From Her Weakest Moment- Ilauriya's Story

*This story is one of the reasons why I do boudoir. Everyone goes through an extremely hard time at some point in their life but that doesn't mean that should stop us from being happy and living every day to its full potential. Read this and I am sure it will change your perspective on things, especially if you are one who is going through something difficult. Know that there is a brighter side.

THE BEGINNING

"So I grew up in San Diego, California til I was 14 years old. I lived in Chula Vista where being light complected was not my friend. Even tho I am Hispanic I do not look that way. So I was teased horribly for being the little white girl. I remember being in elementary school and crying inside my desk because I was so unhappy and miserable. This trend pretty much followed me through Jr. high and into the first semester of my freshmen year."

"I was teased horribly for being the little white girl."

"Then when I thought life couldn't get worse my parents decided they were calling it quits and my mom was going to take my sister and I to Oklahoma. I ran away from home with my boyfriend at the time and was gone for 6 weeks before they found me and drug me home. I was such a flight risk that my dad threatened to handcuff me to the car if I tried to run. So we moved to good Ol' Oklahoma.

Coming from California it was a culture shock and boy, to me, y'all were so behind the times on everything. I started school and something strange happened, I became popular because I was the new girl who dressed way ahead of her time. So I thought, "Wow, life is going to be great!" That was till I met my oldest son's dad at 15 years old. He was charming and cute and funny, etc. How did that change? He started becoming aggressive and violent towards me."

"He started becoming aggressive and violent towards me."

"The time we were together he took my bubbly, outgoing personality and destroyed it with abuse. It went on 'till I found out I was pregnant and he actually tried to kill me. I somehow got away and called the cops and ended it, but the terror would not end there."

"He actually tried to kill me."

"He had nothing to do with me or my child after he was born for 4 years. After my daughter was born he took me to court for visitation because he was forced to pay child support. Which he would spend the next 11 years abusing my son, but we will get there...

When my daughter was 6 months old she ended up in the hospital because her father shook her and she almost died. He went to jail and my kids were taken into custody. I fought for 1 1/2 years to get my kids back. Which I did, but my oldest son's father took the opportunity to file in family court. So I had to then go fight another 6 months to get him back, and then was in and out of court with his father for 11 years. When my son turned 14 the courts finally listened to him and no longer forced him to go to his father's."

"When my daughter was 6 months old she ended up in the hospital because her father shook her and she almost died."

Not long after the end of all that, Ilauriya started dating her first husband. He was really into fitness and every time she went with him he would make underhanded comments to her about her weight and appearance. He did it so much that she became obsessed! She ran in the morning, during lunch, and after work even went to the gym for a workout class and then another hour on firming with weights.

His response ALWAYS was.. "yeah your looking better but you could still lose another 5 lbs.

By the time they had separated Ilauriya weighed 115 lbs I was a size 4 and she believed she looked anorexic because her body was not meant to be that little. On top of that he was extremely verbally abusive to her and was brutal when they fought. It finally came to an end after three years when he threw a glass of water in her face because she made him mad. So Ilauriya packed up her kids and moved across the street from her parents. The kids were 11, 6 and 7 at this time.

Now a little history on her second husband. He was 8 years younger than Ilauriya and she'd known him since he was 15. He'd dated her baby sister but nothing serious. When he was 19 he began to pursue her and after a lot of time he finally convinced her to go on a date. They had not been dating very long when she found out she had cervical cancer and was going to have to have a hysterectomy.

When Ilauriya went in for her pre-op she found out she was pregnant (She had her tubes tied when she had her daughter) so now her 19 year old boyfriend was going to be a father. They gave her the option to abort and of course hse said said no. So she had a team of doctors to keep an eye on her and baby.

"Somehow being pregnant caused my cells to go into overdrive and my cells stopped spreading and then they started to decrease. The doctors really had no explanation but watched the cancer leave my body. When I was in my third trimester I went into premature labor and my baby was tangled to death in my womb by the umbilical cord. She was stillborn and my heart was destroyed with so much pain.

Anyhow life continues on and we get married and I find myself pregnant for the second time. Not far into my pregnancy I started spotting and cramping I was so scared I was going to miscarry again. We ended up having a huge fight and in that he said to me " well if you lose this one you can celebrates its death too" ...it was like a knife.

