ripped the head off my ken doll. I liked to head bang, and dance to old music, my daddy used to call me his little wild child. I was a little girl and I grew up thinking I had so many friends and thinking that everything was okay, but then I remember wearing my pretty red velvet dress, it was picture day, second grade, and this boy..his name was Mitch, I had a big crush on him, he called me ugly and kept making fun of me. It was my first real experience with a boy, and it was a bad one. Since then my luck with boys, continued to go downhill..not only was it luck with boys, but also luck with my life. Here is my story:


I was nine years old when my parents decided they were going to get divorced. Oddly at first I was excited, I felt like I was cool now, my parents were doing it too, but it turns out, it wasn’t so cool, it ripped me apart, it tore my insides up. I have this picture that keeps coming back to my head of my dad hiding a letter in an old radio on a shelf in our bathroom. I never knew why my mommy and daddy were getting divorced, I just figured that they were unhappy. I remember us kids living in the house with daddy and mommy living in the camper in the front yard, I felt so cool saying “be back later dad, im going to moms” but it really doesn’t feel so cool now. I remember nights when I’d be in bad and I’d hear my mommy and daddy arguing again, mommy would yell, I’d hear the door slam, and her car flying down the driveway. But never did I wake up and her not be there, until the day she moved out that is. But first it was daddy who moved out, he told mommy that she could live in the house until all four of us kids had turned eighteen and moved out, or until mommy got married again. I remember so many guys my mom went through, just searching for her perfect someone. That is until she met Ken.
Mom worked at a bar, but somehow we never seemed to have enough money, I remember weeks we went without having electricity when I was little, because my dad was suicidal, and his medicine made him so tired that he couldn’t work. I remember coming home from school on days so excited to go see my dad, who was in the mental hospital because he had tried killing himself again. He had scars on his shoulder where he had cut himself with a razor, I remember him putting his hand through a window. It became a normal thing.

I was never the cool kid in school, I never had the designer clothes, I was always the afterthought, and there wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t looking for an escape from my reality.
My mom and Ken married summer 2004, I hated him, I hated him so much, that I even told him I hated him. He was stealing my mom, he was ruining my family and my life. But my mom was finally happy again. Sometime later, I found out it wasn’t ken who had ruined my family, it was my father, my dad had cheated on my mom. She tried to stay for us kids, but she couldn’t do it. Talk about believing in something that was never real.
My mom and Ken got married & that same year I found out my dad was getting married again too, actually he ended up getting married a month before Ken and my mom did. He married a lady named Sue. Sue was really nice, but she drank a lot. But it always seemed that I had a great time when I was at their house. On the day of my dads second wedding, my brother who at the time was 13, told my mom that he was going to be living with my dad from that day on, and he wouldn’t be living with my mom. My mom signed the custody papers, all rights over my brother were now given to my dad. She had been put through enough heartache and she didn’t want to go through anymore.
I decided after that, that I wanted to live with my dad and Sue too, so I did. For maybe four or five months. I loved it there, until I found out that my dad was cheating on Sue too, and I decided that I was going to be the one to tell her. He got mad at me, and said some things to me. And I didn’t want to live there anymore. I still went there every other week, for awhile. But things got rough…and I haven’t stayed the night there since then.
He got divorced from Sue, and dated the girl he cheated on Sue with for a very long time, then he cheated on that girl with Sue. I told his girlfriend and she called me liar, she said that my dad had already told her I would be making something up, so that they weren’t together. That was the last straw for me, I was tired of the hurt and the lies. I was finally really finished with my father.
I’ve lived in 4 different houses with my mom and ken and my two sisters, one of which I forgot to mention is adopted.. Two of which houses I had to share a bedroom with my two younger sisters, all of the houses except for the one we are in [who knows what will happen] and the first one, we lost because we couldn’t afford them. Money is tight in my life, always has been, and until I grow up and am on my own, it always will be.
My dad’s dad my papa had an aneurysm in his stomach., for I’d say 3 or 4 years, in which all this time he was dying, this man was my best friend. I could tell him absolutely everything. On October 27th 2007 we got the call that he was doing bad and that if we wanted to say goodbye now was the time to do it. I went to see him, I didn’t want to, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye, but I did it. He was drooling, and he could hardly talk, I remember him smiling at me, and telling me he loved me, it took everything he had, but he did it. I miss him more than anything; there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of him. I remember the last words I said to him…I said “I love you papa, and I will see you later!” I wasn’t saying goodbye.

Now for my reason in bringing this up, is my dad’s name is Maylen JR. and my grandpas name is Maylen. My mom and dad used to live with my grandpa when my brother and I were little. Well they gave my parents their back 2 and a half acres, my parents had a house put on it. This had a driveway leading up to the road right by my grandparent’s house. Well my dad tried stealing the other 2 and a half acres that had my grandpas house on it…he said that the name on the deed was his. And while my grandpa was alive on one of his very last days he asked my father to stop doing what he was, and my dad promised him that he would. My dad promised my grandpa on his deathbed, and after he died...my dad started right back up again. I will never forgive my father for what he has done, I love him, I will see him. But I will never forgive him.

