I AM A DIAMOND UNIQUELY MADE

There is no way of knowing how your life will turn out to be. You just have to live it and hope that your life has meaning and help people along the way. I have always thought of myself as my mother's clone, because of the similar events that happened in our lives made me just love on her even more. See my my mom was one of the strongest women I have ever met. Then at the same time she was also a weak woman who at times let the struggles of life get to her as well.

Let me begin by saying that Debra (Deborah) Boyd Green was a true diva. Her smile simply lit up the room when she walked in. She was full of confidence and love and she did not mind helping people. When she loved she loved hard and gave her relationships all that she had and that made her special. My mom was the type of person who treated people the way she wanted to be treated but did not always get that from the men in her life. She would also keep her feelings inside and always kept a smile on her face but deep down you knew she was holding on to something.

I really did not know my biological father but I knew his name was Steve Jackson and that he was a handsome man who thought he was the best thing walking since slice bread and a womanizer to the bone. He was a bad boy if you will and that was very interesting to my mom. She loved this man's dirty draws and despite of it all she would have done anything for him. Steve had so much potential but only wanted to what he did best nothing. He was always with walking around like he paid the cost to be the boss, and he really just lived off of women.

I have not ever heard anyone say he held down a job or had a career in anything other than using and abusing women. My mom was his first wife and this marriage was filled with abuse from the start. My mom would work and bring the money home to him. At one point when she was pregnant with me Steve pushed her down the stairs and never gave her a reason on why he did what he did. All I know is that I was not expected to be born until June 1973 but I was born pre mature in April, I guess due to complications of the abuse and she was under his power and at least thought she had no other way out.

My mom would always talk about him with a strong tone in her voice. The tone was more of hurt and pain than it was anger, but she would always tell me that nothing is worse than a woman allowing a man to abuse her. She always said that when men sense the weakness in a woman he always use that to mentally abuse the woman first. Playing with the mind is a way of making a woman feel at her lowest and once that happens the physical abuse comes in and get's worse over time. My mom put up with a lot from Steve, the lying and the cheating and then at the end of the day he would make her feel like it was her fault for him treating her that way.

She took the abuse for years until one day she was able to leave and never look back. My mom left me with my dad and his mother from what I was told and came back and got me later on when I was five or six. By then my sister was born and my mom was with this other man named Albert. Albert was a soft spoken man who never really like to be put in the front of things. He would always be behind the scenes and he was always quiet, so quiet until it was scary.

It was almost like my mom was searching for something in people and I never understood what it was. It was almost like a cry for help but from what I never figured out. My mom became a Nursing Assistant and this was her passion. Helping people was like her calling and she was the best at it. Her heart was always on her sleeve and I really think this is why she got hurt so much. People say that most women who go through abuse and get out always seem to get into another abusive relationship and that is what my mom did.

In her relationship with Albert at first was good. Albert would work and take care of my mom and the house hold bills and my mom would be allowed to keep her money and took care of me and my sister. To be honest the abuse did not start with Albert it started with his grandmother Mrs. Bee. This woman was not a good woman. She was bitter and not a very nice woman. Mrs. Bee never liked my mom because she was the total opposite of her. She never had a nice thing to say to or about my mom, it was like my mom made her sick.

Mrs. Bee had total control of Albert and she was verbally, physically and sexually abusing him. No one ever really knew the truth but the signs were all there. Albert would do what she said and when she said it and at the time I could remember Albert was in his late 30's early 40's and I was like 7 or 8 years old and Mrs. Bee told Albert that my mom was not for him and that she was the only woman he needed in his life. My mom was very hurt and that's when Albert started his abuse on me.

It started when I was 6 and Albert would touch me inappropriately and as a child you don't really know what was going on all u know is you feel weird. Albert told me that this was our fun game but I could not tell my mom about it because she would be upset with me. He would always wait until my mom went to work or to bed to come into my room and touch me, and from the age of 6 to 9 I would pee in the bed. My mom thought at first that I was doing it on purpose and then every time I saw him or he would come in a room I would freeze up and pee on myself.

