Hi everyone,
My name is Teresa Paquet and I am 42 years old. I am a wife, mother, and a grandmother. By profession I am a Paralegal but my dream is to be able to stay home with my youngest son and grandaughter.
My life has not been an easy life, but it has been my life and it has made me the person I am today, I would not change anything (accept my two oldest sons being abused by their sperm donor, as we call him.
I am the daughter of a retired Command Sargeant-Major of the United States Army. We had a very structured upbringing and there was no getting by with anything, you towed the line or that was it.
Two days before I turned 13 I was raped by a friend of the family. At 16 I dated and was going to marry an abusive person on the day of our high school graduation, who repeatedly abused me and raped me whenever I tried to get away from him. After many black eyes and broken bones I saw the light and never married that person. I did not graduate high school neddless to say, because of him. I quit high school 3 months before graduation, and after a friend of his sliced my face open on my jaw line during school.
When I was 19 I had my first son and married his dad a few years later. That was another nightmare. He was a physical and mental abuser. At 24 I had my second son by him, and the abuse continued. Needless to say I figured if he was hitting me he wasn't touching the kids (that was the wrong thinking on my part). At 30 I left him and moved back to Connecticut with my 2 sons. I went to night school and got my GED where I re-meet my current husband (we dated when I was 13 and he was 15). We joke and tell everyone to watch what you pray for because you might get it in three's (about 2 hours before I called him he prayed to God and told him that he knew he was just shy of a year of sobriety, but when the Lord saw fit, he was ready to have a relationship with someone. Well he got me and my sons, we were a package deal). We are both clean and sober (me 9 1/2 years, him 13 1/2 years). After getting my GED I went to school at night for 18 months, and then did an externship and became a Paralegal. My husband and I then married and he adopted my 2 oldest sons.
At 34 I had my third son and brought him to my office with me after my maternity leave was over (he was 2 months old.). He came to my office every day, 5 days a week until he was 4 and he started going to pre-school (3 half days a week at school, the afternoon back at the office and then 2 full days a week at the office) until he started kindergaten.
At 38 my oldest son graced me with my granndaughter, who is now 3, and who I now have custody of because him and her mom broke up and he left for the Army last year. My second son leaves for the Army next July after he graduates from high school in June, 2006. That explains my signature line "Proud to be the Mom of 2 Soldiers, an Army of One".
I tell you all of this not for any type of sympathy but to let you no that no matter how bad life gets, you can move on. Someone once asked me if I felt that I was a victim or a survivor. I thought about it for a moment and said I was a suvivor. A lot of victims stay victims, it is hard for them to move forward. I chose to move forward with my life and make a better life for my sons and I. If you stay in the past instead of trying to make a better future, the person or people who victimized you wins, you stay a victim and don't become a survivor, because you are to afraid to move on, and then they have won. I chose to survive.
I am looking forward to a wonderful today, tomorrow and future. My goal is to be home by September, 2006 with a Home Based Business.
I hope something I have said above can help someone else who might be struggling with themselves, if not, it was good for me to introduce myself, because this is who I am.
Believe and your dreams can come true!
Teresa Paquet