Janet Kay SwainUnintended Consequences is my story When young I felt invisible. Nothing made sense. I lived like a broken child; Surviving sexual, emotional, and physical abuses. Suicide was often the option to stop the pain. I Share openly about my struggles and wat kept me going when things were bad. I grew up in a small community, being forced to live and be raised by my grandparents. I had very little contact with either of my biological parents. The farm I was raised on provided my learning and training ground. There were people who passed through my life, some bringing happiness which always ended up with me feeling great loss; some bringing more tragedy to my childhood and my feelings of guilt and shame. I developed unbalanced coping skills and became an alcoholic and drug addict at an early age. I would become a maintenance drinker for most of my adult life. At twelve I started running and was picked up and placed in various foster care homes. At twelve I became an adult in my mind and would do my best to cope with my brokenness. At fifteen I left my home on the farm to go with a man eighteen year's my senior. For many years I believed it was my choice to be with him. I know now the truth is he abducted me and kept me hostage for nearly two years. This relationship was filled with violence, sexual, psychological and physical abuses. I became a mother one month after my sixteenth birthday and again at eighteen. I tell the story that "I was a child raising children with no one to tell me how to do it". There was little to no support from anyone in helping me raise my children. I earned an Associate's Degree in Accounting at an early age and this provided the income my children and I needed to survive on and live well. In 1995 I found myself divorced, alone and afraid. My alcoholism took over and I returned to active drug use. For the next two years my life spiraled out of control. When there seemed to be no hope and no way out I was at my suicidal lowest, two women came into my life, with their help, a world of mental health professionals and the legal system I was able to start the long journey of growing up and healing. In 2001 I graduated a university with a Bachelor's in Psychology. I worked in the mental health field alongside the people who were there to help me when I was at my deepest low. It has been the repeated prodding by my mental health team, my sponsors and many of the women I have helped to write my story. That started my writing journey. My life took another turn in 2016 when I suffered an Anoxia brain injury in ICU which took away my ability to work and gave me the time to focus on writing. I am more than a survivor. I am an overcomer. Read More Read Less