I can remember I was 12 years old and my mom was at work and I was laying on my bed watching tv. Albert walked in my room and told me to come give him a hug and at first I didn't want to but he said if I did not give him a hug, he was going to hurt my mom. So I gave him a hug. Then he sat me on the edge of my bed and he begin to unzipping his pants and he pulled his penis out. He begin to rub on it and told me to suck it like it was a lollypop and I felt so nasty. He kept saying suck it like its a lollypop and that's when I bit him.

That night my mom came home from work and she came in my room and she saw I was crying and she did not know why but she kept saying I could tell her anything. I told her I don't want her to die and she did not understand what I was talking about. Then she told me that no matter how bad it is I could always tell her and she will not ever be mad at me as long as I tell her the truth. That's when I revealed what Albert was doing to me every since I was 6 years old until that very day. I have never seen my mom cry so much and she held me so tight and told me she was sorry and that he would never hurt me again.

A few days after that we left Albert house and Mrs. Bee was told we left because at the time she was in a nursing home, I gather she was pleased. I'm still convinced she knew about it and yet did nothing to save me from going through this. I am convinced that she probably put him up to this because she was doing it to him all these years. The sad thing is we shall never know because she died years ago. My mom never forgave herself for this happening to me and she also went to her grave with that burden. In my adult life I saw Albert again and it look like Karma was weighing on him, but I had forgave him and told him so before he died.

It is funny how life throws you curve balls and just when you think life is worth living someone comes along and snatches the rug from you. My mom also felt some type of way when I met my son's biological father abusing me as well. It started out the same way Steve did her with the mental abuse. Joe would accuse me of cheating with every man in town including his family members. He never wanted me to socialize with anyone and he always wanted control me. Joe lacked confidence in himself and that is why he abused women all of his adult life.

Joe was the type of man who didn't want to abuse women but his mind would tell him that we were against him. He was not an educated man but was good with his hands. He was in construction and loved doing it but always wanted something more but didn't know how to get it without a better education. When I met Joe he was 19 yrs older than me and at the time I was 21. He was a nice and kind hearted person who looked like he had gone through some things in his life. He taught me how to cook and really to be honest how to be a house wife.

The first time Joe hit me was when he came home from work one day and I was at my parents house. We had dinner with them and went back home. As I was walking in the house Joe slapped me and knocked me out cold. When I came to, he was crying and saying he was sorry and that he would never do it again but he wants me at home when he comes home. I didn't think he would care if I was at my parents house.

The next day we had dinner at my parents house and my mom had a double barrel shot gun on the table. She basically told Joe if he put his hands on me one more time as long as she is living she would kill him. From that point on until the day my mom died he did not hit me any more but the mental and verbal abuse continued. On April 27th 1996, the day after my mom died, was one of the worse days of my life. I was pregnant with my son and Joe had came in from work. We were having dinner and he asked me if there was any thing I wanted to tell him. Needless to say he had been doing crack cocaine from the time he walked in from work until late that evening. So I replied no. He looked at me and said you are going to die tonight bitch if you don't tell me who was here today. I said no one was here and that's when he slapped me and continued to hit me until he got tired.

From that day on I had been went to the ER for bruised ribs to having my jaws wired shut because of him thinking that I was cheating on him. Thank God nothing happened to my baby and he was born November 2, 1996. No one knows what goes through a woman's mind while she is being treated like she has no reason to be on this earth. No one knows how it feels to feel like you are all alone in this world and you have no one to run to. You don't know unless you have been in a person's shoes who go through this on a daily basis. Once a person can control you mentally the rest is easy to do. A lot of people don't get how women can sit there and go through this and not walk out, but that is easier said than done and trust me I blamed myself every time he hit me or called me names.

Joe was a master manipulator who knew what to say and when to say it. This man had me thinking that my parents gave me to him for drugs and the way he said it had me believing it until one day after my mom died I asked my dad; who was our step dad, but he loved and raised us like we were his own children. I asked my dad was Joe telling the truth about him and mom giving me to him and he said absolutely not. The way my dad said that made me not ever aske him that again and in my soul my dad was telling me the truth.

