Beautifully Broken: Meet Melissa

My name is Melissa.  I'm now 34 years old with a kick ass fiancé and two beautiful kids.  4 year old daughter named M and a 3 month old heartbreaker son named E. This was all something that I'd once lost hope in ever having for myself.

When I was 22, I was the passenger in a one vehicle accident with my ex boyfriend of 8 years. This accident left me with the loss of my left arm, a shattered pelvis,  broken right femur,  and broken collar bone.  Being a woman, looks are so important to self esteem and feeling sexy overall.  

You can imagine what this did to me and my self image.  It was shot.  At the time of the accident,  I was at the peak of my self esteem.  I was in shape,  and was getting attention that I'd never had received growing up.. always being a thicker girl.  

I was air lifted to a trauma center,  but they weren't able to save my arm.  To make matters worse,  they lost the damn thing in transport! lol. I have a good sense of humor about it,  no worries.  How do you lose an arm?!! Anyway,  after two months hospital stay,  and three more months of being bed ridden so that my leg could heal,  I was able to go out into the world and get back to where I left off. Or so I thought. 

Going out and getting the stares that were once because I was attractive,  were now because I had an appendage gone.  This was devastating. I couldn't go out and enjoy doing anything. I became a hermit. I ballooned from 180 to 293...

I stayed with the loser out of insecurity and the thought of being alone. He was terrible and NEVER took ownership of causing the accident. Finally,  after 5 years of abusing myself,  I said to hell with it and made myself get a gym membership. It was a start to getting comfortable with the outside world again.

I was successful.  I dropped 65 lbs and was feeling damn good.  I accepted a job out of town and met an AMAZING dude.  All that wasted time thinking no one would ever be into me because of my arm and I just needed to suck it up and venture out.  

That dude is now my fiancé and father of my two kids. I think it's important for women to feel good about themselves,  regardless of what they see in the mirror.  It's hard sometimes,  no doubt,  but we were built to handle the worst.  

I hope this reaches someone,  somewhere and inspires them to be kind to themselves and love what they've been given.  

Melissa

 

*Note: Some names have been changed to protect the author of this blog