I suppose I only have the ability to share my wisdom, love and insight with those who are reading if I start from the beginning. Growing up was rough for me. Many people look at me and think that I am the typical Mormon girl, and for the most part, I try to be now. But growing up was different.
You see, at a very young age I was sexually abused by my biological father, and about the same time he went to prison, my biological mother passed away from cancer. I suppose it was not too detrimental to me, because for as long as I can remember, I was a pass around kid while my mother was sick. Most of the times I remember of my early childhood, I was with my aunt, uncle and cousins. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure at the time when my mother passed away I was really confused, sad, and hurt. Part of me is grateful I was not even three yet, because it's easier not to remember. Please don't think of me as insensitive and hard about it. Truly I do not remember the pain of losing my mother, not enough for it to affect me anymore.
As grateful as I am not to remember the pain, I do know that it caused many rough things to come between my aunt, uncle, and cousins, long before they adopted me. Growing up I was selfish, resentful, manipulative, and many other things I am now sorry for; for it was these things that drove wedges between myself and those I loved, causing gaps to be created and hurt to run deep.
Some people would look at that last paragraph and say to me 'Leone, lighten up. Don't be so hard on yourself, you were a kid.' This is true, to an extent. Yes, I was a kid. A kid with a lot of baggage and poorly bandaged wounds, with a bruised and broken self esteem that left me feeling as though the world and everything in it or about it was against me. My self worth had been torn to pieces, and I at the time did not understand why no one loved me. Too young to understand, I began to act out in ways that would get me attention, negative attention. For negative attention was all that I had known. In my 3 year old mind, I had to be hurt to be loved. So I acted on it. I did anything and everything I could think of to be yelled at or punished in some way. At the time I didn't understand what I was doing.
As I got older, I think I began to understand in some small way that what I was doing was not the right way to go about it, but by then, I didn't know how to fix it. I still thought that was the only way to gain love. But it wasn't working the way I thought I wanted it to. So I became depressed, and that is when I began turning to things that made me feel better about myself, even if only temporarily.
My goal with this post is not to make anyone feel sorry for me, but to give you some background as I begin to share my story, and the hope, life, and love I have found in Jesus Christ, my brother, Savior, and Redeemer.
