Crushed Not Cursed

Written By: S. Tuttle

The lyrical genius Lauren Alaina once asked, “How much hell can a house hold?”

The lyrics are modern, but that question? I’ve carried it for years—because long before I heard her coin the phrase, I was already asking the same question.

Every house I lived in held a different version. The chaos didn’t always look the same, but it always showed up—loud, violent, relentless.

I learned early that just because something has four walls, and a roof; doesn’t mean it’s a home.

We left the last story talking about Granny’s prison sentence, but what did life look like when she got out? Everything changed… Or maybe it had already shifted, and I was just old enough to finally see it. Either way, that’s when I realized the grown-ups had stopped pretending to protect the kids. It was a free-for-all; every man (or kid) for themselves. If there were rules, they didn’t apply to us anymore. Every house after her sentence came with new challenges.

Our first stop was a house in Dixon Trailer Park. That house marked a turning point—it was the moment I think I truly realized that safety, privacy, even basic respect for life were all optional here.

This was back when cell phones were just starting to make their way into people’s hands. I vividly remember a physical fight over the landline. I watched my cousin and uncle go head-to-head over whose turn it was to use the phone. Shouting turned to fists. And when my cousin knocked over my uncle’s prized motorcycle (the one tied to his biker gang status) it lit a match.

My uncle came flying off the porch with a gun.

He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t even look around. Just started shooting. My cousin was the target, but I was maybe three feet away, and the yard was full of other kids. He didn’t care. That kind of rage had no aim. I’m not sure if it was the dope of his “gang status” but to him, that bike was worth more than all the lives in the yard combined. 

When the police showed up, they stormed the scene with guns drawn and forced everyone, even us kids, onto the ground.

It was the first time I felt threatened by a gun.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last.

Another memory here was the time my mom assaulted someone’s grandmother with a glass Coke bottle; over forty bucks. That woman’s family lived a deep and dangerous life like ours; naturally, they showed up ready for war. About twenty of them swarmed our yard. It looked like something out of a gangster movie. Fists, blood, screaming—and me, somewhere in the middle of it, wishing I could disappear.

After Dixon, we moved to a house on First Street. It was smaller, already stained with trauma. Another aunt and uncle had lived there before, and their baggage still lingered in the air.

I won’t go too deep into what happened there yet, because some of the events that unfolded inside those walls need their own space later. But here’s the short version: more drugs, more violence, more survival. It was the same broken world, just painted a different color.

Next came a two-bedroom apartment with a different uncle. Granny had decided we couldn’t make it alone on her disability check, so we moved in with her son. That apartment complex was basically a family compound.

Three apartments, all filled with us. At one point, fourteen people (mostly adults) packed into two small units. There wasn’t a single square foot of privacy. I didn’t have a bed, much less a room. I used to get made fun by the family for sleeping with my granny. For one second, I wish I could go back and ask, “What’s the alternative—the floor?”

It wasn’t long before it escalated here too. One of my aunts decided she was the newest cast member of Mob Wives: Barbourville, I guess. She thought every issue should be settled with our hands and thrived on the drama—though she probably fought the least.

Everyone else? We were fighting almost nightly. Sometimes with neighbors, sometimes with each other. And not arguments—street brawls. Blood, bruises, broken bones. The police got so used to coming out, they stopped asking questions and just told us to get in the house.

I’ll never forget watching my sister (probably 14 years old) go up against full-grown women. Thirty- and forty-year-olds. And yes, she held her own. She’s always been a fighter. But that’s not something a kid should have to prove while the adults watched like it was entertainment.

It’s sickening that as a child she was handling business for the adults who were supposed to protect her. 

It didn’t take long before a reputation began to form. I remember hearing a neighbor yell, “Here comes them Tuttle girls!” like they were legends as they trotted their way to a daylight brawl down the street. He’s the same neighbor who would eventually have to pull a machete on the “Tuttle girls” to protect his wife and daughter from their self-proclaimed wrath.

It’s sad, but some in my family wore that kind of reputation like a badge of honor (and still do).

I didn’t. Deep down, I’ve always been ashamed. I’ve always wore it like a weight.

Then came the brick house across the street—Granny’s “dream home.” I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but looking back, her bar was set pretty low. Still, she had wanted that house since the day it was built. And when we finally got the chance to rent it, she was thrilled.

She was so excited we moved in without electricity because, after paying the rent, there was nothing left. Still, she smiled. She thought maybe… just maybe, this was our new start.

But it wasn’t.

That house broke us. It was the final straw. The drug use was heavier than it had ever been. Ambulances came weekly for seizures and overdoses. We had to toss the furniture due to infestations, but we couldn’t afford to replace it—so the place was basically empty. I know it’s deep, and kind of gross; but for some, this is still their reality. This house was so crowded, I couldn’t begin to give an accurate count. So packed that one of my uncles lived in the shed connected to the carport because it was the only unoccupied space. Granny’s open-door policy was catching up with us, and with each new person, the chaos dug in deeper. Sometimes a big heart is beautiful, other times it’ll cost you everything. 

This house was where my childhood officially ended.

I had no room. No privacy. No bed. Sadly, I can’t remember ever having my own space, I had become accustomed to that. I was accustomed to the couch. The house was full of adults, kids, and government aid, yet we still went to bed hungry some nights. I still don’t get it. 

That was my normal.

It was around this point that I made a quiet promise to myself: “I will never live like this.”

Shortly after—still in that house—I met Shyann.

I kept my promise. At 17, I walked away. Tennille, my now MIL opened her door to me. She gave me a bed and a safe space because she could see the disaster that was my life. I like to believe she could also see my heart, because since day one she has rooted for me and despite my baggage; she knew God had placed her daughter and I on this earth for each other. 

So what’s the point in all of this? If nothing else, it’s a journal, an outlet, a place for me to tell my truth. But my hope, is that someone reading this right now realizes they’re not alone in the struggle. That someone facing the same stuff knows that the same resurrection power that lived in Jesus, lives in you.

New life is available. “Even when life is bad, God is still good!” 

There were seasons of my life where I felt like Joseph—thrown into a pit, stuck in places I didn’t choose, blamed for things I didn’t do, wondering if I’d ever be seen.

But God never stopped writing my story. Even in the silence. Even in the mess.

He let my path cross with a girl who changed everything. A girl who would become my best friend, my peace, my accountability partner, and my wife. She didn’t just help me escape—she helped me rebuild.

She helped me heal.

When life gets hard now, we remind each other, “It’s just you and me.” Because (aside from God) that’s all we’ve ever needed.

What the enemy meant to destroy me with?

God flipped it.

And He’s still flipping it.