Category Archives: As Seen on Other Websites/Blogs

This is Where You Left Me

October 9, 2014As Seen on Other Websites/Blogs, Serious Stuff, UncategorizedAudrey Hayworth

Today is my birthday. Before you send your wishes my way, I want to tell you a story about the history of my birthday.

For most of my formative life, I was sexually abused. As a means to control something through the trauma, I developed an eating disorder that reared its hideous head during my teen years. Then, to top of a truly horrific sixteen years of my life, on my seventeenth birthday, I was raped.

The words ‘broken’ and ‘damaged’ are thrown around frequently to describe people like me. Shattered, and unable to form the ashes into something, anything at all, would be how I would describe the state of mind I lived with for a very long time.

Nineteen years later, I have given talks about my experience hundreds of times, but this is the first time I have put these words on paper, where I will have the ability to read my own words, about my trauma for the first time in black and white. And this, this is where you left me:

You left me robbed of simple things that bring other people joy: baths, playing in a pool, eating watermelon, mundane things that I don’t enjoy because they are triggers for me.

You left me with very few to trust and I thought for a very long time that I would never be good enough for someone to love me.

You left me with a nagging, vexatious sadness that plays like a broken movie reel in the back of my mind at all times.

You left me with a destructive cynicism towards humanity.

People ask me all of time — usually in an accusingly loud whisper — ‘what will you tell your boys? How will you explain this to them?’

I will explain it by teaching them not to rape. I will also explain to them that I am no longer ashamed and embarrassed, because this is my story to tell, and if no one wanted me to talk about it, then they never should have laid their hands on me.

I will explain it to them by teaching them about finding joy and peace within your life amongst a consuming pain. The picture you see captures the first time I realized that I felt joy celebrating my birthday, and celebrating the milestone of finding joy on an otherwise internally stormy day for me. The joy was so overwhelming in that moment, it felt as though I could suffocate under its sheer ecstatic weight of emotion. The hard truth is that life can and will change in an instant, and you must let go of expectations in order to move forward, because while the change might be hard, it also might be amazing, and you must be prepared for both.

I usually shun a celebration, because the pressure inside of me builds slow and steady in the months leading up to my birthday, but not for the reasons that you might think. I use this milestone to gage whether or not I have done enough in the last year to give back to others to make the weight of this baggage worth bearing, because sometimes not knowing or understanding the reason this happened to me becomes infuriatingly too much to bear. But, I have finally learned, that I, alone, am enough. And while I might never have the answer to the questions of ‘why’, I get to choose this newfound joy.

When I have flashbacks due to triggers, I choose joy, because you are no longer here to hurt me.

When I worry about who my children are exposed to, I choose joy, because I have two children who love me unconditionally.

When I feel inadequate and unlovable, I choose joy, because my spouse shows me otherwise.

I choose joy, because it is the only choice I was given to make in the collective experience. Where you left me is no longer a pile of ashes, but something I molded into a beautiful life. But you also left me with something that I now know: I have a strength you cannot match nor dare stand up against because my strength is greater than the pain you caused me.

EXPO markers and the reasons you need to buy the larger packs of them

August 7, 2014As Seen on Other Websites/Blogs, Uncategorized, Viral PostsAudrey Hayworth

Last week, I went to school supply shopping. As I have said many, many times before, I love to shop for school supplies. This year, it cost us $343.00 for school supplies and uniforms for both of our boys. Most people complain about the cost of school supplies they have to buy each year, or the amount of the supply fee they pay to the school.

I witnessed such a complaint while shopping and have been so disturbed since, that I had to write about it. While on the aisle looking for the EXPO markers, there was this woman with three girls, standing in front of the markers, complaining about the list of supplies, and the fact that they had to buy supplies. All three girls looked to be between middle school and high school. All three girls and their mother were carrying purses that cost well over $1,000 and shoes that run over $200. All three girls had on t-shirts from a resort that runs an average of $10,000 a week during the low season and were texting away on their smart phones. Now, before I tell you this, I can tell you that it is plausible that someone else, other than their mother, gave them the t-shirts, smart phones, shoes and purses, and they truly could not afford the school supplies. If that is the case, clearly I am being judgmental, but that’s a conversation for another day…. This is the conversation that occurred in front of the EXPO markers.

Mother: ‘It says you need 6 EXPO markers. There’s no more 6 packs.’

Daughter: ‘Then get the pack of 10.’

Mother: ‘I’m not paying $6.79 for them. Then we would be giving them 4 extra markers. I’m not doing that. This is just ridiculous, they can buy their own markers if they want to use them.’

