Talitha Louise Catlett
Testimony
Family and close friends, this is every dark secret of my life. A lot I have gone through a lot I have overcome please consider if you want to know the entire story before reading this. I love you and the choice is in your hands.
I was born in Broken Bow NE. in 1990 which makes me 26 years old. I was raised in a Christian family the youngest with 2 older brothers. Everything was pretty normal other then we moved a lot until I was 9 years old and everything changed. My step father at the time started to sexually abuse me regularly I knew that it was wrong and tried to make it stop but couldn’t find a way out so I blamed myself. This laid the foundation for my shame that would weave its way into every aspect of my life. I hated myself for what he did, there had to be something wrong with me for me to deserve this. He would force me to drink and use drugs I would try to fight it but eventually he always won I felt helpless in my own home with no way of change or help from the outside, it was my burden to bear. The abuse continued for 6 long years, the effects on my mind, body and soul lasted a lifetime.
At 13 years old I went to stay with my dad for the summer thankfully escaping my step father for awhile. Shortly after arriving my virginity was taking against my will by a 22 year old. I was so young and I thought this is what I was good for so I actually started a sexual relationship with him. It is clear to me now that he used me for whatever I had to give but at the time it helped me to feel loved and made me feel like I was taking a little control back from my out of control life. Having sex helped me to feel like something to offer a way to keep people around, the only way to keep people around I was never good enough just me.
After the summer was up I went back to my mother and step father the 22 year old was done with me and moved on to my friend. I was devastated, filled with self loathing. Of course he didn’t want to be with me who would? I wasn’t good enough for anyone. I started self harming, over exercising barely eating anything to punish myself for not being good enough for him. Still being abused by my stepfather by this point I believed that I deserved it.
The self harm and abuse continued no one seemed to notice, I didn’t get new friends because this lifestyle like I wanted. I realized in order to get what I wanted love and escape the pain I would have to change. I started to pretend like I didn’t care about anyone or anything. Found my identity in the party girl. I gave in and started using drugs and alcohol with my step father. He brought home harder and harder drugs all the time. I found drugs hidden in my food but he always denied what was going on and made me feel like a fool for even thinking it but I knew. I just didn’t have any options I was alone in the world and no one seemed to notice or care.
At 15 my mom divorced him and he moved back to Nebraska but the seeds for the drug and alcohol problem had already been planted deep. At this time I started to date my first real boyfriend, we became sexually active right away and I was pregnant within 8 months. I was barely 16 I felt so torn apart and alone everywhere I looked people I cared about where telling me what to do I cried myself to sleep every night. I cried out to God for an answer but he was silent. I did the only thing I thought God would want and decided to keep my baby. I told my whole family, brothers, grandmas everyone that I was going to have a baby and it would work out. Two weeks later I miscarried. I was enraged with God. Why would He do this to me?! I hated Him. I went off the deep end broke up with my boyfriend started doing drugs skipping school sleeping around anything to get rid of the pain I was in but nothing worked.
After about a year of this I was tired and my mom was lost we decided I needed help. I went into an intense in patient 12 step program found some peace from my past but didn’t not fill the hole in my soul up. When I got out of the program 10 months later I lasted about 6 months in my sobriety before I was in a full blown relapse. I hated myself for it something had to be wrong with me why even try anymore? For the next three years I disappeared for weeks and months at a time in and out of dark places, a lot I would rather forget, following my next high wherever it took me.
At 19 I moved to Pennsylvania to rejoin my mother and my new step father for a fresh start I thought I was ready for my new life. I still didn’t feel good enough to make friends on my own, drugs and alcohol bridged the gap my insecurities left. About 6 months after arriving I started doing opiates regularly an addiction that started small and took over my life. I checked into a 30 day program after battling my now huge opiate addiction for about 3 years hoping all I needed was some clean time under my belt to stay clean.
While I was in this treatment center I met a guy that came in once a week to preach spirituality out of the bible, he had 3 years clean and seemed to be on fire for the Lord. I thought that would set me straight a good Christian guy, but never put much thought into it. Through a series of events about 2 weeks after I graduated we started dating. I was head over heels in love right away. He was everything I needed so I thought. We fell into a very unhealthy way of living immediately but I was so in love I couldn’t see any problem, I knew he was going to save me from all my pain, God wanted us together I thought. I was still getting high occasionally but we decided to get married anyway. I thought it was going to be a fairy tale but we were headed for disaster. After about 9 months of unhealthy co dependency he relapsed on alcohol, 3 days after that we were both shooting up heroin daily.
