How old were you when you first realized that you were not perfect? Everyone makes mistakes. The hardest thing of all is to stand up and admit that you screwed up. You then have to find the courage to fix the problem. I made a mistake over fifteen years ago. Although I have repaired my life since then, there was one moment that if I had not stood up for myself, I would not be the woman I am now, nor would I be the person that I am so proud of.

I have always been a strong and independent person. I pride myself on the fact that I can handle whatever life throws at me. There have been times when I could have used the support of friends and family, but I always try to handle things on my own. This is a lesson that I have learned the hard way. I have been to hell and back and this is the story of how I managed to take control of my life when the odds were most definitely against me.

I met Tom at a local dive where I was tending bar. He was quite the charmer. He would bring me flowers and candy every day that I was working. I had been living alone for over seven years, and I admit I was lonely. Tom began to use that loneliness to his advantage. He would tell me how beautiful I was and that I did not deserve to be alone. He would tell me that I needed a man in my life to take care of me. He talked as if I could not survive without a man in my life. His favorite method of manipulation was to tell me how "perfect" our lives together would be. He would tell me over and over, how we would have two children, a boy and a girl. We would live in a three-bedroom house that would have stucco walls and hardwood floors. It was almost as if he read my mind. He was telling me things that I had often dreamed of; dreams that I had begun to believe were never going to come true.

After we had been dating for about six months, Tom moved into the small trailer I already owned. He convinced me that by us living here, we would be able to save enough money to put a down payment on a house within a year. I was extremely happy for the first two months. We would spend time planning our future. However, as Tom got more comfortable in our relationship, things started to change. It started very innocently. This first thing he insisted on was that I quit my job as a bartender. He had become very jealous and manipulative. He would say things like, "Who did you talk to today? Did you flirt with him? Did he flirt with you?" If I made good tips, he would accuse me of sleeping with my customers.

I really believed that Tom was the love of my life, so I quit my job and began working with him in the highway construction business. I enjoyed working with him until the jealousy started to affect his job performance. He would pay more attention to what I was doing, and whom I was talking to than what job he was doing. I finally had to quit working there and go back to bartending. I had no choice but to work. Tom's job was seasonal, so I had to support us through November to March.

On our year anniversary, Tom asked me to marry him. I really did not want to yes, but he asked me in front of a full bar of people at my job. I thought that if I said no, the fight would be on. Our relationship had become quite scary. He had slowly removed me from any association with my family and friends. He convinced me that my mother, whom I had always loved dearly, was trying to break us up. He told me that my girlfriend Bobby had come on to him. All of this was to gain control over me.

I ended up marrying him even though I distinctly remember wondering if I was making the biggest mistake of my life. I was. As our marriage deteriorated I became a person that I could not even recognize anymore. I supported both of us by working sixty hours a week tending bar. Tom would usually be at another bar drinking, while I was working. He started accusing me of sleeping around on him and the more he drank, the meaner he would get. He would call me fat, lazy, stupid and physically push me around. I would have bruises all over my legs where he had pushed me into furniture, but I always explained them away. I would just tell my friends that I had tripped.

After two years of marriage and abuse, the worst and the best thing happened to me all at once. I had to have lower back surgery performed for two discs that had shattered in my spine. The surgery was successful in that I could still walk, but the damage that had been done was too severe. I would have permanent crippling side effects the rest of my life. The day the surgeon told us that I would probably end up in a wheelchair the rest of my life, was the scariest moment I have ever lived through. I was in shock. Then Tom said, "I will never be married to a damn cripple." My heart stopped beating. I felt like someone had taken a ten ton weight off my shoulders. Instead of being upset, that moment freed me. I literally felt the emotional abuse I had been living with as a physical pain. It was the very first time I realized that I did not have to live that way at all.

It took me a month before I finally got the courage to stand up to Tom and tell him I wanted out of our marriage. I knew that if I stayed in my marriage I would end up not just physically crippled, but emotionally crippled also. It was a battle to get the divorce, but after a year it was finally over. I had shut down my emotions through the battle of the divorce, but once it was over, I began to fight.

I started by taking control of my physical health. I changed doctors and began to use alternative medicines in conjunction with "real" medicine. Although there will never be any physical improvement, I am still walking twelve years after the surgeon said I would not be. I also had to begin the long road to emotional recovery. The wounds that Tom had left are deep and a daily battle to overcome. I did not like myself for a very long time. I would spend days lying in bed and crying. I would often contemplate suicide, but the love of my family and friends kept me on the right side of sanity.

I am now an extremely strong and independent woman. I live alone, support myself, and am living a twenty-two year old dream. I am going to college. I still have those moments when that young emotionally scarred girl shows up, but I have learned that without her, I would not be the person that I am so proud to be today.