Purple Purse Awareness

This post is part of a sponsored campaign with The Allstate Foundation and MomSelect. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I’ve been sharing bits and pieces of my story with you throughout the past three years. Many of you have shown a liking to me despite my many quirks. I hope me sharing the rest of my story doesn’t chase you away, but instead helps you to understand me better. I do hope and pray that God is using it for someone who is reading this because he sure has been riding my back to share it for the past three years. In the last couple of months, it’s been brought up at least ten times a day. I’m coming completely utterly out of my comfort zone with you. (I may like to share parts of myself with you, but there are still things I hold back!)

My life went from one of total bliss to a living nightmare when I was nine years old. It was almost the same time that Hurricane Hugo was making its scary arrival in SC. I personally was more scared and terrified of the hurricane of a man that my mom and I had to live with than I was of the big bad storm tearing up state around us. I literally can remember being in my room watching the trees blow so hard they were touching the ground and having the windows shake in terror from the storm, but yet I was hiding in my room from the fight between my Mom and step-father.

He had started beating her because she was standing her ground against him. She told him that she was going to find a job. Low and behold, she obtained a job working 3-11 pm each five to six nights a week. I was nine years old and on my own pretty much until 7-8 pm at night when he would come home. I loved those hours of solitude with just my dog, my bike, the big open fields and woods, and of course, the horses we owned at the time. I rode horses out of obligation to my Mom, but I can remember making up all kinds of imagination stories.

His beatings of her got worse and worse with each passing time. It got so bad I honestly thought he was going to kill her. That was especially true the night before we left. I literally had to come to her defense.

I’ve replayed my past a thousand and one times. I could see how things could have been different. I see how being silent about our problem only caused more issues. There were resources to help my mom and I had she chosen to take them.

Why Share This?

So, why do I feel compelled to share all of this? None of this is going to help you, it’s just telling you a little bit of the back story to my life. However, I do tell you this because I want to see people who are living in this situation realize that they have options.

AllState Foundation has created the Purple Purse program. This program is created so that a person who may be suffering with abuse including financial abuse, which is the abuse that makes a woman (and her children) feel trapped, gain freedom from their situations. This is designed to gain fundraising for this all important issue.

Don’t let this become an even greater issue than it already is! We already have 1 in 4 women who live in an abusive situation. We need to ensure that both men and women (yes, I said men and women both suffer with this issue, but men are more silent about it) have the option to leave these dangerous situations behind regardless whether or not they have a job.

I hope that you’ll join me in helping to make a dream come for someone who is living a nightmare.

Please go sign up to help fund the Purple Purse program by clicking HERE.