TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE, SUICIDE, ADDICTION, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

I've had several traumatic events in my life and overtime: through therapy, personal change and growth, venting, time or sheer force of will, I have overcome and recovered from those events.

I survived an abusive marriage. He was so sweet when we first got married. We were 18 and 19. And we made a home, a life. We got 2 cats and were happy. But he slowly began to change.

I became pregnant and gave birth to a beautiful, healthy little boy. He was such a wonder to me.

But my husband became aggressive, then he became violent. I was afraid for my son more than myself. At first I didn't fight back because I was scared. I was often locked in a closet with my son with nothing the baby needed, I was slapped, I was punched, I was shoved down and I always got between him and MY son.  I'd get my butt kicked but I'd still defend my baby. My son didn't cry much. But when he did, my husband would get angry. 

I began to get angry...very angry. And I began to fight back! He'd threatened my mothers parents. My Papa and Granny were far into their elder years. So I'd stayed out of fear for them.

Fear for my baby, fear for my family but never fear for myself. Eventually I summoned up the courage to leave. And nothing happened.are later I found out he had Huntington's Disease.

Huntington's disease is a genetic, neurodegenerative disorder that causes progressive breakdown of nerve cells in the brain, affecting movement, cognition, and behavior. And it can cause psychiatric problems. His real mother was in a mental institution with Huntington's. I was never told about her. I was told the man and woman he lived with were his parents. They were his grandparents.

When I left I was in fear of him. But when I found out about the diagnosis I felt pity for him. He passed some years later because of the disease. Because it is hereditory, I had to put my son through genetic testing. He doesn't have it, thank the Goddess, but he is a carrier.

My sons is autistic. And says he never wants to marry and have children. He is the only this good to come out of that marriage.

About two years after the marriage ended. I began working at a hospital. I wanted to make a good life for my son and myself. We were a team, he and I. He's all grown up and is still my Superman. The work at the hospital was good and my son and I were happy.

I survived a violent rape. A young man I had helped care for at the hospital.. I had shown him kindness and care. He had shown me degredation, pain and what fear truly was. 

It is only through therapy and healing that I can talk about that event and what it did to my mind , body and spirit here.

In a way, talking about overcoming that event is freeing and healing in a way therapy could not do. It is cathartic.

My physical body healed quickly. The bruises, the black eye, the bloody nose the scrapes and cuts. All healed quickly with medical attention. My spiritual body and psyche would take longer. Decades longer.

Walking through a parking lot was perhaps the easiest yet hardest thing to do. I was taken from a parking lot one night after leaving my job as a CNA. 

The grumbling, belching sound of an old pick up truck would make me spin around, eyes wide with fear as I was whisked away into a horrific memory for an instant. Heart racing, eyes crying as I panted with startled breath; I'd stare at the driver not seeing them, but instead, seeing an engaging young man with a full beard and cold, hard eyes staring back at me.

Gardening would never last long, as working the soil would hit me in the face with the smell of fresh turned Earth; taking me back to the woods where it happened.

Raking leaves, which was once meditative for me, was now a sound that brought me to tears with memories of being dragged through the leaves.

A cologne, the cologne my father wore, the smell of which brought me comfort after my father passed was now distorted and made unclean by this man whose smell was my fathers smell.

A touch that went from gentle, to possessive to violent back to gentle. A touch that would make any touch hard for me for the next 32 years.

Red flannel shirts, dark hair, a beard, nice fitting jeans, strong hands...all outward things I'd always liked on a man. But now they were triggers. They were the things that made me relive to the memories and waking nighmares.

The psychiatrist called it PTSD. He explained triggers to me. I realized triggers were the keys that left the monster out of the closet.

I not only had to overcome the rape, but what the fallout caused. I became an addict trying to self medicate away the horrors. I got into treatment and found recovery, I have 36 years clean. I had tried to commit suicide because of the memories and the shame I felt from using.