Even with the abuse I went through from the time I was a child until I was an adult I was never a bitter person. I also forgave Joe and told him so months before he died. I had left Joe in 2001 in late August and went to Los Angeles California and returned back to Sumter South Carolina in 2013. When I would run into him he would always say he was sorry for doing me the way he did and that he wished he could have another change, but he knew that would never happen. I am married to the love of my life and he has help raised my son Joseph every since he was 5. I never blamed anyone but myself on allowing another human being to make me their slave if you will. In order for a person to have a slave you have to be able to control them.

Abuse is nothing more than a tool to use when you want full control over another human being and this is why so many people find themselves in prison wanting to break free. Mental abuse is the biggest and most effective type of abuse because the mind controls the body. Without the mental abuse the verbal and physical could not be so easy to play out. See the abuser has to make sure they don't have no one else that can come in and reprogram you and that's where the isolation comes in.

They take you far away from family and friends and just keep you around people he deals with because he knows his people will not interfere with his business. They would turn a blind eye and act like they don't know what's going on, but in reality they are more scared of the person than you are. Some of them will speak up but at the same time will think that you like it because you haven't left yet and this can be further from the truth. You have to have a plan and this plan takes time to put together. You have to make sure all of your ducks are in a row and ready to go. For me it was my support system. My dad Garry and my aunt Gwen was my support system. They sent for me and my son and help me get on my feet.

Joe knew once I would get up the nerve to leave him that I was gone and I would never come back to him. Leaving him the way I did was the best thing that ever happened to me. I gave my child a better life and I experience life without being used and abused. See towards the end of our relationship the sex was more like a rape. There was no telling him no; that I was not in the mood, it was lay down and let him do what he wanted. When my son and I left I had to find out that my son had a learning disability and I did everything possible to get him help and made sure he got his education no questions asked.

My son was so timid and if you said boo he would jump out of his skin. This was due to the abused he had witness and it would tear my heart up when he would jump out of his skin when he heard loud noises or if people yelled or screamed. For a long time I hated myself but there was this one person who saw this little guy as a super man. Truvell was so loving and kind to my son and when we got together he promised me that neither Joseph or me would be hurt like that again and he kept his word.

Yes we have had our problems but Truvell made sure he could help me with our son and we did it together. Life has a way of taking you through the roller coaster of life, and then just when you think that the worse is what your life will be here comes someone who will love you for you. Here you have three women; my mom, me and my sister who have been through abuse by men. My sister has been through men just using her for her body and abusing her just because they would get away with it. My sister still is getting the help she needs to live with it and everyday it's a struggle for her. I will not tell you her name but she is getting stronger every day and trust me she has a support system right here.

Love is a feeling of joy and peace and the free will to give that love to someone who loves you in return. It's a shame when you give your heart to someone you don't know if that person is going to receive your love with open arms or abuse you just to control you. It seems like every man has a need to control a woman it's like the ultimate high. To act out those fantasies is the most degrading thing to do to someone who has done nothing but love and cared about you. Even though most men dream about having that kind of control there are a lot of men who don't because they would not want to have their sisters or mothers or women in their family go through it. Men who do who have women in their family seem to have no conscious about what they are doing, and could care less about the women in their family.

Most men who do this also have low self esteem and they are dealing with some psychological issues that were not dealt with in a timely manner. To want to enslave a woman is the ultimate power and with that power he feels superior over her. Lack of education and lack of a social life could be another reason why the abuse takes place also because of the sense not being good enough. Women don't notice this until afterwards but the best victory after being in a abusive relationship is to survive. Try not to repeat the same thing again and again. Don't go from one abuser to another one and also to seek counseling right away.

Therapy is the best thing to have after being in a abusive relationship because you want to know what to look for and not repeat it again. Going on with life is a must because the more you go on with your life the better things will be. Never blame yourself for the abuse just get the help you need asap. In order for me to have move on with my life I had to tell myself that I am a Diamond and I am uniquely made. Here I am world I Survived Domestic Violence. I am a Survivor.