Sure enough two days later I started miscarrying at work. I told my co-workers and my two sisters (who also worked with me) not to tell him which hospital I went to and called my mom. That was really the breaking of our marriage. After that, the distance between us was unbearable so I began to cheat. It's the only relationship I've ever been in that I did that. During this time I put on weight and maxed out at 220 lbs. I made great money, he made great money. We had the house the cars the trips...etc. But I was miserable. I was in a marriage where I felt like I had a roommate! All the times I had cheated (7 total) they were all flings, till the last one."

This man was everything that was the opposite of Ilauriya. She was prim proper and snobby. The perfect little normanite. He was south side street trash. Yet she found herself "falling in love"... not realizing it was the need for affection that she'd been starved of. So she ended up breaking things off with her him and started a relationship with someone else. This new man ended up being physically abusive and it lasted for three years. During that time he would go on beating her black and blue. Often times it became so bad that she couldn't recognise herself in the mirror. A year into the relationship she was diagnosed with breast cancer and then the sexual assault began. He didn't even care that she was sick.

They ended up losing everything and had to live in a one room shack in the backyard of her best friend's home. When things started getting better she was told that all the cancer cells were dead and they moved into their own apartment. Things ended up worse and Ilauriya ended up with a head concussion from her boyfriend. it was so bad she lost three days of her life. She ended up moving in with her parents.

"I'd like to say that was the last time I went back, but sadly No. It finally came to an end when I finally had enough and fought back and threw him out. I stayed single and attempted to pick up the pieces. So I turned to running and it became my new boyfriend. That was my coping skill. I was always running. And I began to get healthy. Or so I thought.

Months down the line I started dating my current husband. (I've known him since I was 15 and dated on and off since I was 19. And I was so happy. He helped me stop being afraid of my ex. So much so that when my ex attacked me in the grocery store I was able to defend myself by stabbing him with a knife my husband taught me to use. Things in life were doing better till I found out that my then fiance was sleeping with his ex when I came home from work one day and him and all of his stuff was gone. I was devastated all over again. So I became so heart broken that I couldn't eat and I dropped 20 lbs in 45 days."

Within those days he tried to call Ilauriya at work and she refused to speak to him. Till he had his daughter start calling me. Whenever he got back on the phone she would hang up. He told everyone he wasn't going to stop until he had her back. He loved her! She ended up getting sucked back in when he convinced her to come and see his daughter and got back together in September and then married in December."

THE PLAN

'So a little backstory... my youngest son has been in and out of treatment centers for half his life for issues with his anger. Well after 9 years if hell, he went into custody of the state so they could get help for him. Next thing I know I'm in court with allegations of neglect and abandoned. Had to get a lawyer to prove that the only reason he went into custody us because the facility he was going to only took kids in custody. But that was the straw that broke me and I began to start a suicide plan.

On Feb 28, 2014 I tried to jump off the N.W 56th street bridge at 7:08 A.M. I went in patient to Norman regional hospital for two weeks and then was released into an outpatient program afterwards. I spent 8 weeks in that program and during the 7th week I unlocked that I had been sexually assaulted by my mother's brother at 4, 7 and 8. I went public to my family and found out I was not the only girl in our family he has assaulted over the years. Two weeks after my release I didn't process very well this new information and had my second attempt. My husband and daughter caught up to me before I could make it. I spent 12 more weeks in patient and then released into the care of a therapist."

I know what you all are thinking "How can someone not remember that they have been sexually abused?" Well, oftentimes people tend to block out childhood trauma. If something traumatic happened to you as a kid- like some form of abuse- it's possible that your brain can repress these memories. This often leads to all sorts of issues as an adult. Many people that go through this act out or can even become self-absorbed so to speak.

THE EFFORT

Things in life were going well, good job, good house happy marriage happy kids, then while Ilauriya was getting ready for a half marathon she injured her sciatica. If you know Ilauriya like I do, you would know that she is very stubborn. She didn't stop until her injury was so bad that she could barely walk. It increasingly worse until she was bedridden for 16 weeks. She started having neuropathy issues and eventually she was diagnosed with Fibro. During that time she moved into her parents and she lost her job. Poor thing couldn't walk, let alone run.

"So after a series of a lot of different treatment options they were able to get my injury and pain sort of under control. I still can't run, and I have flare ups often, but I am not bedridden. Working out is difficult because it's easy to irritate my body and flare up for days, and sometimes weeks. So I decided I was going to not sit around and be miserable and that I would look at it as an early retirement. So my husband and patents talked me into picking writing back up and so I started back on a novel I've been writing on and off for several years."

