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Vicky's Life Story
I thought I had a normal upbringing: I had a mum, a dad, a sister, but my father was an alcoholic. My memories of my father are not of a loving caring man but of someone who made me scared, not knowing what he would do next. I remember locking myself in my bedroom and putting my bed up against the door so he couldn’t hurt us.
Read Vicky's Story...
I remember my mum sitting us down and saying, ‘I’m sorry but we’re gonna get divorced’. That was one of my happiest moments because he couldn’t hurt us, couldn’t control us anymore.
One day my English teacher went around the classroom and he thought it was a good idea to tell people what he thought they’d be in later life. But when it came to me he told me I didn’t have a hope.
At age 14, I became a Christian and I would try really hard to live a good Christian life. But every time I made a mistake I thought that God was so angry with me and that He had rejected me because I couldn’t live up to the standards that I thought He had put on me
I started going out with this guy and after a little while I moved in with him in Manchester. I thought I had it all sorted out. The only problem is he wouldn’t allow me to do anything. I wasn’t allowed any friends; I was locked up in the apartment 24-7. He made me do things I never wanted to do, like he made me get a tattoo of his name so that no one would ever want me 'cause I had his name on me and I was his. I wasn’t allowed to eat unless he was with me, so from 7.30 until 9.00 at night I wasn’t allowed to eat.
When I was living with him I felt so worthless so I decided to leave him but his final gift was to rape me, and then a week after that I was rushed into hospital with 6 blood clots in my lungs from making myself so sick.
Eventually I went to university. I thought, ‘brand new start’. That’s when I moved to Bath and I joined the church C3. But there was still a part of me missing and I was still fighting with my eating. After a couple of months I started drinking. Every night for about 5 months, I would drink about 20-22 bottles a night, just trying to forget everything. Every single night I knew that I could die, and started thinking about suicide.
One my third attempt, I had gone to church on Sunday to say my goodbyes. I said goodbye to my minister, Betsy, and I was determined to do it that night. I popped all my anti-depressants on the floor, and all my warfarin, and then my phone went. It was my minister Betsy, and she told me to come downstairs because she was outside my house. Betsy decided I needed help, and found me a place with City Hearts.
I entered City Hearts in a very broken state. On the outside it didn’t look like there was anything wrong. I was still very chirpy, trying to make people laugh. But what I didn't realise was that people knew it was a mask. The staff challenged all the beliefs that I’d ever had about myself, and challenged how I played down my childhood. I genuinely thought that other people had experienced the same things and that it was quite normal. It made me realise that maybe my childhood, and the stuff I went through, wasn’t normal, and that God wasn’t definitely not mad with me and that God just accepted me and wanted to let me know that he did have a hope and a future for me.
I can’t explain how happy I am to know that the day is going to be good and I do have a good future and that there are people who care about me. Because I was given a second chance, I really want to inspire other people that there is hope and that God can set you free from anything as long as you just put your trust in him.
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