The Naked Truth: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewife of New Jersey--In Her Own Words (21 page)

I believe that you have to learn to love yourself before you can truly love another. This has nothing to do with being conceited; it has to do with embracing yourself so you are putting out the kind of energy to the universe that you would like to receive for yourself in return. There are no mistakes. Only lessons. Choose to learn and move forward and embrace each lesson learned, for it’s the experience you will grow from. During my life, I have continually learned the majority of my lessons the hard way. Some lessons were learned while I was locked up in a prison cell. Others lessons were learned while I was recovering in a hospital bed. Many lessons were learned when I was working as an exotic dancer. More recently,
I have learned new lessons from my experiences on national television.

I have been given not only a second chance in life, but a third, fourth, and maybe even more. These opportunities are extremely rare and I’m grateful for them. With each new lease on life I have learned so much along the way, and each time I reach a better understanding of myself.

I believe that you should not let the past define you. Embrace it, own it, then move on from it. If you are trying to deal with something bad that happened in your past, the best way is to dig deep within yourself, ask for forgiveness, and forgive yourself. If you are going through a rough time, know that you are exactly where you need to be. Once you get through it, you will get to the next level in life. You shouldn’t think that whatever mistake you made or what you did wrong defines you as a person or your destiny. You define you. You get to choose your destiny. It is your path, your journey. Don’t let anyone steer you away from your destiny. If you allow this to happen, you will have to travel the same path again and learn the same lesson twice.

I want to share a mantra of mine that reminds me of the most important lessons I’ve learned. I encourage you to learn it and repeat it as well:

Life is a gift

Love is a blessing

Trust is earned

Yes, I have made wrong decisions in my life. I have slipped and fallen hard many times. However, what counts is what we do when we muster up the strength to get up again, and move forward. I strongly believe that mistakes are only mistakes if we don’t learn from them. When you have gone through all the experiences that I have, you can end up being consumed with negativity. However, it is a personal choice and I choose to be positive with all of my thoughts and actions.

Don’t Look Now

Mirrors have never played a significant role in my life. I’ve never liked looking at myself. I used to be puzzled by why I didn’t like to see my image up close, but I realize now that the reasons were much more complicated than I originally thought. They definitely weren’t skin-deep.

My ongoing battle with the mirror began when I was young, and I feel it has a lot to do with the sexual and physical abuse that I was tormented by and that was left largely unresolved within me. When I looked at myself in the mirror as a teenager, I didn’t see a whole person. I saw just a fragmented image of what I was supposed to feel like as a young girl. I thought I should see a young, happy, carefree teen blossoming into a woman, but instead I saw a fearful, lost, and confused person.

Sometimes looking at ourselves is the hardest thing we can
do. We try our best to put on a brave face for the world and the people around us, but when we are left alone to look at ourselves in the mirror, that moment of reality can often be difficult. Of course, I don’t mean looking at oneself just in a physical sense. I’m talking about looking at the person who is revealed by looking into our own eyes and the moment of truth that occurs from deep within our souls when we do so.

I’m finally reaching a point where it has gotten much easier to look at myself in the mirror, and I think being on the television show and writing this book have certainly helped. These two platforms have allowed my voice to be heard and have enabled me to confront the issues of my past that I’ve avoided for so long.

Until now, I suffered from guilt and shame for many years because of the abuse that occurred during my childhood. However, through healing and self-discovery, I have finally realized that the abuse was not my fault. It should be the abusers who find it difficult to look at themselves in the mirror, not me. I hold my head high and am proud for having had the strength to survive all that I’ve gone through. I’ve found my way out of the darkness that others created and am now living in love and light.

If you’ve been through any of the types of abuse that I’ve been through, I encourage you to be proud when you look at yourself in the mirror. Hold on to the truth that
it wasn’t your fault
that you were abused as a child. You didn’t do anything wrong. There’s no need to carry shame. Let go of the past and
move forward to the future. Remember, this is your life, so live it your way. Now you can look at yourself in the mirror and smile.

