My siblings and I grew up, during the 1960s and 1970s on the Southside of Chicago, in circumstances of horrendous physical abuse and neglect. As examples of the child abuse we suffered, I was stabbed in the head with a butcher knife, had teeth knocked out, was rendered unconscious by beatings, etc. My brother was burned with a knife on the lips and tongue that had been placed on a stove until it became red-hot, then hung by a noose in our house while I watched, and when I was threatened with being next if I continued crying, I cried louder because I wanted my dad to kill me, too. My sister was thrown in a hot oven and baked until unconscious as I watched my stepmother hold her back against the stove in order to keep her from escaping. There were many years of this abuse imposed upon my siblings and me.

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When I was twenty years old, in 1981, I joined the U.S. Army and, after completing Basic Training, underwent training to become what was then known as a Behavioral Science Specialist (now known as a Mental Health Specialist). It was one of the singularly greatest things I've done for myself. Even though I was trained to counsel others using a multimodal approach, I used the principles I learned on myself, and it took many years, but through them and the things I discovered, I was able to overcome the emotional pain and mental anguish that plagued me from what I went through as a child.

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I overcame a deep distrust for others and depressive misery to become a happy, mentally and emotionally healthy person who lives with a passion to help others achieve their own self-love and happiness. I formed a company called Relearning Love, LLC, whose mission it is to present a multifaceted approach to reclaiming a sense of self-worth, self-love, and self-respect, so that we can, in turn, recognize the worth of others, offer love to others, and respect others from the overflow of what we've gained for ourselves.