We Will Overcome, We Are Resilient - Jen Ball
Where do I even begin?
This is a story about a little girl who grew up way beyond her years, far too quickly.
She was born into a world that wasn’t ready for her greatness at the time and unfortunately into parents who didn’t want her around for the right reasons.
I was born into a family who had problems before I even came into the world. My mom was an alcoholic from her young teenage years and my dad had a lot of issues with showing love and being a father due to whatever he decided was a just cause. Having a baby was not what they should have done but I was born nonetheless.
Some of my earliest memories are of being alone at the age of 2 overnight and when my mom would come home finally, I would see her get dragged out by her hair by the front door again. Don’t ask me how I even survived those nights by myself. I remember for most of my life begging for her to stop, not realizing she was actually sick, and that alcoholism is a disease, not always a choice. She had an aneurism when I was 8 and had reconstructive brain surgery after being in a coma for quite a while. Yet after all of that, she chose alcohol again.
I remember my whole life just begging for my dad to see me, notice me, love me, choose me, and yet at almost 35 years old, that still hasn’t happened. That man was never ready to be a dad or a father. I lived with my dad when my mom had her accident and that part of my life is the darkest to me, it’s where I was in the worst place mentally that I have ever been. At 16 I finally had to leave if I wanted to survive the hell I was in.
It took me almost my whole life to realize the problem was never me. It was the people I was surrounded by that were the problem.
I decided many times in my young childhood and young adulthood that I needed to be the change. That I would overcome these boundaries placed on me by so many people. The ones who said I would never amount to anything, I would be nothing to anyone, I would never succeed, I would be like my mother, that I would end up in the worst places in the world.
I made the decision that I was worth it. I overcame and defied the odds stacked against me before I was even born.
Overcoming trauma is a daily decision and one that some days feels heavy. My trauma may not always look the same as someone else’s, but I promise I have days that are hard nonetheless. You can choose to overcome. We will overcome. We can choose to be a bright light in peoples lives, choose to share our truths and our stories no matter how painful, and know that they are helping people when we do. Whether in person or online, someone out there needs to read our story at that exact moment.
I have never been so sure about anything as I am about sharing my journey and how I got to be here, in this life, with these scars and bruises. I am telling my story from the tops of mountains so the world can hear them and feel less alone.
We will overcome, we are resilient.
Xo,
Jen
photo credit: @alyselakemanphotography