With intensive psychiatric care and medications, I'm able to shine my own skin. I can sleep a little, I can have close, lasting relationships with family and friend.

One day I can remember thinking, "If I get fat, no one will be attracted to me. Ill be safe." Little did I realize the "shield" of weight would come at a price later on.

I eventually remarried someone I met in th rooms of a12 Step program. We married in 1998 and divorced in 2016. He was a chronic relapser. I knew better than to stay in a marriage with someone who couldn't, no...wouldn't stay clean.

We had three incredible baby girls. My four children were the lights in my world. He would spend our diaper and grocery money on drugs. Broken promises to the kids, unable to keep a job, going to the kids school events high. So in December of 2015 I planned to take the kids and leave when school got out for the summer.

But in the following January, after a snow and ice storm, he was in a horrible car wreck. Driving high and hit some black ice. Slammed into a massive Mississippi pine tree. The impact through his pickup back into the road and he was found laying on the highway in the dark. He was placed on a backboard and set in the bed of a pickup truck and driven to half mile to the church parking lot where the Life Flight had landed. He died twice in that half mile. And four more times on the flight the 35 miles to the hospital. 

At the hospital he was stabilized. I didn't even recognise him. His head had caved the windshield in. 

They flew him the 90 miles to University Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi where he was rushed to ICU. After several days the Drs came in and suggested pulling his life support. He was broken from head to toes, he would have brain damage if he every woke from the coma. How much brain damage they couldn't tell. And I despised him so much. For years he'd kept my from leaving by saying, "If you take the kids and leave me I'll kill myself!", I knew we'd all be better off, but it would have been akin to murder and I couldn't do it. So I told them to do what they could to save his life. So they did and they did save his life.

So we began the  long trips 

But this last trauma, this diagnosis of leukoaraiosis, is something I just have to learn to live with. There is no reversal and no cure.  Leukoaraiosis is the deterioration of white matter of the brain. So far it has resulted in memory loss, a loss of mobility( I could walk using a walker then literally over nigh I was in a wheelchair) my ability to care for myself and incontinence. It really doesn't sound that bad when you look at my past traumas:

The loss of loved ones including my dad, rape, attempted suicide, heart surgery, and addiction ( I had 30 years clean this January 9, 2026) But I feel like I have recovered from the other traumas; the losses of loved ones eased with time, the rape has taken many years and some good therapy to recover from, attempted suicides were due to past traumas and I recovered through therapy, the heart surgery was terrifying and painful(I'm diabetic, so it took a long time to heal) but eventually I healed, and the addiction began as an attempt to self medicate the rape but I was blessed to eventually find treatment and a 12 step program that saved my life. I never went back to using.

But I have to learn to deal with and live with the leukoaraiosis. Its going to be hard. My worst fear is that I will develop dementia(this is a common outcome). I see residents here with me in the nursing home who have dementia and its scary. I don't want to forget the people I love. I don't want to become aggressive. I don't want to be...not me.

Im an artist and I create alot. I wonder if I'll still be able to create?

I like to read, will I still like to read?

I'm an amateur writer, will I still be able to write?

There are so many what ifs and will I's that every new day is a wait and see what happens event. 

I am grateful for what time I will have to remain...me. I want to try to live my life as full as I can. Spend a lot of time with family and friends, to write, create art, to be of help to someone. To experience things in what's ever capacity I can. To encourage and uplift others. 

This website began as a way for people to share their stories of survival and healing. Its turned into something more. Its a way to leave my B.O.S. to my family and friends when I've passed the point of being me. And a place of recovery, healing, learning and teaching. The website will probably never be finished. Either more stories will be shared of I'll add new pages because I learned something new.

I wish you blessing, so many blessings!  Thank you for stopping by. If you have a story of survival and healing to share, please let us know on the form and well get in touch to get your story and add it to the blog exactly as you send it to us. You'll find a form at the bottom of each page.

Brightest Blessings,

Stephanie of The Altered Goddess