This is my personal story...I will tell it the best that I can!

Just a warning....the story is kinda long......

This is a subject that is hard for me to talk about. My life has been a LONG and HARD road to get to where I am now.....reading other web pages along the way has given me the strength to write this healing page.....if for no one else....ME.....and if it helps someone else....that would be WONDERFUL. I don't know WHERE to start with all of this....cuz my story actually starts BEFORE the arthritis and FMS..... I had a very normal and happy childhood up until I was 13. This is when my life started to fall apart. I was RAPED by four teenagers, I went to school with them but I did not KNOW them very well,it was just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and with a girl from church that I THOUGHT was my friend... I have spent years blaming myself when I had NOTHING to blame myself for. I was a VERY NAIVE girl who had never even SEEN a man naked. I had no idea what was going on.....much less understood what was happening. The only thing I can even guess is that my "friend" promised these guys a good time and these guys RAPED me (I was a VIRGIN) even tho I was begging & pleading & crying. It is SO HARD for me to think about the person that I was then.....I have had counseling since I have become an adult.....but nothing can ever give you back that sense of KNOWING that something was stolen from you. I spent my high school years defending myself because it was spread around the school by certain people that I was "one of those kind of girls". I thank God that I had a handfull of GOOD FRIENDS who defended me and helped me get thru school. Regarding the rape.....I didn't tell my parents till I was 16 years old, it was very well known that in "those days" (the early 70's) rapes were very hard to prove and I just let it go. When I turned 17, I thought I was all grown up and all I wanted was a husband and children.....I met a man 11 years older than me and I thought I was madly in love. He asked me to marry him and I was SO FLATTERED that someone as "sofisticated" and so much older could even be interested in me. Much to my parents dismay, I married him. This was the worst mistake that I have EVER made in my life. This man turned into a totally different person after he married me. He was insanely jealous, he constantly belittled me, he would stay out all night at bars, etc. and then expect me to jump out of bed WHENEVER he chose to come home to cook him something to eat. He started cheating on me after six months of marriage. But all of that wasn't enough, he then started to push me around and that lead to choking me, aiming guns at me, threatening to kill my pets..I can go on & on......the words he said to me got worse and worse......but I didn't leave.....in between all the abuse, I managed to have two beautiful boys....they were my WHOLE world......the ONLY good thing that happened in my farce of a marriage. I lived like this from 1975 to 1996.....of course I took the kids and left a million times.....but I always went back...he would PROMISE that things would change, that he would kill himself if I took the boys and myself away from him..bla bla bla...like a FOOL, I believed......In 1996.......I left and never went back to him.....BUT..this was only after I tried to kill myself....I was a SHELL of the person that I was when I met him. I was now almost an invalid....I had been diagnosed thru the years with Rheumatoid Arthritis, Migraines, Fibromyalgia,Asthma, Spastic Colon, Cervical Cancer,Stomach ulcers, Bipolar Disorder, anxiety attacks & severe Depression.

This is me, Will (my oldest son) and Bubba (on the right, my baby) They are my sole reason for existance bur when I was so ill, they could not even pull me out of my hell. I live in terror even now of one day having a relapse.

I'm sorry that I am dwelling on my past mistakes...... I was in a VERY abusive relationship in my first marriage and I want other women to know that they are not alone. There was PHYSICAL abuse.......but MOSTLY it was the MENTAL abuse that did me the worst damage......I could recuperate from the physical abuse...but the mental......well......let's just say that I still suffer from what that man did to me mentally. My self esteem has always been very low, but he managed to bring it to an ALL TIME LOW! But....... I am VERY happy to be able to tell you that I am now in a normal relationship with a caring and loving man. It makes SUCH a difference to have someone in your life who believes in you and LOVES you for who you are and doesn't put you down when you make a mistake.....It has taken me ALONG time to be able to trust and care and love again......I will always suffer health wise.....unfortunately, that hasn't gone away.....the Fibromyalgia is VERY painful and the Rheumatoid Arthritis messes with my joints..I still have occasional migraines, I still have colon & ulcer problems, I'm still TIRED and HURT alot the time but I have a few good days now.....BUT....I can handle it alot better now because I have a life that I look FORWARD to living. In the past, things were hard to handle because I didn't want to be where I was.....It makes ALL the difference in the world!!! If anyone who reads this is living in an abusive relationship.....PLEASE...PLEASE.....try to get help.....try to get out of the relationship you are in.....it won't get better, believe me....I tried it and it almost KILLED me.....YOU ARE WORTH THE EFFORT THAT IT TAKES TO GET AWAY FROM THAT PERSON!.

Again, I am sorry if it sounded like I was preaching and being repetitive....I just feel SO STRONGLY about this. I really believe that somehow these diseases that I have are somehow related to people who are high strung and highly stressed out......and unfortunately, alot of doctors out there don't even BELIEVE that there is anything WRONG with us......except that we are "hypochondriacs". There are a few good and understanding doctors out there, but they are FEW and FAR between! If anyone knows of a great doctor in the Houston, Tx area, PLEASE share his name with me!!

Get to know me and my family a little better, check out my other pages!!

BACK TO MY MAIN PAGE... Diane's Homepage

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws