Stigma

Lets just say I've faced some Stigma and Labels.

I'll make a list.

Adopted by mothers husband

I ran away.

All the way to Vegas.

Then to a town closer to home.

First Real Job at 14, at Burger King

Single Mother at 16.

Married at 18.

Child Number 2 at 19.

Divorced.

Remarried.

Child No 3

Child No 4

Divorce.

Child Support.

Raising 2 Kids on a variety of jobs and food stamps.

While paying child support.

Accruing Child Support Debt.

Half Pay Check Going to Child Support Debt Arrears

Child Support on Backgound Report

(what company wants to do that paperwork...or hire a mother who must not care about her children...not true by the way)

Mother without her children. (how horrible must she be)

Must be Lazy - since can't get finances together

Adopted by mothers husband

Gave a baby up for adoption and became Birth Mother - Baby number 5 came along later in life.

Dead Beat Mother of 5 -

YEARS of hearing..."don't you know what causes that?" in relation to birthing my children has shown me what people really think ( I'm stupid, dumb, ignorant, and have no feelings) and cautious about who I let in.

Cigarette Smoker - i HATE this one the most. Its the one that I have total control and choice over. I get it. Its all on me......and speaking of that....

lets talk about some other labels like addict. Synonyms might be.....person wil a vice or habit. But oh how we love to call people addicts !!! So lets talk about what kind of addicts there are...... drug addicts, alcohol addicts, gossip addicts, hero mentality addicts, work addicts, same old routine addicts, money addicts, god preaching holier than thou addicts, movie addicts, faceook addicts, ......ahhh yes when its applied to every day things people don't like them so much.....perhaps they might even be one.....while trying to fool themselves that they are more worthy than somebody else.

All of this not only affects my ability to find work and support myself, all of these things have made it hard for me in the man/woman relationship department over the years. Maybe its all in my head but it seems like the super low income brings up doubts of my sincerity eventually.

After awhile it became pretty obvious that my only way out was to become self employed. It wasn't that hard to do, I was already living on practically nothing, so the minimize expenses part that is recommended when starting a business was handled, the only way to go is up Over the years somehow I got skilled at saving even more. I worked with free tools and platforms like imagekind and spend much of my free time learning and working and applying what I learn to working smarter.

There's this thing called unschooling.....its where kids are encouraged to shape their own learning by expressing interest in various subjects and giving guidance in learning about them. It is also available to adults.....the internet is such a marveloous tool. Sometimes I wonder if people will eventually stop going to college and self educate......anyway.....i have been known to get off on a tanget

All in all I think I'm doing pretty darn ok. I'm a survivor who wants to be a thriver.

If anything its allowed me more compassion toward people in life. I have friends who have been in similar situations and understand and love me anyway Thank God.

I'm still here so perhaps I'm doing something right God hasn't struck me down with lightning yet.

I'm still pushing forward with my will do/am doing attitude, faith in myself and ability to laugh at myself and admit that yeah.....once in a while I can throw a tantrum....then laugh at myself about it later. I'm only human....doing the best with what I've got and all in all I'm pretty darn blessed to have amazing humans in my life who love me for me!

What a lot of people don't know is that the WHOLE reason I started trying to sell my art is to END my financial nightmares and maybe even be able to afford to go see my children one day. I started building this store on Imagekind 6 or so years ago as a potential way to EARN a LIVING! I get a commission, the tool is free to use so I figured some is better than none and got going. The link is here if anyone wants to take a look and maybe do some shopping for home or office.

http://mswenderful.imagekind.com

Eventually I started making mixed media works because they were a good outlet and pretty inexpensive since I work with mostly repurposed materials...saving stuff from going to landfills and money in the process.