Don't Repeat My Secrets: Overcoming a Life of Trauma

By Tiffany Smith

Growing up, Tiffany S. Smith never imagined stability as something within her reach. Dysfunction was all she knew; trauma sought her out. As she suffered through one terrible environment after another, she wondered if things would ever get better—if she'd ever escape the madness, and live a normal life. She may have missed out on a father figure, but surely she hadn't missed out on love?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781543998948

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Tiffany Smith

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iamtiffanysmith.com

An imprint of BookBaby Publishing

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Pennsauken, NJ 08110

First paperback printing,February, 2020

Copyright 2019 by Tiffany S. Smith

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The library of Congress has catalogued the edition of this book as follows:

Name: Tiffany S. Smith

Title: Don’t Repeat My Secrets

Description: Non- Fiction

Registration Number: TXu 2-169-486

Effective Date of Registration: October 31, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-54399-893-1 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-54399-894-8 (ebook)

Acknowledgment

To My Lord & Savior Jesus Christ, thank you for allowing me to see myself and giving me another opportunity to live for You. I love you with all of my heart and will forever worship your Holy Name.

To My Husband Curtis, thank you for encouraging me to be a better me and giving me your blessing to be obedient to the call of writing this book. You constantly push me towards Jesus and I really appreciate that. Reliving certain moments wasn’t easy but I truly thank you for not allowing me to give up and for loving through my emotional breakdowns. I love you always.

To My Beautiful Daughter Brittany, thank you for not judging me. You have always been the reason I go so hard. Thank you for always being there supporting and loving me unconditionally. I have no doubt in my mind, that you will continue to be nothing less than amazing! I will love you forever.

To My Mother Margaret, sadly you are no longer here but I truly bless the Lord for allowing me to borrow you for 37 years. I know you would have been proud of me for taking this faith walk and allowing my pain to bring healing to others. Although, you’re not here in your earthly body, I would like to say I love you and I appreciated all of the words of wisdom you once gave me.

When I first heard the saying that children are doomed to repeat the mistakes of their parents, I didn’t think it was true. I guess I just curled up in one dark corner and endured the most profound heartache of my life. Like it or not, the very same yardsticks that are formulated by the past are used to monitor the future.

If your personal life hasn’t proven this yet, take a look around you, take a long look, a sip of your chamomile, honeysuckle, jasmine tea, your smoothie, whatever concoction of Starbucks you want, or just the plain old coffee you drink, and think about it.

Think about it, as a child you looked up to your parents, unless they were dead, absent, or just utterly unworthy. You looked up to them and, in your adult life, ended up mimicking certain behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes, of theirs. After all the behavior modeled in our homes during the ‘nurturing years’ can explain a lot. Where do you think the habit of watering your plants twice, your belief that certain music genres are better than others, or even food preferences come from? Yes, some of these things are individualized but some of these behaviors are passed down.

Now I should probably insert a word of caution here, I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist; however, I speak out of the multitude of my own experiences, and those experiences are what bring me to this stunning conclusion. You chose the good, the bad, and the ugly. Even when there is no choice, you decide how you react to your choice less state. You chose every single one, and the kicker.

Does it sound too much like the beginnings of a motivational book? Too introspective and happy go lucky? How many ‘yeah rights’ have I drawn out of you now? None, hopefully, one? Two?

My grandmother passed away when my mother was only eight years old. Any age is the wrong time to lose a loved one. Nothing prepares you for the pain, that abrupt amputation of the soul, or the destruction of some certainties.

Every adult, despite being aware of death and knowing that it can happen to anyone, still bear in mind the naïve thought that their parents will live forever. Except for the occasional scare of sickness and the reminders that check-ups and hospital visits present, there is a childish part of us that automatically endows our parents and loved ones with immortality.

Therefore, when death comes, we are completely broken, troubled, and confused, all in the middle of our pain and grief. What does a girl of eight years know about that; there were only mom, dad, her eight brothers and sisters, and all her playmates. The world was still a distant crossroad that had not captured her attention at the very least.

Those were formative years when everything was a blank canvas waiting to be filled with color, the empty lines waiting to be covered; death was such a hard note. One day she was there, and the other day, she wasn’t; that was how my mom described it to me, and that was how she grew up, without ever knowing or experiencing the natural affection and unconditional love a mother showered on her daughter. She had only the vague recollections of childhood, and those were ever so untrustworthy. She remembered her confusion at the grief of losing her mom, always asking where her mother was. She did not understand the solemn atmosphere, the strange faces that showed up all of a sudden, and the explanation that her mother was not coming back again. All these questions, put together, only compounded her confusion.

Her father was a different story all together. He was a man who used to beat her and her younger brother with wires, sticks, and extension cords, for any and every perceived reason. When he could not get a hold of his favorite weapons of assault, just about anything he could lay his hands on would do? Was it the stress of working in the fields all day? Was it because of his guilt of cheating on her mother before her death? Or was it because he felt he was stuck there and had to raise the children that were still in the house? Or, was it his simply his notion of discipline? I would never know, but she would recall her experiences of being whipped by an always angry father who expected her to be perfect. Even when she was perfectly okay, he found fault with the things that were beyond her control.

The abuse did not break her; it only drove her to look for safety and salvation outside her own home. Who does not want to be set free from an abusive father? Moreover, is love not the most significant saving ever? Having someone tell you that the entirety of your flaws, and all the things that make you who you are, was perfectly acceptable, and simply irresistible.

She sought comfort in the first person who showed interest in her; the relationship was intense from the beginning. She wanted a safe place, and here was someone promising her the Sun, moon, and stars, and before she knew it, they moved from dating to making plans of marriage. All of it was done in a desperate love-stricken haze, needless to say, that it did not last long.

In my own opinion, the only good thing that came out of that relationship was the three children it brought to this world. I was born into a two-parent household while my father’s duty station was Fort Hood, TX, an Army base located outside of San Antonio. We lived together in the base housing, and my mother was a homemaker, ultimately a stay at home wife who was responsible for the house chores and for taking care of the children.

My father was an authoritative, strict man, and could have easily been perceived as a tyrannical father figure. My mother told me of an incident that happened when I was only eight months old. Talent scouts had spotted me when my mom carried me to the mall to do the household shopping; they approached her, wanting me to be a part of their ‘Huggies’ campaign. They wanted me to be the face of the ‘Huggies’ campaign! For some, that is a dream come true.

Most would see this as good news. At the very least, they would be enthusiastic at the monetary and other benefits it was sure to bring in for our small and impoverished family, but not my father. One would think he could at least be excited that I was pretty enough to participate in such a worldwide campaign. Before the situation was explained entirely to him, he replied with a definite ‘no’. It was not happening, and that was it. Without any explanation or reason. As I grew up, I would see continuous examples of that blind, restrictive, and stubborn attitude of his.

Two years after that incident, he was discharged from the army. He then decided to move the entire family back home to South Carolina, and the family dynamics changed radically. When I was six years old, I was old enough to know that my mother went to work, sewing at the local factory while my father searched for a job. However, even though he wasn’t working, he was not staying home either. My mother would go to work but not before bathing and feeding us, and dropping us off at her oldest sister’s house. When she came back from work, she was rushing home to keep up with the chores that seemed to keep piling up. Her role quickly expanded from just homemaker to homemaker and breadwinner rolled into one.

I can only say this for certain with the clarity hindsight gives a person, but as a kid, I noticed little, but observed a lot. One day, my mom came home from work and was bathing my little brother when our