Faith Travels from Teresa Bestwick...
1980-Teresa at the Clayton County Jail Now-Teresa, husband Roy and daughters
in Jonesboro, Georgia
My name is Teresa,
I pray that my story might touch somebody’s heart for I have been forgiven and I am finally free from my haunting past. I was born in Atlanta back in the early sixties, my mama was 17 at the time. I remember later she told me that there was three foot of snow on the ground and she had nothing to dress me in. The doctor’s wife gave me clothes to wear. We were very poor and by the age of six months I was taken to live with my Granny Ray to whom I loved and adored. She was my safety, my warm place to hide. She took me to church and I watched her pray on her knees and cry for my papa. My papa was a drunk and took pills, but I loved them both with all my heart; they were always so kind to me.
My mama had her first mental breakdown and was taken to an insane asylum where she experienced shock treatments and was then released. It was mama, me , my older sister, and a crazy man, daddy. I would stay with my granny off and on while my daddy would come and get us. I went back and forth between them. I only remember bits and pieces of my childhood, but I knew early on to stay out of his way. My other sister came along 18 months later and then ten years later. another sister. Four girls, one big hell. My mama experienced breakdown after breakdown and I remember going to the closet hiding alot from daddy. I lived in constant fear. I would hear mama screaming and crying and later found out he would steal the grocery money and buy her negliges and take her in the bedroom and rape her. I remember him dragging her by the head of her hair, I couldn’t help her and I felt so helpless and hopeless.
One time she took us to school with two black eyes. Oh, my poor mama. I was very ashamed growing up and I didn’t have friends because of my daddy. Daddy would bust up the furniture and if dishes were in the sink he would make us watch him take a hammer to them. One night he woke us up to a bowling pin he had put in the dryer. All we heard was that loud banging sound. I hated to go to school afraid somebody would find out.
I remember that at the age of seven, all we had in our living room was a picnic table. When my mama had me a birthday party and I was so embarrassed. . I remembered getting into a Volkswagen doodlebug with my mama and sisters while she was taking us to Zesto’s. As we were leaving, my daddy laid in front of the car and my mama ran over him and broke his arm. We kept on going because she had five dollars and was determined to get her girls some hamburgers.
I was also seven when I was molested by an old man in my papa’s restaurant. I went to hide in the boarding house next door and all I saw was drunk dirty old men. We never talked about it again. Mama finally divorced daddy when I was 14 and we moved from apartment to apartment. By then we were raising ourselves while she worked two jobs. My daddy never paid any child support. I remember when she had a major car wreck and had also just had a hysterectomy. When I got home from school she was laying at the bottom of the stairs, he had broken in and kicked her down the stairs. We also were burned out of that apartment by reasons unknown and it was two weeks before Christmas. Everything was burnt, but we managed to drag the furniture outside and wash it off with warm soapy water. They later evicted us.
I started drinking at 14. I still remember that cherry vodka going down warm and smooth it took away all my hurts and helped me forget my pain. I could deal will life. I had finally found relief. I also found that warm feeling with every boyfriend and I loved anybody that would show me attention. By the age of 17, I was date-raped. My Granny Ray always taught me to remain a virgin, but after that I knew that nothing mattered anymore. I didn’t even tell my mama, she was never around I also started doing drugs and I mean every drug, anything to numb the pain.
I moved out and by the time I graduated I was working at the Sheraton Hotel. I learned how to use my body to get money from men to keep my addiction going strong. I also learned how to throw-up my food to keep me thin. Looks were everything to me. I was arrested at 18 and then again at 21 and they sent me to a physco ward. I always blamed everybody else for my lot in life. I was arrested ten or so more times for public drunk and for a few felonies. I moved from apartment to apartment, from man to man and from job to job. I sometimes would think about God, but hid in shame knowing He probably would never forgive me.
I went to Miami one summer and ended up living on the beach for a while. While there, two men took me in for a couple of days and I did what they wanted, but they still threw me out . Finally I was able to find a man to take me home, but oh what a price I paid. I worked at every bar that would have me and I was fired from them all. I ended up pregnant working at a bar at Lenox Square while taking the train to little Five Points drunk and going to a dope houses. I got a abortion in my fourth month.
Later I ended up working at a bar on Stewart Avenue stripping for tips. A guy came up to me and put a dollar in my belt and said, “ You don’t look like you belong here, come home with me." About a month later he saw me for what I was, a drugged out drunk, but he also saw something good in me. He told me that he would marry me if I would get help. I always knew if I were married that life would be different so off to inpatient treatment center I went , a 12 pack later. That was the first time I heard anything about Alcoholics Anonymous.
When I got out 28 days later nothing had changed so he made me leave. I went to live with my sister and then she also made me leave. I took a room at my hairdressers house and started going to AA meetings, found me a boyfriend and ended back out. Then back in I came, “nothing changes if nothing changes." A year later I picked up my first year chip .
I was having relationship problems and started going to different meetings where I found me someone else to love and ended up marring him. It was 2001 and I had two small children, a failed marriage, no sobriety and remembered “If I always do what I always did, I’ll always get what I always got” so I ended up divorcing him. I then moved to Stockbridge Ga. and met another man within a matter of weeks. I was popping pills and living the big lie. I had grown up just like my mama.
I looked at my four year old little angel and she looked so scared and so lost. She drew me a picture with tears rolling down her face and said, “Mama where have you gone? Please come back.” I had left these girls so many times with whoever would take them and wasn’t emotionally there. That was it for me, I couldn’t do this anymore.
At age 41, I looked in the mirror and said “I Hate You, Look what a mess you have made of your life." I wanted to be happy and free from my past. I wanted my children to have a happy childhood. It was my choice. I wanted to be able to lay my head down at night and not have any more fear, any more bondage and I wanted the hate out of my heart.
It was suggested that I stay out of relationships for a year and I did, but I complained the whole way. Now here I am six years later and the promises have come true in my life. “We are going to know a new freedom …we will not regret the past, we will know the word serenity and we will know peace. We will see how our experiences can benefit others and that uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves…My life has changed!! I have recently remarried. He is gentle, kind, loving, and a patient man that has been in recovery for 18 years. My children are happy and we are very content . Their daddy is very much in their lives and has just celebrated six years of sobriety.
I have started Shining Light Ministry and I help women in the Henry County Jail make a change in their lives. I am in the process of opening up a Christian halfway house for women who have been released from the jail system. At this house they will have the opportunity to live for one year and to get their lives on track. Our family attends Bethany Baptist Church where I sing in the choir. I have learned to breathe in the word of God. He is my best friend. He is my source of strength and My Stong Tower. “My chains are gone, I’ve been set free. My God My Savoir has ransomed me. And like a flood, His mercy reigns, Unending love, Amazing Grace."
I am blessed,
Teresa Bestwick
