Hello! My name is Joe Bade, I am 33 years old and this is my second business venture. As promised I will tell you a little about myself and the journey that led me to starting Bad Art Woodcraft. But first, you all need to know a little about me and my background.
Not just my favorite color and the boring stuff, but let's talk about real life!
I was born in Lemvig, Denmark in September '91. My parents were missionaries at the time and met after my dad and his best friend went to Europe as missionaries. My mom was from Europe and then were married a few years overseas. Soon after my birth, my parents returned to the United States, where my Dad grew up and we ended up in Spokane. Washington. I will be honest I do not remember much of my life before my parents' divorce. It's hard for me to recall much because it was not a very fun time of my life. My parents were separated when I was in seventh grade. From that moment on, my life changed drastically. My mother had custody of me and my two younger sisters. My mother was an alcoholic and was not kind to me and my sisters. We were abused physically, emotionally, and mentally. I grew up much quicker than someone my age would have to. Fast forward a few years, and I found myself in the back of a cop car headed to juvenile detention in Spokane. I was accused of trying to stab my mother and was looking at being charged with 2nd-degree assault. Which would have landed me in county jail for a long time. I was 15 years old and was starting my freshman year of high school in a few months. After a few weeks, my dad came home from working out of town, and I soon moved into his house. For the first 6 months of my freshman year of high school, I wore an ankle bracelet and was on house arrest. A few months went by, and my sisters moved in with my dad as well, we were all finally out of our mom's house and could breathe freely.
After graduating high school, I joined the United States Marine Corps and went to boot camp in Dec 2010. I served two tours overseas to Afghanistan and made it back home in one piece. Unscathed by the fog of war, or so I believed. Fast forward a few years to when I met my now ex-wife. We got married a few months after I got out of the Marine Corps. We were young and had no idea what it meant to be married. We both came from broken homes and had our fair share of marital problems. Soon after getting married, she got pregnant, and we were excited to welcome our first child. A few months after finding out she was pregnant, I was diagnosed with cancer and was having to think about the possibility of never being able to have kids again. This started a long road of recovery, which brought to light some other issues that I had been unaware of. Her dad worked for a place that helped homeless veterans get health care, and he helped me take care of getting everything together to submit to the VA. At the same time, the counselor I saw asked some questions and put me through a screening for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It was soon after that I realized that maybe what I had been through was not normal. Between the military and childhood trauma, I had built some unhealthy thought patterns. It was then that I realized I needed to seek out some help for this, but I refused to take medication for anything.
Moving forward in time, we found ourselves in a bathroom of the home that I owed and ran my small general contracting business out of. I was using marijuana and alcohol to self-medicate myself, and everything took a wild and crazy turn for the worst. Without going deep into the details, I was admitted to the hospital and stayed for most of the evening until the edible I had taken was out of my system. This helped get me on the correct path of seeking the real help that I needed to deal with my demons. Throughout this entire experience, my ex and I were part of a church plant and were serving at a high capacity at the church. Faith has always been an important part of my life, and God has brought me through so much. I was going to need God in the coming days to get through everything that was to come. The first step was closing my business because of the amount of stress that it had on me. I got a job and said goodbye to my first business.
I started down the path of getting medicated and seeking counseling for the better part of the next two years. I am grateful for God helping me through that process and for him being gracious to me with the people he had placed in my life to help me through it. After not being in counseling for a little while, my ex-wife and I left our church and began what can only be described as the end of our marriage. About a year and a half after leaving that church, I was asked by my ex to have a chat. It wasn't long after that chat that we were separated, selling our home and living in separate places. It would have been an understatement to say I didn't see it coming that night we chatted. After 8 years we were calling it quits and following in the footsteps that our parents had created. While this should have led me to hate God, in the end, it drove me closer to him and back to counseling with the same man I had seen so many times before that.
This brings us to almost the end of this blog. Stick around for part 2 next week!
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