Joileen Mischel – Broken Past Heals Dreams

Joileen’s early years were spent living a nomadic lifestyle and therefore she developed no attachments, or friendships during her formative years.  Joileen attributes her resilience and strong optimism in enabling her to endure and overcome her early years of abuse and shattered dreams. Her father, an unskilled labourer, moved his family from place to place in his ongoing search for work. After attending twenty-odd schools, Joileen was forced to leave school at 11 years of age to begin her working life.

Joileen credits her love of books and stories with helping her through many days of quiet desperation she was forced to endure during the first 19 years of her life. Joileen fashioned dreams in her mind and formed ambitions for the future which she carried like jewels throughout her life. Her lack of education added to her feelings of alienation in her abusive and loveless environment. Her sense of not measuring up, and her belief that she did not belong, was ever-present. Feeling unloved and without a voice for much of her early life, Joileen kept the mental images of becoming somebody worth-while alive in her long-held dreams.

This is an inspirational story of how Joileen was able to transcend feelings of abandonment and betrayal over so many years to eventually become the person she believed she was meant to be. Joileen writes with unbridled honestly about her struggle with self-doubt and low self-esteem - describing how she transitioned from a life of abuse and despair to a place of self-acceptance and self-realisation. We witness how early on, through self-preservation strategies, and later in life through therapy, religion, and eventually developing a spiritual mindset she was able to finally understand her reason for being. Joileen’s story is a story of self-creation, of finding a way out of self-doubt to arrive at a place where she knows she no longer needs to prove her worth. Her life journey has led her to where she is meant to be.