THE SUCCESS

When Ilauriya's daughter was 5 years old she wanted to do cheer but didn't have any type of competition. There wasn't anything that resembled it around. Since Ilauriya's son played football she spoke to the coach and created a cheer team with the sisters of the football players. She went on to coach them for 5 years.

"So one day I was driving home from church and I was listening to Klove and this young girl came on the radio and was telling a story about how she started this non profit from couponing and the moral of the story is that we assume when we are told to pick up our cross that it's a negative thing, because it sounds bad, but that's not true. So the question was what can you use that you enjoy to show Christ's live, mercy, mercy and grace? So it got me thinking. I still have relationship with every girl I've ever coached, well my baby sister and I had joked around once about opening a studio for underprivileged kids and it just clicked that's what I'm supposed to do. But my body wasn't going to allow me to do that on my own, so I got my sister, niece and daughter on board with me we converted my living room into a studio and we created RADS (Reckless Abandonment Dance Studio & Resource Foundation) which is a non profit that caters to children who don't have the funds or resources to learn dance."

The studio ran for two years and then Ilauriya's niece had moved away, her sister was promoted at her job and her daughter started a new job. That left her having to do everything on her own. She tried hard to keep up with things but her body just couldn't handle it anymore. She came to a difficult decision and that was to shut the studio down and just go to dance camps which she still does to this day. During that time she felt her self confidence was slowly slipping away. She went from being a size 7 to a size 12. So a friend from St. Louis took photos of her and then a miracle happens! Photographers started contacting her.

"At first I was nervous and self conscious at the shoots, but every time I received my images I would see myself so beautiful captured through someone else's eyes. I made the choice that I was going to show other woman that they can be beautiful and sexy in their own skin. So I teamed up with a photographer... and took a series of pictures of myself and started promoting self love. I would meet woman that would say I always thought I was too big to take pics or model, etc. Then I saw you.

I started having models reach out to me when they needed help getting wardrobe, or my opinion about a photographer and things of that nature. Because breaking into this industry is hard. I didn't come in to become a famous model so I've never had to compete, but for those that do want to; there is just no help unless you want to sign with an agent and hope they know what they are doing.

So with my experience in dance, modeling, directing, and wardrobe my friend who wanted to break into the industry created 3 Pennies Consultants. And basically we did everything except actually snap a camera. But the most important thing is we help new models get a taste of the industry. We help them build a portfolio and walk them through till they ate good on their own. My business partner had a falling out and I made the choice to step aside and let her have the reins of the company, I still assist from time to time, but it is hers."

During the transition from that she had began to pick up the camera. She didn't think that she would do so well with it but she actually does awesome! The artistic side of her really ended up pulling through and she strives to achieve the looks she goes for. Maybe it's because she has modeled or helped direct but she really finds herself happy doing it and that is all that matters.

"I would say out of all the things I have done other than writing my book, photography gives me the most joy. Which takes us to where we are now."

To this day she still struggles with anxiety over her past but she keeps busy as she continues her photography. She recently met another photographer, Anttwane Rambo (AKA Mr Magic Hands-Massages) through mutual friends and he explained to her the inspiration behind his line. It is is to show every woman she is Sexy just the way she is and to show men that they are Kool just how they are. This really moved Ilauriya! His passion and drive was what motivated her that she to wanted to be apart of it. Their personalities and business goals matched up perfect and a wonderful partnership was born and she was named CEO of Marketing for Looksey & Yeskool Clothing. Feel free to check it out at the link below! As well as Anttwane's business page for massages!

Instagram: @lookseyyeskool

When something gets you down, just remember that no one is perfect. Life is not perfect. It’s a matter of choices that we make, that make up what we do and how our life turns out. Make good choices not only for the best life you can live but make good choices for those around you. Ilauryia’s story is meant to teach a lesson and encourage others to stay strong when life gets rough. To be happy. To be you.

Boudoir isn’t for the weak. It’s for the strong. Every women should feel empowered and by doing a boudoir session you get just that. You are giving your raw self to your photographer. My clients give their story to me at every photoshoot I go to. I tend to bring out the best in each of my girls. I want to show their story. I want to capture the confidence they experience.

Your Friendly Photog,

Sammi Cavener