Victory

Above is a picture of my tattoo, “victory”.

I’ve wanted a tattoo since I was in grade 8 (13 years old) and I’ve always wanted it on my wrist, but I knew it had to have a meaning behind it, something I can relate with my life, and something I would never ever regret. At the end of grade 9/ beginning of grade 10, I had a clear idea of what I wanted. It was a word that would ultimately summarize everything I’ve been through and will go through, a word that will give me strength and remind me of the times I was strong. I wanted it to make other people stop and ask, “why VICTORY?” So I would have an opportunity to share my testimony. Although, when people ask me now, I get irritated of having to repeat the story, and just say a few words, for example, “victory over everything I’ve gone through in my life,” and I never really stopped to tell my story. So I’ve decided to make a blog post answering the question, “Why VICTORY?”

From when I was born, there was always tension between my mom and my dad. They were ‘separated’ yet still married. My dad was an alcoholic and a drug addict, and so I stayed with my mom while I visited my dad a lot. We’d hang out on the beach or he’d take me to his friends house where I’d sit for hours drawing and watching his giant pet lizard swim in his pool. I never saw my dad as someone that had a problem. He was fun and he always looked out for me. While they were separated, my mom had a boyfriend named Tony. He had 3 older children, Two of which were on drugs. The older girl fell pregnant at 18 and thought that taking drugs at the time would be fine, she ended up killing the baby. They couldn’t stay away from drugs. I remember on my birthday when the oldest girl baked a cake for me and had slipped weed in it. My mom fortunately somehow knew it wasn’t a normal cake and had warned me not to eat it. I also remember every weekend teenagers between the ages of 17 and 19 would be in our house doing drugs around me. My mom knew this wasn’t the right environment for me and left him.
By the time I was about 6, my parents got back together. It was weird for me to see my parents living together but at the same time, I loved having them both in the same house. Although this was the time when I realized my dad was an alcoholic. I would watch my parents fight all the time, just screaming at each other, throwing around hateful words. I would just sit on my bed and watch them. I hated it. I remember being at my aunts house, when my dad seemed to get a little drunk and my mom and my dad started a fight while the whole family was there. I was so shocked and so scared. My two older cousins, Ryan and Darren, took me to their room and played some loud music so I wouldn’t hear all the screaming going on around me, It worked for a while, but then I just found myself crying again. I went through my parents fighting almost everyday, until my dad made the choice to go to AA meetings and get help.

My dads sobriety changed a few things, for example, my mom and him weren’t fighting anymore. Although it came to my attention that they weren’t very affectionate, I just guessed maybe that’s how married couples are supposed to be. During this time that my parents had ‘fixed things’ and gotten back together, I had noticed I wasn’t exactly ‘popular’ at school AND in my family. I went to Chelsea Prep and although I had friends, I felt like an outcast. To this day I can’t explain WHY I felt like that. I just did. In my family, I never felt good enough. I was never as ‘pretty’ as my cousins, I was the youngest which lead to always feeling like everyone was looking down on me, and I could never do the things my older cousins were allowed to do. I remember one of my girl cousins in particular always made me feel like I wasn’t ‘pretty enough’. She would complain that I never wore any make up and that I never did anything with my hair. I don’t think I had ever felt so insecure before. I remember, I would plead for my dad to say no to me going to see my family, because I would be embarrassed of looking like I did. She continued to point out my flaws, and so I continued to keep quite and keep to myself every family gathering.

The end of grade 7 was the first time I picked up a blade and cut myself. I don’t really know why I did it, I guess maybe I wanted to see why other people did it. It was horrible. All it did was cause pain and blood. After a month of doing it, I realized people paid attention to me when I did it, and so, It became an attention thing. I was a HUGE attention seeker, and I denied it every time I was told so. In grade 8, something changed, i went on my first youth camp and got saved. A friend of mine whom was my leader at the time, stayed up with me till about 3am, allowing me to ask questions about God and then letting me know how much God loves me. God became a huge part of my life, and so the cutting stopped. A few months later, My uncle passed away. ‘Uncle Buck’ was the greatest man, cook, fisher and uncle anyone could have ever had the privilege to know. His name was actually Brian, but at a young age I was only able to mutter the word, ‘buck’ and so it stuck. He passed away from internal bleeding. It happened so suddenly that no one was prepared for the the decision to pull the plug. The first thing I did when I heard the news, was run to my bedroom and look for answers in my bible. I found every verse that I possibly could on death so I could show it to my mom to comfort her. I didn’t want to break down, I wanted to stay strong so my parents could see that God was helping me. Turns out that holding things in didn’t work too well. And so I started cutting myself again. This time, it wasn’t for people to see. I was ashamed of it. The link my cutting problem had to attention seeking was broken.

In grade 9 my parents fought a bit, but I knew everything was alright. Sometime in April, I had a great day at school, I walked out of the school gates and down the road to my moms car, placed my bags in the back seat and as I got into the front seat, I saw my mom look at me with tears in her eyes. Every time I asked what was wrong she just shook her head and said nothing. Finally, the car started and she told me, “Your dad and I are getting divorced.” I didn’t know what to do. My whole world was just being torn up bit by bit. I looked out the window and cried silently, for some reason I didn’t want my mom to see me cry so I let her rage on about my dad, and I never uttered a word. She told me things about my dad and I had misinterpreted something she had said about my dad, I texted my dad asking if it was true and he said no. When my dad came home, they just fought even more because I had confronted my dad about something I thought my mom had said. Then the divorce was final. I had taken the blame. I had this giant burden upon me, it was so visible.

Now that cutting myself wasn’t helping me in any way, I started to think of ending my life. I didn’t want to be around a broken family, I wasn’t prepared to have to live in two different houses. I never looked forward to things like Easter or Christmas because I knew it would always turn into a fight between who would have me when.

In grade 10, I was able to stop cutting myself, there were no more suicidal thoughts and I realized I wasn’t the one to blame for my parents divorce. Nothing was perfect, but it was most definitely better than before. My relationship with God was stronger than ever before and I was happy. Many times the word ‘victory’ had come up while I was reading the bible or while people were praying for me. I remember a verse I read in 1 Corinthians 15:57, “God gives us VICTORY over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This was when I knew I had victory over all those things I had gone through, not by my own strength, but through Christ.

So on the 19th of February 2013, my dad and I got a tattoo on our wrists saying, VICTORY. And today, my tattoo STILL proves that God IS victorious and I DO have victory through Christ over my life.

Names and some events have not been mentioned due to requested privacy