Within a month my fairy tale turned into hell, my sweet Christian man was now physically and emotionally abusive. We both lost our jobs and were doing what needed to be done to stay high. About a year into our horrible addiction we started trying to detox ourselves whatever way possible, numerous times but neither of us could bare the sickness for more than a few hours. Then we found methamphetamine. It kept us from going through withdrawal the answer to my prayers I thought. We could finally get off heroin and get married and live happily ever after. Then we couldn’t stop doing the meth, he started losing his mind more and more all the time, he would come in and out of drug induced schizophrenia that got worse every time he used. For days sometimes weeks I watched him search the house up and down looking for people yelling at me to be honest with who was in the house. I sat as still as possible watching him but it never mattered how still I sat he always thought I was signaling to the invisible people playing games on him. He was filled with rage and I was scared to death. I was in a new prison I had never seen evil like it in my life but I still loved him with all my heart I knew if I just hung in there the sweet man I loved would come back we would get married and it would be ok.
Eventually his paranoia drove him to try and strangle me to death, I barely escaped. My mom came and rescued me from my prison and brought me to her house. I was shattered but grateful to be safe after months of living in madness. After seeing that kind of evil I knew I was done with drugs and started to seek the Lord whole heartedly for the first time in my life.
I started the application process for Mercy Multiplied, a nonprofit organization that takes women with life controlling issues free of charge. But I was still so broken, I missed my man, I had him in the place Jesus was suppose to be and I was lost without him. I also blamed myself for everything that had happened I thought if I could fix myself it would fix us because I was the problem not him. He came and got me in the middle of the night without my parent’s knowledge and we were on our way to Florida within the month. We were going to start new, I was going to get my sweet man back and finally have my fairy tale ending.
Almost immediately after arriving in Florida I knew I had made the worst mistake, only this time I had no one to call I was alone and he knew he could do whatever to me and I had nowhere to turn to. I was scared to death of him I knew if I didn’t escape him soon he would take my life. Finally after a month of torture he was going to start a job, I knew this was my one chance to escape with my life because soon I would be dead; he was unstable and so violent. Terror had become my constant companion. The night before he was going to go to work he had another drug induced schizophrenic outrage aimed at me, I passed out exhausted from hours of fighting him, when I awoke the next morning I found him dead next to me. I don’t have words to explain my shattered world yes he was terrifying, violent and out of his mind most of the time but I never stopped loving him. I spent two days in a haze of black emotion that physically hurt my whole body, I didn’t know if I would survive this pain. I screamed for God to bring him back to me, let me see him one more time please… I never saw him again. I was so alone with no one to fix this. I packed all our belongings and started the 20 hour drive back to Pennsylvania alone.
Within a few days of arriving back to my mom’s home I finished my application to Mercy Multiplied and waited in agony for something to change. I blamed myself for his death hated myself for it begged God to fix it. I wanted to die I was so crushed and broken I wasn’t sure if I could survive much longer physically ill and unable to sleep I drank and used whatever I could find to possibly take away this pain. It was in this time that I laid face down on the floor and told God I would do whatever it took, whatever He wanted if He would just take away this unbearable pain. Then finally I was accepted to Mercy and in October 2014 I arrived in the St. Louis Mo Mercy home.
When I got to Mercy I felt like a balled up mess that I didn’t want anyone to try and unravel I was so broken I didn’t know where to begin, but God knew. Now that I was finally here and able to work things out I was so scared to allow God or anyone into all my hurt that had become such a huge part of my identity. It was the only reality that had ever grounded me, the only thing I had through all the years constant pain and now there was hope to live without it and I didn’t know how to begin to let it go. I felt that I didn’t deserve to be happy because he was dead and it was my fault. The pain was all I had.
God met me where I was, He came down to the dark place I was in and spoke to my heart little by little lifting me out of the pit I was in. He is close to the broken hearted and crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18) and comforted me like I had never been comforted before. I slowly started to make the decion to forgive others, and then finally myself. I remember that being the biggest step for me in freedom. My whole life all the horrible things that had happened to me I had blamed myself for every single one and hadn’t even realized it. As soon as I forgave myself it’s like the doors slammed shut on my past and flew open to my future. I started to trust the Jesus in me, because you can’t trust the Jesus in you if you hate yourself. I was now able to hear Gods words straight to my heart and they were never shameful or condemning like I had been to myself. They were words of true love, peace and safety. God told me that I do not hold the keys to life and death. God told me that He did not save me to torture me but He saved me so I can have a fullness of life. When I heard Him say that to me I grabbed ahold of it and didn’t let go. I to this day still remind myself that I WILL have a fullness of life says the Lord, and that is what I have.
Sense graduating from Mercy April 30th 2015 Gods promises has come to pass 10 fold of what I imagined. My life is full of abundance of love joy peace, and so many wonderful things. I am surrounded by people I adore and adore me in return. It is hard to even believe that I used to be anything else then this sure woman of God. That person I used to be is so different and foreign to me now. God has completely restored my relationships and has begun to heal many hearts through my testimony. It is truly amazing to see what God is using me for now with people I know and people I don’t. Only God could have made such a miracle of such a broken shattered prison that was my life. He told me that I am living proof that there is life after death, and that my life is amazing proof that He is real and He is in control and He can do anything we allow Him to if we just give Him the control in our lives to do it.
I am living proof that there is no limit to His mercy and grace. Jesus has saved me in every possible way I can be saved and I will spend the rest of my days as close to Him as I can get.
