High School Drop Out To College Graduate

This story is by a guest writer, that we would like to keep anonymous.

My story may be familiar to some of you who are reading it or completely foreign to others, I am a high school drop out. There is a certain stigma associated with being a high school drop out. Some people will say we are stupid, worthless, and that we are going nowhere in life. While the decision I made to drop out of high school seemed like the only option at the time, it is one I have truly regretted for a very long time. However, I no longer have regrets or self-pity. The choice was mine to make, but it was not a choice that defined me as a person. This is my story.
Growing up, I came from a poor family. Most people in my family dropped out of high school. From my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, most of them never finished high school. As a result of this, my parents held low-income jobs. There were times that our power got shut off, there wasn’t much food in the fridge, and there was never much at Christmas. While my childhood was mostly ok by emotional standards, the financial standards were less than favorable.
While attending school, I was very active in different sports and clubs. I was a cheerleader and on the student council. I was a very upbeat and social person that enjoyed spending time with my friends. However, this is when the unraveling began. My parents got divorced when I was 16-years old. My Mother had been setting up plans to divorce my Father for several years prior to the actual day she left. When I was in middle school she took me to see some apartments with her. For several years previous to this, she also set up plans for us to see a male friend of hers out of town periodically, all while reminding me not to tell my Father. After these awkward encounters, I harbored a huge amount of guilt and feelings of remorse that I had no control over.
After my Mother left when I was 16, it was just my Father and I in an empty house, and my depression began to set it. My Father was in a depressive state because his wife had left him and I felt as if I contributed to his feelings of sadness because I did not speak up and say anything to him about the man my Mother was taking me to see. Looking at my Father, I felt that I betrayed him and caused him a huge amount of sadness. My depression worsened and I was prescribed medication.
As I wrestled with these feelings of what I felt that I had done, my depression worsened to the point where I tried to commit suicide. I was hospitalized and treated at a youth facility where I completed a program for depression. When I was released, I found out people in my high school were spreading horrible rumors about me and I began to become more depressed and developed intense anxiety. Finally, after all the rumors, the giggles, and the staring, I decided that I could not handle the walls of my high school and I decided to drop out at 18 years old, with only one semester left of my high school career. Even though my family tried to convince me otherwise, there was no way that I was going back to school.
After dropping out of high school, I started partying intensely and hanging out with people that I should not have been. Fortunately, my sister offered to let me come live with her in another city so I could start fresh. The stipulations that she had were that I get my GED and find a job. Finally, after getting a good retail job and obtaining my GED, I felt like my life was finally getting back on track. I was happy because I had a wonderful support system with my sister and her family and I felt like I was talking care of myself. My sister then pushed me to pursue college because she knew I could make something of myself.
When I moved away for college, I found new opportunities and great friends. Unfortunately the freedom and the extra student loan money got the best of me and I was now a college dropout. At 18, I simply was not mature enough to attend classes because I was too busy being social and having fun. I did however, learn the hard way that life is not easy on your own. After having a part-time retail job, I found myself working full-time in a call center second shift.
The depression began to sink in because I felt like I wasn’t doing anything with my life and I felt very disconnected from the world and my family. At the age of 19, I found myself back into psychiatric treatments staying in-patient and in group therapy. This is where I really learned valuable coping skills and decided that I did not want to live a depressed life anymore. I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage, but I wanted to change and become a more positive, less depressed person.
My life completely changed when I met my now-husband. He comes from a very tight-knit family. His parents were very good to me and let me move in with them and they started to feel like family. With the support of my husband, he pushed me to go back to school. The night before I started m first math class, I bawled my eyes out because I thought I was going to fail. The funny thing is, I aced that class, along with every other subsequent math class that I have taken.
My life did a complete 180. I went from being someone who got poor grades in high school to becoming a woman who made the Dean’s list every semester in college. With every class, there were many challenges but the rewards were huge. Through this college experience, I have gained so much confidence and happiness within myself that I never thought was possible. Overcoming the obstacles of remedial math and science classes and being another poverty student statistic, were extremely hard obstacles for me to overcome. The self-doubt I also carried within myself was also another huge hurdle for me to cross over.
But, I made it. Now I can finally say, at the age of 25, I proved the statistics wrong. Mostly, I am finally happy with myself. Sure, I still battle depression but I have learned that there are ways to manage these feelings. The biggest thing I have learned is that we really can do whatever we put our minds to. I am forever grateful for the opportunity to attend college and have a chance to change my life around. What is important in life is how we go forward after we make a mistake. I truly regretted dropping out of high school and college but I found the motivation within myself to go back and face my fears. Now, I am happier than ever and will never have to face poverty again.

