Self-Love is Elusive When Your Childhood is Troubled.
At the age of 5 I was taken away from my mother and put into a foster home. I could say it was my mother’s fault for choosing her addiction over me, but I’ve come to understand the struggle. I stayed with my father for a while, but ended up going back into foster homes because my father’s girlfriend at the time abused me.
When I was 9, my father searched for my mother, who was living in South Carolina, and brought me to live with her. Because of her addiction I was unable to stay with her and had to go live with my great-grandmother. She used to call me ugly and tell me I would be a nobody just like my mother. It broke my spirit and I didn’t know anything about loving myself or having self esteem.
I was dealing with abandonment and rejection at an early age, so after living with my grandmother for two years I ended back up in foster care. During my times in different foster homes and group homes I attempted suicide several times. At age 17, I signed myself out of the system.
I was no longer a ward of the state and I graduated top of my class with a GED.
Still, at that age I wasn’t loving who I was and I didn’t have good self-esteem, but I was proud of myself for my accomplishments. I had graduated, I had my own apartment and I was working. I ended up going to college and working two jobs just to pay for school. But when I had my first child at 23 and had to drop out of school, I was lost. I moved out of state, trying to find myself, because I was going through my pregnancy by myself.
Then, at 25, I was in a really abusive relationship that almost cost my unborn child and myself our lives. I moved to Charlotte to get away from my abuser. It took me a while to get my life together, and it was so hard being in the shelter and raising two babies on my own.
I thought I was getting my life back together when I got married at 28, but I ended up in a relationship so riddled with infidelity that it further lowered my self esteem to the point that I wanted to end my own life.
After my marriage was completely finished, I lost my car, my job and my home. My children and I were living in a hotel with little to no support. Even the people who I thought were family were nowhere to be found. I sold everything I had to try to keep surviving. I found myself at the lowest point of my life with depression hitting me hard. I remember being at a bridge getting ready to jump until I thought about my children.
It was a Long Journey to Self Love, but I Made it
In 2017, I picked myself back up and restarted my journey to bettering myself. I learned how to love me regardless of what my flaws were. I started embracing who I was and eventually decided to get into modeling. I managed to get on my feet with a job and a home and by 2018 I started my own businesses and began to work for myself.
If I could end this with something it would be this: Love you for you. Nobody is going to love you better than you can love yourself. No one is perfect, so the sooner you accept that, the better your journey will become. When you learn to live for yourself and not for the validation of others, you will begin to glow and grow.
This is my story!
