Faith Through Adversity

I was nine years old, back in 1989 when I first met my mother. She drank herself into oblivion (heart attack at 35 followed by a coma of 12 years duration). My father too, is an alcoholic. So I was raised by my grandfather. By age 11, I was raped by an older guy whom, I finally testified against the following year and he was convicted. By this time, I started drinking, missing school, running away, getting into a lot of trouble with the law. My grandfather died when I was 15 and the downward spiral of a deep, deep depression began. One night, I got drunk and decided to shoot myself under the chin with a .22 rifle. The bullet stopped at the roof of my mouth; doctors didn't understand why it didn't exit.