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

When it comes to love, I have received many mixed messages throughout my life. When my abusers would sneak into my room in the middle of the night and tell me to keep quiet as they violated me, they didn’t love me. How could they? They didn’t even love themselves. For a young child, the feeling of being safe is one of the essential foundations of love, and I never felt safe. Not once.

Later, I was in many relationships with men who told me that they loved me, but I wondered why I was still in so much pain. I felt empty. Please recognize your self-worth and leave an abusive relationship before it’s too late. I beg you. If you think that it’s easier to just stay in it, you’re wrong. If you think that he or she will change, he or she won’t. If you think things will get better by themselves, they don’t. If you try to leave and your partner won’t leave you alone, seek protection. Go to the authorities. Ask friends and family for help. Many people think that breaking up with a partner is a personal defeat—it isn’t. By staying in an abusive relationship, you’re just defeating yourself every day that you’re still there.

So, what’s love got to do with it? Everything. Love gets you
up in the morning and motivates you to tackle the challenges of the day. Love puts you to bed at night and lets you sleep easily. In a healthy relationship, love is supposed to make you feel free, not like a captive. We all have a choice when it comes to love. We can choose not to be abused and seek out true love. We can choose not to be afraid to be alone and know that love will eventually find us. But it’s up to you to make the right decisions in your life that will open up the doors and allow love to find you.

Find Yourself First

True love exists. That fairy-tale relationship of a man and a woman and the happily-ever-after is out there for all of us. I still believe that my knight in shining armor will arrive one day soon. He will appear in all of his glory and we will be together for the rest of our lives. Why hasn’t he arrived yet? Because of me.

I have had many relationships. While some seemed right at the moment, in the end I wasn’t with the right partners. If I had been, I would still be with one of them right now. Quite honestly, I think they were holding me back from finding my true love. After a breakup, many people—myself included—tend to jump immediately into another relationship. We believe that’s better than being alone. It fills a void. But inevitably the next
relationship becomes a rebound relationship. Are you as tired as I am of going from rebound to rebound? Well, I’ve found that the only way for this cycle to stop is for you to stop it.

The quick fix and the Band-Aid on the heart seems like an easy way to go, but in the long run, it isn’t. You need to get to the root of the problem of why your relationship failed. I think that more often than not, the root of the problem is you.

I believe that, to find true love, you need to find yourself first.

I think when you’re comfortable and being the best version of yourself, you will attract the best partner for you. When you’ve found a way to completely love yourself, that’s when the glow comes from within and the rest of the world takes notice. Taking the time to work on yourself and your issues will put you in position to be able to tackle a real relationship, one of substance.

I have put in a lot of time both personally and professionally working on myself, and I fully realize that I have more work to do. I am a work in progress. But I believe I am now entering a place where I will be able to accept my true love. He may not be perfect. He may even have been through a few marriages that didn’t last, just as mine didn’t. However, if two people focus on themselves first and do the work they need to do to come into their own, in the end they will be with each other for the right reasons.

Tearing Down to Rebuild

When I was married to Tom, even though I had complete financial freedom, I wasn’t really free. Even though I had peace of mind with regard to the financial side of things, I didn’t have peace regarding a truly loving relationship. For women, this is one of the most important things in life, and I urge you all to realize it. The mindset of putting up with what you
don’t
want in a relationship because you have financial security is really selling yourself short . . . or, just plain selling yourself. You need to learn to love and respect yourself the way you want other people to. This rule applies to friends and loved ones alike.

A lot of men and women seem to settle for someone just for the sake of having another person there. What people don’t realize is that you’re allowing a person to occupy a space in your life that doesn’t really belong to them. People think it’s better than being lonely, when in essence you’re screaming out to the universe you have what you need when you really don’t. It’s full. Slot taken! It’s the same thing with love. If you keep your love life vacant, while you work on everything else about yourself, that place reserved for love will eventually be occupied by the right person. I’ve learned through my spiritual work how to set the bar high and to keep it there. I have had opportunities, but I’ve chosen not to go down just any road. What I’ve decided is that I’m going to have it all. I deserve it all. So I asked myself, “How can I get there?”