Brionica

(I have omitted some of the gory parts of this story due to current relationships with the people in it)

 

Growing up I was a happy, outgoing and bubbly little girl. Despite this I received constant body criticism from my grandmother, and drugs and alcohol were things that I saw often. My father left us when I was three and I haven’t had a healthy relationship with him since. My grandmother, mother and one of my uncles were heavy smokers. As I grew up, it was discovered that I had asthma after having an attack at a basketball game. I lived with my two uncles, mother, brother and grandmother my entire childhood. My brother and I shared a room, and I was sexually/physically abused and harassed by different family members and
their friends. Life like this didn’t stop until I was twelve; my grandmother became severely ill and was diagnosed with COPD, and an autoimmune disease.. Things at home got so much worse, and I lost the attention and patience that all little girls learning about love and puberty need. I found myself smoking, drinking alcohol and in a very abusive relationship. I was abused
physically, sexually and verbally. When I got home, my mother did nothing but scream at me and send me to my room if she acknowledged me at all. This lead me down a path of serious depression and self harm. Everything I was experiencing in my life became overwhelming, and I attempted suicide. I swallowed pain medication that was given to me for an infected tooth. I was 14. Later that same day in school, I laid on the bathroom floor vomiting out all the pills I had taken on an empty stomach. I was found by a friend who got the help of the school nurse. From the hospital I was sent to a mental institution in Keene, NH. Not long after I came home from the mental institution I got courage on my own to break up with my boyfriend. Things got violent, but I had friends on my side. Two months later I lost my childhood home due to what the court deemed “unfit living conditions”. We spent the remainder of that year (6 months) living in a tent in the woods. This was my brother, uncles, recovering grandmother and mother. I walked to a nearby friend’s house to catch the bus to school and I showered in the girl’s locker room. By the end of the school year my mother got a call from DCYF (Division of Children, Youth and Families) stating that if she didn’t find a home for me by the end of that month I would be put in foster care. I spent my summer at a christian summer camp, learning about Jesus and self love. While I was there my mother was abused (not the first time) by one of my uncles. She had gotten a job at Dunkin’ Donuts and was so proud to bring me a big breakfast she had made. This would be the first time I had seen her in 2 months. She arrived on foot, covered in food, and the drink she had bought me, sobbing. I held her as she cried and she explained to me that she jumped out of my uncles moving vehicle because he wouldn’t stop physically abusing her. I immediately told the pastor at the camp and the police were
called. I spent the day helping my mother file a restraining order against my uncle stating he wasn’t allowed within 500 feet of my mother, brother and I. She stayed with people from a church she had started going to, and saved up enough money for a 3bd 2ba low income apartment where later on she, my brother, and I would live (I was 15). It was while living in this apartment complex that I met Mikhial.Through him, and the help of God I quit smoking and drinking altogether.