Not Just Survivors

As a survivor, you can change the world. You can motivate people again and again, and encourage them to do good with their lives. Survivors can do phenomenal work, but that’s not enough for the World. It cannot just be survivors who care. It cannot just be loved ones of victims. We need all the help we can get, including people outside of the tragedy that is Child Abuse.

According to statistics provided by childhelp.org, 4-7 children die each day to child abuse. While all child deaths are tragic, we hear about children dying in hot cars, averaging a few dozen a year, when child abuse loses 1,460-2,555 a year, yet they never make national news. We need to care more, and we cannot do it alone

Child Abuse Prevention Month

Many of you know, simply because you follow organizations working to end child abuse, and because you’re advocates yourself, that April is Child Abuse Awareness Month. April kind of snuck up on me, so I’m a little behind advocating as much as I should for this incredible month. What dawned on me while watching T.V. is that while social media and television advocates many important organizations, I have yet to see one advertisement bringing people together to end abuse. On social media I do, more often than not, but that’s because like you, the organizations I follow are designated toward ending abuse.

While working together to make a difference is important, imagine all of the voices we could reach is the cause was trending for this month? Coming together we can find solutions for simple acts that will be easy to repeat. Wearing blue is so simple, yet only current advocates do it, and why is that? Because the World outside of advocates and philanthropists for child abuse awareness don’t have the knowledge of fun ideas or easy actions they can take to promote awareness.

This month is nationally claimed as child abuse awareness month so lets use the better half of this month to educate anyone willing to try to do their part in ending abuse. Encourage them to wear blue, make a simple blue ribbon pin, blog or post on instagram, twitter, or facebook using the hashtag #ChildAbusePreventionMonth and #WearBlueForChildAbuse . With these simple methods, we can realize the true beauty of social media, and all of the positive outlets it has to offer to bring the world together for a cause.

Create a social media event of your own, and include us. Be creative and do what you can to prevent abuse. For more information and tips please visit https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/preventing/preventionmonth

The Silent Fight In America

Have you ever noticed how many arguments Americans involve themselves in Daily? There’s abortion, race, and the welfare system, oh and immigration, that I see people have everyday. The fight I rarely see? The one about child abuse, advocating for abused children, and foster kids (as a good amount of them come from abusive homes. I’m not saying the people I know advocating against child abuse aren’t doing a good job. Nicolette alone is inspiring people everyday, all while being in graduate school, and a pet owner(which might not seem like a huge commitment, but she treats her dog how I treat mine, and that requires constant attention); but child abuse is one of the few causes that, if you’re not a volunteer or your job doesn’t involve the subject, nobody has an opinion on it.

It’s weird to think how many people have an opinion about every topic, but not this one. It’s as if they don’t see it as a huge deal. If you looking at the statistics in the blogs bio (included by Nicolette via childhelp.org) you see how statistically speaking, those abused are more likely to have a child young, do drugs, and be imprisoned for one reason or another; ironic because those three fall back on everyone’s major problem with the welfare system. Of course there’s many survivors that become empowered by their tragedies, but it’s not easy. It’s hard to overcome abuse in a positive way without support system. When abused children are taken from their homes, they enter foster care…each year, an average of 20,000 kids, age out of foster care, never having a family, this traces back to another argument, about reproduction, but I don’t see anybody jumping forward to adopt the kids who need it most. Is it because they’re no longer babies? Giving a child coming out of a traumatic family home can help them to build this positive atmosphere for themselves, and to never give up, no matter what struggles they face.

Day 4, 5, & 6 of The Survivor 21 Day Challenge

I hope the first three days you’ve felt a little bit more positivity flowing to surpass the lows. Here’s Day 4, 5, and 6. Remember this challenge is for you. It’s to remind you how incredible you are. You’ve gone through something traumatic, something that can easily lead you down a dark path, and even if it did at one point…you’re here now, and that matters. Never stop being proud of yourself.

Day 4: Write one thing you wish you could change about your past, preferably your youth, and think of something you can do to actually work towards that change now.

Day 5: What is the best experience you’ve had since you realized that you’re a survivor?

Day 6: What would you tell someone experiencing the abuse you’ve already endured?

Thank you for your efforts in expressing yourself in such a personal way!

Wear Tragedies Like Armor

     While everybody has experienced at least one form of tragedy, none of us experience the same tragedy. Everyone who was abused as a child has their own story, feels their own way, copes their own way, and experiences pain in their own way.

