I was a confident child for no reason whatsoever. I believed in my abilities, my intelligence, and my charm. I just knew that whatever came my way, I was up for the task. And then life happened. Then I caught the attention of older male relatives who tried to get close to me. And although they didn’t succeed, the damage to my psyche was done.
Maybe if I weren’t attracting attention to myself by being confident and sh*t, then not one, not two, but three different grown men wouldn’t have noticed me.
I grew into an outwardly confident but inwardly insecure teen. While I pursued modeling and dance and found a little success with it, my sense of unworthiness had me quitting before I could fail and involved in an abusive relationship with my high school boyfriend.
I spent two years with him; two years filled with love and hurtful words, and so much fun, and backhanded smacks and a secret belief that I somehow deserved his f*ckery because clearly I had the exceptional talent of attracting only one type of man — the abusive asshole.
I spent my teens and my 20s in a series of long-term abusive relationships. I didn’t think I deserved better and I was a super rationalizer, or more to the point, an expert-level bullshit accommodator.
I had given birth to three children and adopted a fourth by the time I met my first husband. We were both former journalists transitioning into the digital space. It was the Wild West days of the web, my email was janire at aol and I was feeling no pain.
It was a whirlwind romance. His brain and confidence roped me in and before I knew it, I had sold my car, packed up my life and was crossing state lines in a U-haul truck with two toddlers to start my new life.