Friends, I am telling you, the indignance of these people has not sat well with me. I haven’t written about this, in part, because I wanted to do some research on the subject. First, I know we have all heard that teachers usually buy school supplies out of their own pockets. The National School Supply & Equipment Association did a study last year on this very subject. Public school teachers spent 1.6 billion dollars of their own money to buy school supplies to do their job. When polled, 99.5% of all public school teachers spent $485 out of their pocket for supplies during the 2012-13 year. This is how it was broken down: $149 for school supplies, $198 for instructional materials, and $138 for ‘other classroom supplies’. (You can read the entire study here: www.thejournal.com/articles/2013/07/01/k12-teachers-out-of-pocket-1-point-6-billion-on-classroom-tools.aspx)

So, let me get this straight— someone who is teaching our future leaders, doctors, lawyers, bankers, basically anyone who will be living for the next 50 years, is having to pay money to do their job? What if you went to the hospital and you needed, say a shot? You pay for the syringe, medicine, alcohol pads, and the materials needed for the nurse and physician to do their job. If they told you that either a) you needed to pay a supply fee for the syringe, medicine, alcohol pads and the materials needed to perform this job or b) you had to bring the supplies, you would probably either pay the fee, or bring the supplies so that the nurse and physician could do their jobs.

I also looked at the average pay for teachers in East Baton Rouge Parish, since that is where I live and my children attend school. Starting out, a teacher in East Baton Rouge makes $43,536 the first year (you can find that here: http://www.ebrschools.net/eduweb1/1000144/docs/03.21.13item9.pdf). Let’s say, for shits and giggles, that they lose 30% of that to taxes, and they are taking home $30,475.20 a year. Are you really telling me that it sits well with you that they are paying almost $500 out of pocket to do their job?

I also broke down what it is costing me per day with spending $343 on school supplies for our two kids. So, EBR has 176 school days this upcoming year and per kid, we spent $171.50 on school supplies. This breaks down to us spending $.97 a day for the supplies the teachers need to instruct our kids for 7 hours a day. When you look at it this way, we’re getting away with a steal of a deal.

I will gladly pay that any day to the teachers and educators that do a job that I, myself, cannot do. I would encourage you to gladly pay for the supplies needed to teach your children. If you have the means, I also encourage you to give a little bit extra. If the teacher needs extra glue, spend the $1 to buy an extra bottle of glue.

It’s not much, but I reached around that woman complaining and picked up the 16 pack of EXPO markers. She may not think twice about the teachers doing their job and the supplies they need, but I can, and I will. You should, too, and you can buy them here: http://amzn.to/1W6ZEEU

Finding the magic from my soapbox

July 15, 2014As Seen on Other Websites/Blogs, Serious Stuff, UncategorizedAudrey Hayworth

I normally don’t write much about our boys being on the autism spectrum, mainly because I don’t have much to say about it in the way people expect.

Today, however, is different, and I think what I have to say about it is of some value, just from a human perspective. I ran into this woman today, who on several occasions has tried to discuss autism at length with me. Mind you, I do not know her name, nor am I really sure she knows mine, but through mutual acquaintances, she knows about the boys landing on the spectrum. That said, I am more than willing to have discussions about it, and we are very open about the subject.

Before this woman had a child, she read me the riot act because when she asked if we vaccinated our children, I was honest and said ‘yes’. Once she had a child, she told me I had ‘drank the water’, and vaccines were the reason my children were autistic. Today, I saw her and I could feel my cheeks burn, the hair on my arms prickle, and my insides start to blister. And then I overheard her whispering to someone about my ‘choices’ to vaccinate.

I ignored her, and once I got in my car, I started crying. This is what I wanted to say to her today: please stop judging me, I am doing the best I know how. Yes, we are open about our boys having autism. We are open about it, because to ignore it would mean we are embarrassed, and, I assure you, we are not.

I don’t have the answers to why both of our children have this. Listen, I get it; people want reasons. While I pray daily about them, God hasn’t given me an answer as to ‘why’, and I have stopped expecting one, because I’m pretty sure he sees the big picture when I don’t.

If you don’t know the parent you are judging, just stop. And if you do know them, proceed with kindness. I can tell you that I am doing the very best that I know how. Do I make mistakes as a mother? Oh, hell yes. But, so does every mother I know. When you ask someone that you don’t know at all, ‘have you thought of this or that’, you are essentially saying to them, ‘have you thought of this reason to blame yourself?’ There is nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, you can say to me that I haven’t already questioned in my mind during sleepless nights. I see the way you look at me and talk when you think I can’t hear you. I see the sympathetic, disdainful, and critical eye rolls you toss my way when my kids are acting insane, or only wearing costumes because he lives in an alternate reality. I know you thank God every day that he didn’t give you a child like mine. I am aware of all of these things, and while I cried the whole way home today because I wanted to be nasty to you in return, I chose not to judge you.

I chose not to judge you because I think you are doing the best that you know how. I can tell you, when we stopped asking ‘why’, something in our house changed. All of the time and energy spent on trying to find a reason has been replaced with what I like to call ‘finding the magic.’ The boys have talents I could only dream of, and they give us a whole new perspective on the world. Our youngest one literally sees the world as a magical place.

So, my advice from my soapbox today is to stop judging and instead come from a place of kindness. We are all fighting battles. Everyone has challenges. Some you can see, some you cannot, and I choose to believe we are all doing our best. And, if you are wise enough to live authentically, you will find your own magic.

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