Your story can seem so similar to the person next to you, and you can tell them you understand, but unless you’re them, you can’t assume you understand exactly what it is that they’re going through.

One thing, every child abuse survivor shares, is the need to cope, the need to not just survive, but the ability to thrive. You cannot get back the childhood that’s robbed from you, that every survivor shares too, but you can live your life in such a way, that you love it enough to make up for it. Whatever you wanted to do as a child, a sport, play an instrument, get singing lessons, dance, learn to cook or sew…all of that you can still do, and you will have yourself to thank for it. If you use your pain as motivation, and go after the dream career you want, and experience all of the hobbies that so many kids are blessed to have, you’ll feel a sense of fulfillment and love for yourself, that is so much greater than your pain. Passion is powerful, and there’s nothing it can’t change. If you can survive abuse, there’s nothing you can’t do, no age that’s too old, and no difficult task that you can’t accomplish.

You do have, within you, the ability to overcome anything, and just because you were unable to experience something in your youth, doesn’t mean you don’t deserve that chance now. Try all of the hobbies you’ve ever wanted to try, and go after your dream job like you need it as bad as food and water. Never let your past weigh you down, the darker your past, the stronger you are, and the greater the person that you’re capable of being.

One

      As many of you know, in a recent post we addressed child abuse survivors and asked them to tell us what has been the most vital steps in recovering from abuse. What many of you might not be aware of, is the founder of the No Longer Silenced Movement, Nicolette Winn, recently self-published her first in a series of books, aiding child abuse survivors, too live fulfilling and empowering lives after their abuse.

This in no way is saying that anyone forgets their abuse, or miraculously forgets about it one day, and the pain ceases to exist…that doesn’t happen. The weight of tragedy and pain, stays with us for the rest of our lives, but it doesn’t mean that we have to let us destroy us.

This book is available on amazon, I’ll attach the link for your convenience, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S75J4F2 .

The book is dedicated to Winn’s younger brother, now 7, in hopes that one day they can build a loving sister-brother bond. Throughout writing the novel, our founder was threatened by both her step mother, and mother, yet she somehow found a way to gain the courage to go through with it anyway, and we couldn’t be more proud!

The book, as our post, is directed to finding ways to encourage survivors of abuse. While some might be stuck or trapped in a way that they cannot reveal the contents of the book, the cover is a way to mask what the book may be about. The book is a way to let survivors know, you’re certainly not alone. Everyone’s story is different but together, we can get through anything.

If anyone you know could use the book, recommend it, share it, let people know the contents are out there, and I hope it helps some of you heal, or someone you love recover.

Thank You

This post will be short and sweet. We just wanted to thank everyone who took the time to respond to our previous post!

All of your insights were very helpful, and we truly appreciate all of the support you give us! If you were unable to see our last blog, we reached out to our audience in order to see what helps you or anyone deal with life after abuse. Everybody deals with things differently, so getting a variety of opinions was definitely insightful. If you’d still like to respond, we would love to hear from you!

How To Recover From Abuse

For this post, we want to hear from you. We’ve had an excellent growing support system for the No Longer Silenced Movement, and hope to continue that momentum. The founder, Nicolette for any who may not know, is working on building a program designated to those recovering from abuse. In order to do so, we need to know what works for you.

What works for one, won’t for another, but combined, we can find a recovery path for everyone, and work towards helping survivors of child abuse further.

So, What worked for you?

If you’re currently a survivor of child abuse, we’d love your insights!

What did you do? Did Therapy help? Any books? What did you feel after? What still helps you today? What activity eases your reminders of your past, while still feeling them?

We’d love to hear from you!

Progress: The No Longer Silenced Movement

In case you’re behind, our founder Nicolette has been hard at work since her big move to Texas and starting Graduate School. While maintaining a busy schedule, she’s continued to manage building and improving the No Longer Silenced Movement, in the hopes of creating easy outlets to help abused children, or an individual whose been abused, feel comfortable coming forward.

Within this text, she found inspiration to add to the pilot site, helping foster youth find means to an education, but also developing a means for all survivors of abuse to find the resources capable of helping them be admitted to school.

She also had a successful first meeting with with our new adviser, in San Angelo, Texas, at the small business development center. Moving forward from this meeting, and with the help of our new adviser, we can begin writing and compiling a business plan, as well as work through the process of completing our trademark.

Most recently, Nicolette completed a second No Longer Silenced Movement Binder. One is focused on how to develop the organization in Texas, thanks to Peggy Rosser at the small business development center. The other, a collection of all the work completed by the No Longer Silenced Movement so far, including events, and media appearances.