About Me

My photo
New Albany, Indiana, United States

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

She's not just a stranger anymore.

I consider her my friend and will for life. You just never know who will be placed in your life and why. I won't say her name on here but this woman has been through even more than I have. She has touched me deeply and has shaken me to the core on wanting to help people even more. The woman I am talking about is a 32 year old lady with two of the most beautiful daughters you could ever see and a loving husband.

I was bored one night a few months back and none of my friends at the time were playing draw something with me. For those of you who don't know its a game where you basically draw things. It gives you three words to choose from and then you just draw it and wait for your opponent to guess it. Well this particular night I selected a random opponent. It chose for me and it was this lady. We played for a while and also wrote to one another on the screen. We did this for a few weeks at least. We eventually became facebook friends. I told her I was a photographer and she wanted to check out my work so I gave her my page and then we just became friends. Seemed like a nice enough lady from what I knew of her from playing the game. Lol. I know, it sounds silly but it gets deeper.

Throughout our friendship on Facebook she comments on my photos of Jace and I do the same on her photos and videos of her girls. We went on commenting back and fourth for a long time. We have now been Facebook pals for a few months. Our deep conversation only started this past week. For some reason after reading my blog posts about my tragic events in my life she felt comfortable enough with me to tell me some things about her. Some very tragic things. Of course, I asked her if I could share her story. I know how hesitant she is/was and you will too once you read of her story. But, I have to tell it. For her and for myself.

She wrote me a message one night saying we have more things in common than she thought. She also suffers from PTSD and had a very bad childhood. I didn't want to ask too much at that point because I didn't want to be intrusive. Over the next few days she tells me bits and pieces of what happened to her. The first thing was her dad had been in prison for quite some time for abusing her. I didn't ask at that time what type of abuse because like I said I didn't want to be intrusive. She was sharing and I let her share what she wanted to share with me. She went on to tell me that she was also raped at 14.

This is where it gets hard for me. As you all know from reading I was raped at 13. It screwed me up a lot. Well, not only did she get raped she got pregnant by her perpetrator. She decided to keep the child and not breathe a word to anyone about the rape. So she would rather people think she just made a mistake when she was younger and not have to ever let her child know she was from a rape incident. I cannot tell you how much this tore me apart. Although I was raped I was fortunate enough not to get pregnant from it. I could not imagine what that must have felt like. For her to tell me that she just put it in the back of her mind as something totally different and deal with it and love the child no matter what inspired me more than anything ever has in my life. I don't believe in abortion, period. I do however believe in situations like this it could be forgiven or even give the baby up for adoption. She is so strong. I cried my eyes out to Steve telling him about this. Even though we are friends the way we are it was killing me to know that her being the age her daughter is now she was going through this at that time. I also had feelings of there is no way I could ever keep a child like that. I couldn't cope with it and deal with it. Its amazing how she kept her baby and now a beautiful teenager even though she was conceived the way she was. I felt for her, the childhood that was taken from her, the person she still is because of this.

Her story doesn't just end there. There is actually details I left out even before the rape of this man that got her pregnant. I finally asked her if she didn't mind me asking why her dad went to prison. She told me he abused her but didn't tell me how. I finally asked that and it was even more heartbreaking to me. Her dad, that is/was supposed to be her protector started molesting and raping her at the age of 5. Yes, 5! She had to endure this for years. Many years. Somehow it came out and he of course went to prison. Rightly so. In my eyes he didn't serve enough time. Sexual abusers do not serve enough time period. Do you know that drug dealers serve more time than sexual abusers? I think that needs to change. I can't change it. I wish I could. They only have to register as sex offenders which is still not enough. They can still be around kids and abuse people.

Even though I went through what I did and have had some friends come to me about what happened to them, her story makes me want to change the laws for things like this. I want to make a difference and change the way things are done about these situations. Its not fair to the victims that they live with this for the rest of their lives and they get out of prison and get to continue their life. Never thinking of what they did to their victim. Its not just sexual abuse they have to endure but the after that comes with that. The years of torment they have to endure emotionally because of what happened to them. The never trusting another man because of what happened to them, the nightmares, the panic attacks, the paranoia. Yes they all deal with this, just like I have. Yet the perpetrator gets out of jail in a couple of years and can go on living his live. How is that even fair?! Its not!

To my special friend that I have become close friends with. You have helped me and inspired me even though you said I did that for you. You helped me in the process. You made my drive to change things even more. I have never met you in person and I love you. You are a beautiful person and I hope to someday get to meet you and talk with you in person. We crossed paths for a reason. Keep your head up. If you can't write for yourself yet or tell your story I will do it for you and help you any way that I can. You are a beautiful soul and I consider you a great friend of mine now.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sandy I can't imagine going through this myself but you ladies are doing a fantastic job of putting your tragic experiences behind you. I imagine it is/was very tough on the both of you, and although I don't know this person, I can say if she's anything like you, she'll be fine. You have remarkable strength and passion and I admire that in you. Steve and Jace are lucky to have you :) Thanks for sharing! Audrey R.

Pearl said...

So beautiful the way people meet and come together sometimes.

Sandy said...

Thank you Audrey. That means a lot. It was hard to get through but its because of Steve and Jace that gave me the drive to get through it. They motivated me to get the help I knew I needed. Especially Jace. I didn't want him to grow up with a mom that was mentally unstable because of all the demons inside. So I had to get healthy for him. I am glad I did. I feel as free as a bird. I hope the lady in this blog post draws enough strength to start speaking out too. She is amazing.

Maggie, its so true. The world works in mysterious ways.

Ann Jones said...

It sounds like you have found a great friend! I love the photo of you and your son on your header, beautiful! New follower from bloggy moms, I look forward to hearing more inspiring posts from you in the future!

http://wvfrugal-wvsaver.blogspot.com/

Sandy said...

Thank you so much for the wonderful compliments. I'll be sure to follow back :)