Since many ask "What is your story?", I thought I would let you know mine.

I will not go into great detail about my childhood but lay some situations that established me as a person. I was sexually fondled while I was still a baby by an uncle and a babysitter. My mother was a very strict lady whom I was terrified of. I still am today. My father is an alcoholic and therefore not around through much of my childhood. I rebelled against authority all my life. I strived to be different then everything I knew and that was the norm. I talked back to my teachers, my priest, my coaches and anyone else I could. I was in trouble alot. I stole huge quantities of stuff ranging from candy bars to clothing. The rush made me feel different then I usually felt, which was always down on myself. I had zero self-esteem.
As a pre-teen I turned to sports to vent my pain, my anger, my hurt. It worked wonders. I was a star athelete. People started to look at me as someone who was a good person. This felt eerie to me. I was not used to that feeling of kindness, hope, or dreams. I was an honor student. I excelled in computers, math, english and music. Still abused my teachers, coaches and clergy though.
When I reached High School, I did not fit into any one cliche. I was friends with all. I was a nerd, a geek, a rocker, a jock, a muscian, a stoner, a smoker, an artist. This served all my purposes just fine. But yet, I did not have any true friends. No one who knew my family life and the hardships I endured at home. No one who knew how bad I felt about myself. Because I felt bad about myself, I quickly learned how great it made me feel to make others feel bad about themselves. I did this daily. I was not happy unless I made someone cry every day. I have a wonderful knack of looking at people and knowing instantly what they hated about themselves and I used this all the time to make them hurt.
By Grade 11 I started to stray from sports because of my smoking, toking and drinking habits. I ended up coaching, managing and arranging instead. I was still in the school band, choir, and drama departments. As this grade went forward, I feel backwards. I skipped to get high. I skipped to drink. I still was an honor student by just going when there were tests. I never studied. I never really cared. I just wanted to graduate or fear the wrath of my mother.
By Grade 12, No sports, no drama, no more geek friends, no more nerd friends. I found myself friends with just hte "stoners" I drank every weekend, toked every morning before school, at school at lunch, at friends houses after school. I was high all the time. Due to this, when the weekends came, I drank as well. I would wake up sometimes with the worst feelings of stuff I had done but did not remember. I drank more to forget those feelings. 6 months before graduation, I found myself pregnant. I had no one to turn to. No one to confide in. I did not want to kill a child I had created. I looked at the situation as " I was adult enough to get here, I should be adult enough to deal with it without killing anyone." I told no  one. I stopped drinking, toking, partying, skipping school, and hanging out with EVERYONE. The day of my graduation, I was showing. I had no choice but to tell my mother and my sisters. To my surprise, they accepted the situation and were very supportive. After I graduated, I fell into my first bout of depression. I ate and ate and ate. I used the whole "eating for 2" to the extreme. I went from 105 pre-pregnancy to almost 250 lbs by the time I was due.
I had my baby boy in my 17th year of life. My mom wanted to adopt him and raise him as her own. I still thought this was wrong. I got myself into it, I will get myself out of it. I got a waitressing job, my mom and sisters babysat for me. I was still depressed. Still had zero self-esteem. I met this guy through work who treated me very kind. I was not used to people being kind to me. We started dating. After 8 months of dating, I found myself pregnant again. I told him I could not commit murder and so he said we had no choice but to get married.
We married, had a son, and moved away. Once we had all this, I thought life would be great. It ended up the complete opposite. He hated my first son. He used to call him names, put him down, punish him for uneccasry things. I would get upset at these things and he would yell at me. The screaming turned into name calling, which turned into slapping, which turned into out right physical abuse. This turned to mental abuse and in turn, sexual abuse. My sister came for a visit around christmas one year and the first thing she said was "Where are the boys? Oh wait..let me guess..in their room" and rolled her eyes. That stopped me in my tracks and I reviewed my life and the effects on my 2 sons. That night, when he came home from "work" (In quotes because I found out later he did not have a job and was out cheating on me), I told him it was over. He beat me severely over this. But I left. I never asked for alimony, just child support (which I am still waiting for even though it is court ordered)
I lived the single life for years. I was single mom living in a huge city. My parents moved up north. One of my sister moved up north. I went to a trades college. Got a banking degree. Went to visit my parents and eneded up staying.
Got a job with the local government there. Dated a guy, got pregnant, got married, had 2 more children. All through the dating, the marriage, he hit me, called me names and sexually abused me.
I stayed because I thought I could never do any better. I was a single mom of 2 children, who would want me anymore? I endured this abuse for 10 years.

3 months after my last son was born, I went to parents for the night to house sit for them. I came home in the morning and found him in our bed screwing our neighbour. He beat me for 2 hours straight over this. He broke my ankle, my fingers, my wrist. I had multiple concussions on my head. My eyes were both blackened. When he hit me with a barbell in the head, I passed out. When I woke up, he was passed out next to me. I drove to my parents house and called the police. They took him away and he was going to be charged with attempted murder.
He served 30 days in jail.
Since then, I have moved away from that house, that town, and have been struggling to make a life a life for myself.
It has been 4 years now since then. I am still unemployed. I get the good old "You are overqualified" for this position. I struggle every month to pay rent, feed my children, clothe them.
I have suffered 2 mini strokes by working 2 jobs. Inever saw my children for days because of work. I quit one job for health reasons. Then the other job ended. Leaving me unemployed and broke again.

I am telling my story in hopes that if ONE person can learn from my mistakes, I would have endured a life of hardships, abuse, and cruelity for something.