The Bravery of Telling Your Own Story: Good Girl Chronicles Misson

The Bravery of Telling Your Own Story: Good Girl Chronicles

When I was a television reporter I had the responsibility and privilege of telling people’s stories; some of them good, a lot of them bad. The hard ones still haunt me, make me question humanity, traumatize me when all I want to do is see the good in the world. The images of a Newport News mother being gunned down in front of her kids, the crying family members I couldn’t comfort, the black men I couldn’t love back to life. These images overwhelm my mind sometimes. A therapist once told me it was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She explained that is could be fueling my sadness, and the darkness that made me not want to live. I was a reporter at the time, and I didn’t want to hear it. I thought PTSD was only for combat veterans and service members. I  now think she made have been right.

My goal as a television journalist or so I thought was simple, “Tell their story, be fair, and go home.” It’s all I ever thought I was supposed to do as a journalist.

My News Directors (tv bosses) told me to be bold, and harsh at times in the pursuit of the truth. Chase down the politicians, zoom the camera lens on the face of the grieving mother, you make the viewer feel something. No one said anything about me. What the images did to me as a story-teller, a person, a black woman, a friend, a sister, a future mother, a human. No one taught me how to deal with the pains of what I saw. No one told me how painful, grisly, and ugly it could get to be a journalist. As a blogger and writer I know now that story telling is BRAVE! All those people who shared their pain, pleasure, victories, and losses with me as a television reporter took a huge leap of faith. They trusted in me as a historian of that moment in time, and they took a bold move to share with the world a little piece of them.

Everyday, I wake up with a mission to put God first, stay real, and tell my story no matter how ugly it can be at time. These are my truths: I am clinically depressed, anxious, alone, scared at times, homeless, fat, childless, manless, complicated, struggling, naughty, sinful, broken. This is me. I am also bold, fearless, fighting, growing, loving, intense, intoxicating, magnetic, sexy, powerful. I AM BRAVE.

My Heavenly Father says I am beautifully and wonderfully made, an overcomer, a conqueror, the woman at the well, a David in the midst of Goliath, a lover like Solomon. I AM BRAVE. John 8:32 says, “The truth will set you free.” These are my truths, and now I’m unafraid to tell my truth to the truth.

My life as a blogger and writer has not come without sacrifice. My family has abandoned me. Our relationship is more legal than love. Men are intimated and scared to love me. People I thought were friends threw the most pointed daggers when all I needed was for them to listen. People have taken advantage of my weakness, played on my tenderness, and walked away. When I pleaded for help from the world, they told me I was weak, not #adulting, ripped my character to shreds. I am human. I am flesh and bones so when the world shit on me it hurt like hell. But, I’m thankful I know and praise an amazing God; a God that loved the woman at the well, even though she was sexually sinful. I love a God that helped David SLAY Goliath.  I love a God that showed Daniel how to read dreams. I love an amazing God. I love a God who told me even as a child that I was a story-teller, a woman of discernment, and I’d touch thousands all because I dared to share my story.

If would love to hear your story-- if you have a powerful story of loss, recovery, love, life, faith, anything-- i'd love to share email me at TEAMGOODGIRL84@GMAIL.COM