{"id":988828,"date":"2019-11-11T13:16:02","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T13:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wearestrongercharity.org\/en\/?p=988828"},"modified":"2026-01-15T12:22:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T12:22:49","slug":"alexs-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wearestrongercharity.org\/en\/blog\/stories\/alexs-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex’s story"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\tOur blog shares stories of real people showing how they overcame their personal challenges with positive results to empower others\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWe Are Stronger Charity<\/cite>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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It gets better.<\/p>\n

I never talked about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now I do.<\/p>\n

I was born and grew up in a very violent home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My father regularly beat my mother, and I was forced to grow up very quickly in order to patch up wounds and make sure that no one died.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My dad taught me that the only way to get attention was to take it. \u00a0I learned how to swallow all of my emotions, in a cold hollow place<\/p>\n

I was a violent bully; I loved being in fights and unleashing all the rage and hate I felt into my fists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I could find no targets for my anger, I bullied myself to be harder, sharper and stronger. \u00a0I took risks, dangerous, self-destructive risks with drugs, \u00a0and violence with each fight and each drug more dangerous than the last.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I lived for revenge against the world, against God and against my father. \u00a0<\/p>\n

After some years, I was ready. I was going to finally make my father pay, and I was going to make him suffer.<\/p>\n

Then he did something unexpected.<\/p>\n

He had a heart attack and died.<\/p>\n

All that rage and anger and nowhere to go.<\/p>\n

It took me a long time and a lot of training, a lot of talking, to be able to let go of my hatred.<\/p>\n

I was only able to start healing by reaching out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I still have days, moments when the anger and sadness reach into my life, but I have support, and I’ve done the work.<\/p>\n

Misery thrives on secrets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Talk about it and move forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Talk to a teacher, a trusted friend or a relative.<\/p>\n

I’m thankful for all the work that this charity does because it gives people the chance to escape the violence in their lives.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our blog shares stories of real people showing how they overcame their personal challenges with positive results to empower others We Are Stronger Charity It gets better. I never talked about it.\u00a0 Now I do. I was born and grew up in a very violent home.\u00a0 My father regularly beat my mother, and I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":992327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-988828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wearestrongercharity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wearestrongercharity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wearestrongercharity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wearestrongercharity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wearestrongercharity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=988828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wearestrongercharity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":992328,"href":"https:\/\/wearestrongercharity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988828\/revisions\/992328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wearestrongercharity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/992327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wearestrongercharity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=988828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wearestrongercharity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=988828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wearestrongercharity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=988828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}