Our Stories

I grew up in the home with both my parents who was up in age when they had me. My parents would fight just about everyday and night. My father would come home drunk and my mom would go straight to fussing before long I would hear screaming, stuff breaking, and licks being passed! I never knew when it would be the next time I'll have to hear or witness the fighting. I was a victim before I actually became a victim. Being a child growing up watching and hearing the abuse thinking to myself is this love. Do love really look like, sound like, or even feels like? Waking up to the screams and breaking of things. Imagine being 3 or 4 not understanding what's really going on and listening to the arguing back and forth and then having your dad throw a crystal ashtray at your mom only to miss her and hit me! Hitting me in the head and  Fracturing my skull. Yes it happened! I bet you're asking if the abuse stopped right; no it didn't.  I remember countless times thinking to myself this couldn't be me or wouldn't be me. My dad died  when I was 8 and my mom continued to date abusive men. I said this couldn't and wouldn't be me only to be me at the age of 19. I had one son and pregnant with my daughter who neither was for my abuser. I was so in love so I thought. After about 6 months to a year in the abuse started.  There was good days of course thinking he will change. But he never did. I can remember being hit out of no where for a man looking at me, for him thinking I was looking at a man, cause he was having a bad day, or for just nothing at all. Oh and don't let me say I was leaving it would be worse. I remember trips to the ER lying about what happened to me.  Scared my kids would be taken or my life. I remember being driven to an open field mile away getting beat, choked until I loss consciousness, with a gun to my head. During all this I gave birth to two more daughters. A total of 4 kids. I was total I was nothing, nobody would want me cause i had too many kids, he continued to put me down, belittled me, and even disrespected me.  After being told this for so long I began to believe it. Thinking this is how it should be, after all my mom and dad did the same. I would watch my son try to hit my abuser trying his best to help, but yet feeling helpless that he was too little to help! I dealt with the abuse for about 7 1/2 - 8 years before finally getting out. I said all that to say this; I understand, I know it isn't easy, I know you didn't know it would be like this, you didn't plan to live your life like this. I know you was scared, in love, wanted to see the best in him, wanting that person you first met back, I know you wish you knew how to escape it all, I know you want/wanted to get out and just didn't know how. I know it was/is hard and confusing. Because of it all this is and why I started The Butterfly Remnants Foundation. To bring awareness, educate, and teach others about Domestic Violence/Abuse, to help others never go through or come out of the abuse. My name is Jennifer I AM A SURVIVOR; I AM AN OVERCOMER! 

 TESTIMONY...Hello my name is Vanessa Guillory. My dad was very abusive to my mother physically and mentally and emotionally. He was controlling and very jealous. He was a alcoholic and he drank everyday. He was also abusive to me and my siblings. I use to lay in my bed at night scared to death as I listened to my dad beat my mom and i hear her cry and ask why. When i got married I married the same type of man. He was also a alcoholic and he cheated on me. He bullied me and beat me. I could have never imagined that someone that i loved so completely would hurt me the way he did. How could he take those vows and tell me he loved me and break me the way he did. He broke my nose one time and I needed to go to the emergency room. He dropped me off in front of the hospital and left me there. There is so much more to my story. I blamed myself. I was ashamed and i felt worthless. If someone told me i was beautiful I didn't believe them because my husband told me so many times that if i left him that no one would want me. He said so many negative things to me that I truly believed him. I finally found the courage to divorce my husband but my story does not end there. It would be years before I started to pick up the broken pieces of my life. I still have wounds..I am still healing...But i am a survivor...

Growing up in a home of love, I didn't know what domestic violence was. I was told stories of family members who experience such violence. I still have moments of how I allowed myself to endure abuse for over 10 years. Do you think about the lifestyle that you want to live. You think about what people will say because they told you so. When you are unable to fight back you take your anger out on the ones that God sent you to care for. You pray and ask for strength and courage to leave so that your children will not be affected by the horrific environment that you are raising them in. Then, after several attempts, that one day came when I decided to set myself free. It wasn't an easy decision because I knew that I would have to struggle for a while. But, I knew that I would be at peace and eventually would have to go to therapy so I could confront my abuser and family members.

This is my story