Thursday, November 29, 2018

Brooke: Katie's Brave Face

First submitted: Saturday, September 27, 2014

Here's a nominated submission, from a really strong woman. She's walked through a lot of hurt yet stepped out of the downward spiral... so proud of her, her story below is really encouraging. 


Hi! My name is Katie, I'm 23 years old and my high school days were pretty rough.. I lost my mom(cancer), my boyfriend(car accident), and two of my dearest friends(one to cancer and one to a car accident). I started going out and drinking a lot because I didn't want to think about it.
I ended up getting pregnant at 19, being raised in a Christian home I thought the right thing to do was marry the man who got me pregnant; he was one of my good friends since 6th grade and we were dating so I thought we could make the whole happy family thing work. 5 months after getting married my "husband" couldn't handle all the stress of a new family and he left. Being in a small town he didn't go very far but cut off all communication with me, wouldn't answer any texts or phone calls and pretty soon I started hearing all the whispers around the town about him out partying and doing drugs and cheating on me.
The devastation took me to a real dark place.. After everything I had been through and now my family was falling apart..how was I supposed to raise a kid on my own?
 I began to go out and party with friends leaving my son with my little sister or dad with the excuse that I'm still young I still need to be able to go out. I ended up meeting a very attractive guy and he seemed to be paying me attention and I liked that. I loved the idea of my baby's daddy finding out I was with someone very attractive and had moved on so I was gonna do anything to keep this guy around. I started having parties at my house and he started bringing around a "party drug" I did it believing my own lie that it was no big deal it was all in good fun but when the parties were over and I realized I was alone every time I could feel myself drowning. One time I was laying in my bed trying to go to sleep but I could feel a very dark presence and I was terrified.. When I reached to grab the cover to pull over me something moved over me and grabbed my hand.. It was dark and it happened very fast. I screamed and moved to the top of my bed. I knew that what I was doing and where I was going was not a good place. I prayed to God for help, I didn't want to be scared anymore, I didn't want to be lost anymore.
 He opened up an opportunity for me to move to Catalina Island and I took it. Starting over can be really scary and cutting ties with people you know are toxic for you can be very hard, but that's exactly what I did.. I moved to Catalina and stopped talking to everyone I used to party with, plugged into a church and started focusing on my son. Today I'm happier than I've ever been in my entire life, I have 1 friend, my son.. And he's the best friend I could ever ask for every morning I wake up feeling so blessed that I'm not living in that toxic dark world and that my son isn't around it. We can live our life free and happy with a God that takes good care of us.




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