Growing up in abuse: My road to wellness

What happened?
At age 5 my mother met my stepfather. From the very beginning, my stepfather was abusive. They married on my 10th birthday and announced that we were moving into the country – a remote area. That’s when the physical abuse really escalated. He tied my dog to a tree and shot him 3 times and with each shot the dog had bounced. When he put a gun to my mother’s head, I knew that we would die if we didn’t leave. The night I finally left, I was 15 and he and my mother were fighting again. I normally would try to keep quiet in my bedroom and wait for it to either escalate or end. On this night I could tell that it was going to be a bad fight. I knew I had to make sure that my mother would be okay. I came out of my bedroom and he had taken all of the contents from the fridge and smashed in the kitchen. He was hitting my mother who lay protecting herself on the floor. I jumped on his back and started hitting him. He turned on me and chased me to my bedroom. He had a knife. I was on my standing on bed and he was at the foot of the bed. He sliced the weather protector sealant we had on my windows. My mother came running in and I guess he realized what he was doing. He just walked out of the room. I packed what I could take and started walking down the street vowing to never return again. As I left he told me that I would never amount to anything. My mother stayed with him.

How I survived
Throughout the time with him, I never told any of my friends. I tried my best to simply fit in and pretend that everything was normal. A grade 8 teacher noticed that I had some natural talent as a middle distance runner and encouraged me to start running for my high school. This was a great outlet for me and I became very good at running. I won many awards and was recognized by the city for outstanding achievement. The positive encouragement that received from this outlet was what I needed to feel special and give my life meaning. By doing night school and day school I graduated high school a semester early which meant that I could find full time work. I eventually found my own apartment and through the help of some friends started a new life for myself.


Road to Wellness
I was working as a co-op student at a hospital during the last semester of high school. I was thirsty for knowledge and would even go in to the placement on weekends so that I could learn more. The manager at the time was so impressed by my interest and commitment to learn that he gave me a part time job doing heart tests on patients and eventually covered the cost of my education to become certified as a Cardiology Technologist. I found positive outlets where I would be congratulated for my contributions, giving me what I wasn’t getting from my family.