I Was a Pageant Queen Without Self-Esteem Until I Tried This One Thing.

Mom only pushed me harder into those pageants though. And when the moms were out of sight, the men behind the scenes were inappropriate.

I was traumatized by the very man that my own mother hired to train me to walk the right way and to win pageants. I was so young though that I didn’t realize what he was doing was wrong, until I got a bit older.

By then though, I was hardened in the industry of pageantry. I went on to some of the biggest competitions, but I didn’t win. My mother said some of the most horrible things to me, and not long after I became an adult, I decided to move to New York.

I thought I’d become a model and I’d show her. I started getting noticed and making it on billboards for big brands. To look at me from the outside, you’d envy me. I had people from high school tell me that all the time on Facebook.

None of them realized how dead I was inside.

One day, I met a man that quickly swooped in and showered me with gifts and what I thought was love. He’d send me flowers, pick me up in limos, and take me to the most incredible places.

I thought he must be smitten because he asked me to marry him and we’d only been dating a few months. Right after the wedding, he started beating me. Never on my face, just all over my body.

I soon started hiding away from everyone, declining modeling work, staying away from friends I’d made. I felt like I was worthless. I felt like his abuse was my fault, that I’d done something to deserve it.

There was one person I couldn’t hide from though. It was my best friend since middle school. Tabby and I were always close, and knowing me as she did, she sensed from my behavior that something was wrong.

She flew to New York and invited me to dinner while my husband was on business in Dubai. When I looked at her, I began to cry. She just held me while I cried, knowing that she was the only person who ever saw me for who I really was. She saw beyond the pretty hair and makeup to my fragile emotions and she knew I needed help.

We worked out a plan where I’d leave my husband and come stay with her back in Dallas. But there was something else she said I needed to do.

“Chelsey, you have to heal your self-esteem. Leaving Tanner is a good step but you need to work on this or you’re going to be stuck in this cycle.”

That’s when she confessed to me that while I’d been running those runways, she’d barely escaped with her life from her college boyfriend. She’d never told a soul because she was embarrassed. She told me that what helped her could help me too.