A Twisted Life: A Soul Rescued

Hello, everyone. This is the testimony of my dear brother who wanted me to share this with you.

In my lifetime, I've been through what some would call Hell, but by the end of this testimony, you will see how God turned Hell into a life of love and peace, even though I'm in prison. He has taught me even while walking this earth, we can live in Heaven surrounded by his love and peace. That we must be at peace with who we really are. Although your past is still part of who you are, we don't have to be a victim to it. What is gone cannot rule our present unless we allow it. Our father has shown me he loves me, even while I was doing the things you will read about. That has made me a better person and I'm slowly becoming who he intended me to be.

The people of the world will see who you were and who you are reflected in what you do. If you love yourself, you can love others and God's love has shown me how to do that. Now his love shines through me in this dark place.

When I was a very young boy, a teenage boy molested me and a few other kids in my family had sex with me and each other. We didn't think what we did was wrong. It was cool because the big kids did it and it felt good. We were told that the grown ups couldn't find out about our game. We—I—enjoyed the attention, the way it felt, and the excitement of keeping a secret form our parents. We knew what we were doing was wrong because we had to keep it a secret, but we didn't know it was illegal.

Eventually, we began to involve other kids in the neighborhood. They seemed eager to join in. They could tell something was going on and wanted to be in on it. I was introduced to this game at the age of 7 and was having sex with boys and girls. When I was 12, my mom asked me if I was having sex with another boy. I was angry, ashamed, and realized that we had to stop, that I had to stop. In the almost 5 years of playing the game, we had 8 or 9 kids involved. My mom made sure I understood how wrong it was.

Because of my shame and anger and the urges I still had, I decided that I couldn't let anyone besides my mom get close to me. I pushed everyone away, friends and family. I began dating girls at the age of 13 but was very nervous when it came to doing anything with sex. Even a kiss would cause me to freak out.

I began to truly hate the world and everyone in it. I couldn't deal with all the chaos going on inside of me. I started drinking and doing drugs to cope. The drugs and alcohol helped me relax so much I started having sex again. The high or drinking also made it easier to act out. I began attacking people and breaking the law. I believed that all the excitement, the adrenaline rush, made me whole again. After all, it had a lot of the qualities of the game. This was the beginning of my criminal history. This was a never-ending cycle in my life: I would get messed up, do something crazy, sober up and feel bad about what I had done, and get messed up again.

Any time I thought someone was getting to know me too well, I would do anything necessary to drive them away. I didn't have serious relationships because I didn't want people to know who I really was. But what was really sad is that I desperately wanted someone close to me. I needed love, but it seemed that anyone I began to care about either hurt me or I hurt them. So I decided that in order to protect myself and those I cared about, I needed to stay separate. After all, it's better to be lonely than in pain.

The crowd I was in knew that I was the tough guy, so I was the first one called when a fight was about to go down. Most of the time, it never happened because I had a reputation. People were afraid of me because I fought in an absolute berserk rage. What they didn't know was that I was depressed and wanted to die. I fought like that in the hope that I would force someone to kill me.

For as long as I can remember, I have been hearing voices and they always told me to do stuff to cause pain. Sometimes, I couldn't resist and did what they told me to do. At 5 years old, I stabbed a little girl with a pen. She had never done anything to me and I hurt her because of the voices. For years, I did everything the voices told me to. They had complete control of me and I got into worse trouble with the law.

By the time I was 18, I was completely out of control. The voices began telling me to kill people. At 26, the doctors started giving me a bunch of different diagnosis. The last said I had schizoaffective disorder.

My life was complete chaos, not even I knew what I was going to do next. It was a couple of months before my 26th birthday when I was arrested for this crime. To this day, I can't clearly remember the first week of my incarceration because I was mixing psych meds with a lot of alcohol and street drugs. The first thing I remember is walking up in a green velcro suit with a man telling me my family was there to see me, but that the lawyer wanted to talk to me first. My mom told me what I had done.

I'm in prison for shooting my best friend multiple times in a KFC. In my dreams, I'm always shocked that I don't feel anything, no physical or emotional connection to what happened. It was like watching a movie or playing a video game. This mad had never done anything to me and definitely did not deserve what happened. The shame and guilt I felt over this crushed me.

For many years, I was very angry at the mental health people who were treating me in Lufkin and Nacodoches, TX. I had told them repeatedly that the voices were telling me to kill someone. They told me I was a danger to society because of command auditory hallucinations, but they didn't have me committed to a mental or inform the police. I blamed them for my friend's death and for my imprisonment. I still can't help but think that if I had been committed, my friend would still be alive.

Then when I went to trial, my court appointed attorney just wasn't interested in fighting for me. Also the psychiatrist who had evaluated me at the time of the crime took the stand and was asked by the DA about my sanity. He responded, "I'm not qualified to answer that." My lawyer told me they were going to give me life unless I signed a plea for 45 agg. I was scared, confused, ashamed, and hopeless, so I signed.

I decided I would "have some fun" in prison and then kill myself. The fun I had planned was sex, fights, and drugs. I had decided that my life was over and I truly believed my end was a good thing. After all, I was a sexual freak and a monster. However, God had a much different plan. He showed me his love and saved me. God has helped me to forgive a lot of people, the hardest being myself.

I am in a horrible place, but I am happy because I know my father loves me. I have seen miracles in here. I was lucky enough to be used by God in Donny's healing. God has restored my family to me and given me a purpose in life. I'm nowhere near a perfect person. I deal with lust daily, but God is with me and sees me through my trials. I used to think my life was over, but God has shown it has only just begun. God has shown me that he will open the doors of my prison because he has children out there who are lost and being tortured by the enemy. He will use me to rescue them. I'm going to be kicking down the doors of the devil's strongholds. I'm coming to rescue you from your nightmares, and God's love is guiding me, showing me where the enemy is hiding his beloved children.

I'm coming home, coming to help you, to show you a love so awesome that you will glow like a light in the darkness. God bless you all, amen.

Rewritten by Donny Welch
From Dustin Cooper #175368
McConnell Unit
3001 S. Emily Dr.
Beeville, TX 78102

Email me at www.jpay.com or comment on this site.

P.S.
I offered our brother Dustin a chance to share his testimony, but I had to rewrite it in order to mail it out.

Peace and love,
Donny Welch #1375713