Heather Jess

CEO/MOM

From a young age, I dealt with mental abuse until her second year of high school. Always being told she was never good enough and would never be anything in life. Growing up in a household of constant negativity was less than easy.
My mother was married three times, and I learned much about what I wanted to avoid. My mother with a single mother of two that seems to have her all for her kids. I will never forget watching her be strong in a relationship that was not worth her time. She had to keep a roof over our heads, and she did. Sadly, the man she married the second time had no business being a “parent.” When my dad passed away, he worsened as I felt my world crashing around me.
His words to this day stay forever in my head. Now, as a grown woman with a successful marriage and three amazing children, I know I have won that battle.
My husband and I had our first child at 19. I will never forget the day I told my mother and her husband I was pregnant. She did not want me to have a child young like she did. Trust me, I was not ready, but I quickly became ready. Her husband was a total and complete piece of crud kind of person. Who kicked me out with a newborn baby the day after Christmas. I had a c-section on December 2. It was, at that moment, the worst day of my life that became the best gift.
I moved in with our newborn into a three-bedroom home where my in-laws lived. At the time, my husband and I were engaged, and we married shortly after that. Here we are 12 years married, and I still adore him.
We finally moved out a year later, and I got pregnant with our second child. We were living paycheck to paycheck. I worked nights as a waitress/ bartender, and he was working at a pawn shop. My husband decided to join the Air Force.
My husband left for basic training two weeks after I had my son. Now picture this… a two-year-old and a two-week-old, and your favorite person is leaving for months.. six months to be exact, and two of them with minimal contact. I was alone even when surrounded by others. Postpartum depression was the hardest part. I had to wake up every day and take care of these kids when I just wanted to hide from the world.
I would drive daily to my Inlaws house to see if my husband wrote me a letter. I still have the letter we sent back and forth. I would stay home and take care of the kids only. No one understood the pain I was in. I remember waking up wishing that I did not. The only thing that kept me going was thinking I needed to be better for my kids, myself, and my husband.
My husband served seven years in the Air Force. Those years were both the hardest and best years of our lives.
It took me years to decide I needed help. I learned that I suffer from PTSD from childhood traumas. I had to reopen all these hidden monsters and tackle them. It was rough being touched, spoken to, and being a mom and employee while I handled this.
I will say that mental health should be just as if not more important than almost anything. It’s never okay to suffer alone as I did. Now I work to help support other parents in ways that fellow military spouses kept me. They were my family for seven years, and when my husband left the military, I saw all the flaws in every system meant to “support” families. I refuse to sit pretty and be quiet while I see others suffer.