My Autobiography – Personal Essay
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MY AUTOBIOGRAUPHYDWENN GANTTGENEVA COLLEGEPROFESSOR TONYA REEDCLASS 1, INTRO TO HUMAN SERVICES, ADPJanuary 18, 2017 This girl is on fire, literally. I am four years old, and I am watching my mother with a milk jug of yellow fluid dousing the curtains and the couch in the corner, then she empties a large bit on the carpet, drops the jug on the floor, yells at me to go to the back room, and then I heard the front door slam. I waited a few minutes, then I smelled smoke, and I tried to run into the living room. It was on fire. I’m so scared. I run to the middle room/bedroom where my little brother who was three, and my baby sister who was close to two years of age at the time, and they look at me at begin to scream for my mother first, then when she didn’t come, they started to scream for me, “Honey”. I didn’t know what to do. So, I just put us all on the one bed we shared, and cried. Just then, a fireman was at the window with an axe yelling for me to get us all off the bed. I did. He knocked the window in, and saved us. My mother was seventeen at the time. She had birthed four children. Three live births. One stillborn at the age of twelve. The stage has been set.
I was born Dwenn Yvette Walker on February 28, 1962 in Atlanta, Georgia. My family told me my name was Gwendolyn until I found out differently when I went to obtain my birth certificate when I was ready to obtain my driver’s license. Go figure. My childhood was filled with uncertainty and fear daily. My mother was physically and emotionally abusive. She also suffered from schizophrenia which was made worse by her alcoholism. My father was an absentee father. He also suffered with alcoholism and schizophrenia. I grew up in the foster care system. I tried to keep us kids together, but to no avail. I was moved around to several foster homes, until finally, they placed me in a group home where I thrived. I graduated high school when I was seventeen and pregnant, but they still help me when I went out on my own. After experiencing life, the way that I had, I had no idea how to live it. I always knew that knowledge was power. So, I tried to educate myself. But I had poor coping and life skills. Between the ages of 17-45, I had three children. One was kidnapped by his father when he was three. Just found him in 2011. I suffered 30 years of physical, mental, sexual, and emotional abuse at the hands of three men that said they loved me. At the age of 28, I began to use alcohol and crack cocaine, and became severely addicted for 17 years. I lost my children, self-respect, dignity, nearly my life. Unsuccessfully, I’ve attempted suicide twelve times. Each time, I vowed to myself I would never do that again.