Share a story about someone who had a positive impact on your life.

2016 was one of the worst years of my adult life. I was pregnant for the fourth time by a man who was a pathological liar, and a serial cheater.

During the summer, his mother was murdered and it added immensely to the already building angst.

Shortly after, my father passed. We had an estranged relationship, and even when I was growing up…he was a terrible father.

Without going on several different tangents, my father left funds behind. Money for both me and my brother, and the estate to me. My brother is mentally handicapped, so the estate was already situated in my name.

There was a storm brewing beyond that. I had money, the cash I used towards my career. I had everything. But my ex was crumbling more and more. For starters, our youngest son came three and a half months early. That’s how much stress I was under.

His insults increased. I was a “spoiled, clueless bitch who never suffered a day in her adult life.”

I suffer from systemic lupus, that couldn’t be further from the truth!

As the months went on, we both became increasingly worse. I wanted nothing to do with him, he continued throwing tantrums, threatening me and destroying personal property. By the time the summer of 2017 came around, I was fairly convinced that if I didn’t kick him out soon, I’d lose my mind. The storm had just begun at this point.

I had arranged to send my older children to NC to stay with their father, because I knew my next moves may be my last. After they were safe, I tried focusing on calming down and ignoring my ex. But one day, he took it too far.

He punched the wall, telling me to shut up. Then he attempted to punch me several times, all offenses I blocked. Frustrated he hadn’t hurt me yet, he head butted me and pinned me onto the bed, in front of our oldest son, who was one and a half at the time.

Scared and hurt, I pulled out the 9mm from my drawer and aimed. When he walked back into the room, I fired it off, hitting him in his neck.

Fortunately, I didn’t hit any major arteries or nerves. I immediately called the police on myself, and spent the next four years figuring my life out.

If it hadn’t have been for my therapist, though…I’d still be lost.

She asked me, one day, why I was with him. He was hiding his drug addiction, he cheated constantly and lied all of the time. He never kept a job and we never had any money, because I was spending what I had to hold things together.

That’s not how I was raised. My abuela was rich, and that fortune was passed down to me. I was raised that men should pull their own weight, not add it to your shoulders. I am prim, proper, well spoken and successful, as mentioned before in previous blogs. I’m self made. At this time, I had self published six novels.

Why was I with him?

She then asked, “what kind of man do you feel is better?”

We wrote simple things on her erase board. Things I thought were a fairytale. Paid bills, decent credit. A license. Manners and respect. Goals. A career.

Had it not been for her, I would have never excommunicated my ex, and furthermore, become immensely picky with the opposite sex. So much to that point, that I dumped a Rockefeller! (Yes, I dumped a billionaire!)

All of these things lead me to heal and see that cause and effect. I allowed him into my life because I didn’t think it would get better than him.

I stopped settling, and began focusing on myself. How do I feel about the dress? The hair? My art?

I was freeing myself.

My therapist allowed me to be myself though she was observing me also, for court purposes. I ended up with three years probation and served twelve days in jail. It was my only offense, ever, in my adult life.

I needed to hear I was looking for bottom dwellers – leaving my heavenly roost for scraps.