From Fractured to Fulfilled HOME

By Gina Ellis

This book will act as an inspiration and guide to discover your inner strength and value as a woman and mother. Gina shares her intensive story of overcoming abuse and cultural restraints. She challenged the culture she was stuck in and risked everything to find true trust and faith in herself.&

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ellis Properties LLC
• Release date: Apr 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088122839

Book preview

Chapter 1

Peace, Compliance and Silence = Love

Growing up as an adopted child, the idea of family was distorted from the start. My mother was emotionally unhealthy and harbored a painful lack of coping skills. Her own alcoholic mother and workaholic father translated into her marriage to my father. My experience of them as a team was unaffectionate. My dad overpowered my mom, and she, in turn, would have emotional fits to deal with her frustration. Her claim to fulfillment was that all she ever wanted in life was to be a mom and so the abuse she allowed was the trade-off for her being given children.

She impressed upon me that my sole purpose here on this planet was to have children and be a good wife. There was nothing else to entertain; there was nothing else that mattered.

She was a passive-aggressive, complacent woman, so to believe that there was any other way, or to incite the possibility of another life path was simply laughed off as a silly thought, devoid of any collateral value. She parented by way of manipulation and I was to be her sad parody. A good girl who kept the peace and did as she was told. Her stories of regret were used to guide me into submissiveness.

My Father was your typical roughneck watch football on Sunday, meat and potatoes kind of guy. He ruled with an iron fist, and after a few drinks, his tone grew void of compassion, his presence aggressive and cold. He and my adopted brother never saw eye to eye. My brother was the intellectual type, more inclined to enjoy music and arts over hunting and 4x4s. You could tell his very presence vexed our father.

We weren’t shown the kind of love that one should feel within a home. We only truly felt safe when dad was out of town and my mom was feeling healthy. When dad was home, the reality that we had to stay out of his way or we would most likely earn a reason to be spanked was normal. Beyond the physical ramifications of annoying him or misbehaving, the lack of approval for everything you did was a given. This meant, no matter how hard you tried to make sure you were ready, for him your efforts would be met with criticism, and often, physical punishment. I remember one evening, when I was about 12, my dad had come home and was berating my brother for a less than satisfactory job on something he had been told to complete. My brother is 3 years older than I am and he had acquired an arsenal of verbal bullets by now. I heard them come in through the back door; dad yelling at my brother, and then boom! Out of my brother’s mouth came the words, Fuck You! I’ll never forget the feeling of absolute doom that passed through the house at that moment. I heard my mom yell at my dad to stop, but it was of no use. Dad grabbed my brother and threw him down the basement stairs. I came running down to see if he was alive. My dad was dragging him up the stairs and hauling him to the back yard where he proceeded to throw him into a fence and then break a board over his head. This was the worst beating I had ever seen my dad deliver. I was angry that my brother had been so careless and allowed his feelings to catapult those words toward my dad. I was so disgusted with my dad and his cruelty and my mother’s lack of protection that I announced to the family I was going to report this to child protective services. It didn’t go over well and both of them made it clear that I would make matters far worse by sharing our private issues. These were the terrors of possibilities that thrived when my dad was home.

It was also deeply instilled in us as kids that my mom was very ill (she did have a serious heart condition) and we could lose her at any time. My