As A Diamond

All of my life I have been told by people that I couldn’t do something. My mother told me that, though I would go to college at the Christian university that I’m currently attending, that I would drop out after a few years, overburdened by finances and not able to make ends meet. I have completed my second year and I am going on to complete my third year and am going for my BSN. While I know that this may speak volumes about my determination, it also speaks volumes about those who “support” you, yet beat you down, that they may not really support you at all.

I have learned a lot in the last two years, as these two years have been some of the most formative years in my life. In ending contact with my mother during my freshman year in college, I became independent of her, physically, financially, and emotionally. I also learned about healthy boundaries in my life, of which she was crossing on a nearly daily basis. My eyes were opened to the abusive nature that some people may take, and I vowed to never make the mistake of getting involved with someone that was abusive ever again, even if it was with a family member.

Some of the hardest lessons to learn are those that require one to submit to a higher authority. The situations that I have gone through has forced me to trust in and believe in God, as that is the only way that I have gotten through these situations without wanting to take my life (that and the community was very supportive of me). There were many times that I wanted to do things my way, but I discovered later that my way wasn’t always the best. For example, my mother took a credit card of mine and maxed it out on a bankruptcy attorney and stopped paying it when I ended contact with her. It went to collections and I received the backlash from it. Trying to correct the problem was more burdensome, as people did not believe that this could ever happen. The cops told me to take it civil (as if a college student who owed the college $1000+ at the time had any means of paying a retainer for an attorney to sue her Schizophrenic mother) and the bank refused to do anything about it, even insulting me and making me feel terrible. Numerous conversations and two police reports later, I lost hope and gave up. I began to believe that I would have to drop out of college, as the bills were mounting up and there was no way for me to get a student loan because my mother really did a trick on me. I was beginning to fall into the pit of despair, but I also wanted to put my mom through more suffering than she did with me (I wanted to arrest her and have her tried for Forgery, which would have ended her Food Stamp benefits and would have kept her from getting a job, in essence leaving her homeless). Then my dad suggested something radical: to contact the news stations about my story. I did so, believing that my story would be tossed by the wayside and that no one wanted to help me. I would be just one more person, forgotten and wandering the streets alone, unloved and uncared for. However, one did pick it up and contacted Wells Fargo. Within a few days of sending out my story, the debt was absolved and to be taken off my credit report. I would finally be free of this burden that my mom tossed on me, just to get even and to spite me and I didn't have to ruin her life because she didn't ruin mine.

I have been met with much more adversity than this, but through it all, I have discovered that you need to believe. Believe that things will get better because they will. Believe that you are loved because you are. Believe that you aren’t alone because there are others that are going through something similar to what you are going through. Granted, it was very difficult at times and I wanted to throw in the towel and become a hermit more times than I can count, I can say from experience that sticking it through the rough times has been the best decision I have made in my life. It has allowed me to begin to see things from both sides of the story rather than just my selfish side or the side of someone I was close to. It has also formed who I am today, and has changed me from a shy, quietly bitter, selfish and frankly very childish girl to an outspoken, open, selfless, and mature woman. As a diamond is formed under intense heat and pressure, so am I. So instead of viewing these times of hardship with spite and hatred, I embrace and accept them. I wouldn’t trade them for anything, and I hope that you can learn the same in your life as well.