Breaking Dawn - Dedication and Introduction

This book is dedicated to my wonderful family who toughed it out by my side on this roller coaster ride I call my life. They are stronger than I could ever be.

Introduction

This is not just another young, abused girl with a sob story about how bad her life is, this is based on actual events that take place in her life, and how they affect her future, as it happens.

Dawn had a very short childhood, during which terrible things happened. She was neglected, abused, and misused. She was taught to be seen and not herd. As Dawn got older, she became everyone's mental, emotional, and physical punching bag, Which in turn, caused her to become very mentally and emotionally unstable. She became very troubled and began to rebel. Dawn often got suspended from school for smoking and fighting. She ran away from home several times, and no matter what she told the police, they always took her back home.

Dawn didn't have to sneak out and run off with friends to party, do drugs and meet boys, she had all that right there at home. Thats why she never wanted to be there. She avoided home. When Dawn turned 18 she married her best friend, David, to escape her family. It wasn't really a marriage, they were nothing more than friends.

Two years later, David fell in love with a woman he worked with, and wanted to marry her, so he asked Dawn for a divorce. Of course she gave him one, after all, their marriage had accomplished what she had intended for it to, and she couldn't expect him to put his life on hold for her any longer. He deserved to be happy. Dawn loved David, as a brother, and for the longest time, was the only real friend she had, so she gave him the house and car. She wanted he and his new bride to have a decent start at a good future together.

David promised that they would always be friends, that nothing would change, but it did. Two weeks after marrying his new bride, he told Dawn he never wanted to see her again. He said their friendship was a part of his life he wanted to forget, and that he couldn't wait to leave the burden of Dawn and her family behind.

While in the process of getting a divorce and mentally struggling with her inner demons, Dawn's Mother became ill with cancer. Dawn didn't know what to feel when she got the news. She was already emotionally unstable, always had been, but this time she totally shut her emotions down.

Dawn knew her Mother needed her, but she couldn't bare watching her suffer, so she stayed away. Two years after being diagnosed, the cancer took her. Dawn felt helpless and overwhelmed with guilt because she wasn't there for her Mother like she should have been. She felt she should have taken care of her better.

Dawn loved her Mother more than even she was aware of. Soon after her Mother passed away, she realized just how much. Dawn became suicidal and extremely depressed. She felt like she was trapped in a nightmare, she couldn't wake up from. The guilt was eating her alive. She withdrew from everything and everyone.It was almost as if she wrapped herself in a cocoon made of pain, to make her hard and cold in any situation, and to keep people at a far distance. She wasn't friendly at all. With every day that passed, Dawn withdrew, deeper into her cocoon.

Late one summer night, Dawn decided enough was enough, she couldn't live with the guilt anymore. The pain and heartache had become more than she could bare. The next door neighbor was gone on a weekend fishing trip so Dawn broke into their house and raided their medicine cabinet. Grabbing any pill she could find and stuffing them into her bra. Dawn left the way she had came, and returned home.

The next night, Dawn took a shower, got dressed in her best clothes, which was jeans and a t-shirt, and put on some music. The pills she had stolen from the neighbor, were laying on her night stand. She slid them off the stand into her hand, tossed them into her mouth and swallowed, without a single thought.

A few hours later, the neighbor returned home from their trip. As they walked to their front door, they noticed footprints in the flower bed, below the window. Right away they knew someone had broken in. Once inside they looked the whole house over, nothing was disturbed except the medicine cabinet. It was open, and pills missing. They called the police.

When the police knocked on Dawns door to ask her if she happened to see anyone messing around the neighbors house, she didn't answer. The policeman glanced through the window and saw Dawn lying there. She didn't look like she was breathing. The policeman knocked louder, no response, he knew something was wrong. He radioed to his partner to call an ambulance and proceeded to kick Dawn's door in.

Dawn was still alive, but her pulse was faint. The policeman noticed a few pills scattered about the table, just as the ambulance was arriving. He told them he suspected an overdose, so they immediately transported her to the hospital where they pumped her stomach.

When Dawn woke up, she felt as if she'd been hit by a freight train. Her throat hurt terribly, and she could barely speak. She tried to sit up, but was strapped to the bed. She started screaming to be turned loose. The nurse came in and immediately gave her a shot, which seemed to calm her down quite a bit. Soon afterward, a nurse brought her a paper to sign. Dawn signed it without hesitation, being on cloud 9 as she was.

A few days later, she found out that the paper she signed was for voluntary admission into the local mental health hospital. She was pissed, but couldn't do a damn thing about it, she had to go. Dawn spent the next 8 months trying to put the past behind her, so she could move on with her life. It was easier said than done. Her psychiatrist helped her find a apartment to rent, and a job working as a room attendant at a local motel. Dawn felt like she actually had a real chance, for the first time in her life.

This brings us to the present day. Read on with open heart and mind. Remember, Dawn is in constant struggle with the inner demons, that she hasn't completely discovered yet. She's learning as she goes, changing as they change, and adapting as best she can.