Now during this time of my grandpa being sick, my nana also was battling cancer for a second time and in April 2008 she also passed away. Two of the closest people in my life left me alone in this world. Ever since I’ve not felt pain when someone dies, that sounds mean, but I guess you could say I am immune.
When all this happened with my grandparents, I was a freshman in high school, which for all of you who’ve already went through freshman year, you know that high school starts a whole new chapter in your life. You have to learn not only the stuff in school, but how to live a different life. I went through so much my freshman year; I liked so many boys, none of which liked me back. As always I felt not good enough.
The summer before my freshman year I became friends with a girl named Tess. She was a really nice, fun who girl who seemed to have her head on her shoulders, she was a Christian, the first real Christian I had met in my entire life. My freshman year Tess was my best friend, along with Jackie who had been my best friend since 7th grade, but Tess brought out a side of me, that I never knew was there. Tess brought me to God, she taught me what unconditional love was, she showed me that I could be happy. We had a great friendship, until one day, we were sitting in the gym locker room, and she looked at me and said “Chantel is that my cami?” I lied, I don’t know why, to this day I really don’t, I figure its just because I didn’t want to admit, that I had to wear someone else’s clothes, because I like her clothes better then my own, because we didn’t have the money to go shopping more than once a year.
Well Tess and I tried to work things out but I kept messing things up..So the summer after my freshman year and finding God, I lost my best friend. Jackie and I got incredibly closer, I love her to death. But things were so very different without Tess, and having God.
Then to my sophomore year, most of it anyways Tess and I fixed our problems, and we became best friends again, and in 2008, I got saved, my name was then written in the book of life. I had a hard time continuing to be close to God. My family believes in God, but we don’t talk about it, because we rarely agree on the same things. I’ve been lost so many times, and it always comes down to me wondering the same thing, who am I? and what is my place in this world?
I have gone through liking so many guys. But I like I said was always brought down by guys, hurt so many times and lost so many of those guys as my friends. But during my sophomore year of high school, I met this boy, Christopher, he wasn’t anything special, but to me he was the world. I dated him on and off for 7 months, I broke up with him twice, and the third time we dated was absolutely perfect, or so I thought. He broke up with me, it broke my heart, it still hurts, but you know I’m living, he was my first love, or so I think right now...That might change.
As to Tess and I once again, before the end of my sophomore year, we stopped being friends again, well it was in April, we are friends again now, we talk most days, but I honestly don’t think it’ll ever be the same, actually I know it won’t. But I know that we will always be true friends, because we have been through EVERYTHING. I do love God with all my heart, my best friend Jackie and I attended a Church camp type thing during our summer, I got incredibly close to God. And I made many new friends, all of which are Christians. It was seriously a life changing experience. It made me realize that all things are truly possible through God. Sometimes I tend to forget, when things get tough at home, or I end up hurting from a boy again. But I should probably mention the fact that this summer I prayed for my perfect boy, a Christian boy, who was cute, nice, who played guitar [lol] and who would accept me for me. God answered my prayers, I met [well not technically], we were in the same place at the same time, but we didn’t talk, I added him on facebook, and I started talking to him. His name is Kyle, and he lives an hour away from me, meaning I may not meet him for a while, but he informed me the other day when I told him I wasn’t feeling good enough again, that him and I are BFF’s and he told me that I shouldn’t feel that way because I am amazing (: I may have been waiting forever, and I may still not be able to be with this boy. And there still may be another boy or even boys that I want to be with. But I am 100 % sure that I found the boy that I someday want to be with.
As to my life right now, my mother doesn’t work, my father doesn’t work, and my step dad is laid off, he has been for some time now. So we don’t have much money. There have been days with no electricity, even days where we had to heat water on the stove, so that we had hot water to take a bath because we didn’t have enough money to buy gas. And I don’t have things that most teens do, I don’t have a cell phone, or a car, I haven’t even taken drivers training yet. I don’t go out to the movies, or bowling or things like that often because we don’t always have the money, and I don’t always shop at those expensive places. But I am me. And I’d rather have none of that, and have gone through everything I’ve went to to make me who I am today, then to be another one of those kids, hiding in the crowd. Yeah I’ve told you a lot about me, but I’d really like to share one last thing with you.

This summer I came home from the boys Chrysalis flight, it was like the one I went on, just with boys. And I found out that both of my younger sisters had been raped. I couldn’t show any emotion, and my mom asked me what I thought, and I asked her a question. What would you say, if you found out that I was sexually molested by two boys in our family? She burst into tears, I had been keeping my secret for 6 years, and with the help of God, I was able to tell my mother. Since then I have talked to the police twice, and I have started counseling. I am ready to start my life over, I am ready to put all these bad things behind me, I am ready to push the restart button.
So yes, I’ve had my fair share of problems in my life. I have been through a lot, some people know some stories, some people know others, so know nothing..but it’s your turn, it’s your turn to push restart, everyone has their own story, some worse than others, but I’m here, I am willing to help you..As one of my favorite songs says….

“When there is nowhere else to turn,
All your bridges have been burned,
Feels like you’ve hit rock bottom,
Don’t give up; it’s not the end,
Open up your heart again,
When you feel like no one understands...Where you are..
Someone loves you, even when you don’t think so,
Don’t you know,
You’ve got ME and JESUS. (: “