Fuck This: Permission Granted to Own Your Story

By Justine Evirs

F*ck This: Permission Granted to Own Your Story is about everything women once had to endure in silence. In this shocking and honest memoir, Justine Evirs declares: No longer.

Justine Evirs has been labeled all her life: Biracial. Bisexual. Rape survivor. Recovering binge-eater and alcoholic. Mother. Wife. Military veteran. But she refused to let any of them define her.

With a rawness that few writers can match, Evirs narrates her tumultuous life while also providing a safe space and encouragement for readers to acknowledge and overcome their own obstacles.

With each chapter, readers will observe Evirs destroy the invisible shackles and generational trauma that held her down. They will also gain an ally and a friend, for the author shares the darkest sides of herself in the hope that readers will feel empowered to ask for help sooner than they otherwise would have.

As Nikki James Zellner, author of Capture Your Story: A Driven Woman's Guide to Creating Content That Matters, said: "F*ck This … should be required reading for anyone struggling to define who they were and who they can be."

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781955026260

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Ballast Books, LLC Washington, D.C. www.ballastbooks.com

Copyright © 2022 by Justine Evirs

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher or author, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

ISBN 978-1-955026-26-0

Library of Congress Control Number has been applied for

Published by Ballast Books www.ballastbooks.com

For more information, bulk orders, appearances or speaking requests, please email [e-mail]

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Author Notes

Prologue

Introduction

Part 1 Burn

Fear

Alcohol

Food

Racism

Sex

Photo Insert

Part 2 Recreate

Denial

Expectations

Motherhood

Religion

Part 3 Rise

Health

Honesty

Grief

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I would like to thank my Higher Power for giving me the strength to follow her path and not my own. Thank you to my husband, Josh, and our three children, Cayla, Kesley, and Caelan, for showing me what life can be if I take care of my mental health and take responsibility for my actions. Thank you, Alcoholics Anonymous for being a free and accessible, imperfect resource for those of us who have a desire to stop drinking. Thank you, therapy for teaching me that I am not my past, my illness, or my trauma. Thank you to Vanessa Hicks for her photography vision and the book cover photo shoot. Samantha Fergus for her badass artist skills and the artwork she has worked so hard on for this book. Thank you to J. Gisele for graciously writing the Foreword to this book and endorsing it as you would your own book. Last but not least, thank you to my small circle of friends who empowered me to follow through with this book and supported me along the way. You know who you are.

Foreword

I don’t remember when I met Justine, but we’ve known each other for several years. I was living in South Florida and trying to make a name for myself as a woman veteran entrepreneur in the hospitality and entertainment industries. I learned quickly how lonely that path can be. I can’t tell you how happy I was to know that Justine was walking a similar path, albeit in a different space.

I remember seeing and hearing her name, I remember learning about the work she was doing, and I remember being a cheerleader of her work before we were even acquainted. We were both these powerhouses within our small community of veteran entrepreneurs. When she and I were introduced, I immediately knew three things about her: she was strong, she was a boss, and I wanted to be her friend. 

Several months after we connected, we were invited to participate in a project by another veteran entrepreneur. We were part of a team with two other woman veterans who were doing big things in our respective industries. We didn’t have the specifics of the team’s mission set in stone yet, but we were all eager to do something together with our combined networks and influence.

The first phone call we had together was the four of us discussing the possibilities of the project. I was so excited because Justine and the other women are such badasses, and I was humbled to be among them. Unfortunately, the project didn’t pan out. We badasses continued cheering for each other anyway. 

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, I was fed up with being silent in the corner while Black people faced so many injustices. I began vocalizing my concerns on various platforms. Justine reached out and asked me to be on her podcast. I accepted immediately. 

My husband, an active-duty soldier, received orders to Germany. I was in the process of diving into the filmmaking scene in South Florida when those orders came. I was running myself ragged, though. That grind culture bullshit was poisonous, and I was more stressed and depressed than I’ve ever been in my life.

The orders were a blessing and a curse for me. As I shared with Justine later, I felt lost. I was building my network as a producer in Europe when COVID-19 shut all of that down. I didn’t know if I would ever resume producing.

The day we recorded that podcast episode, I remember chatting for about twenty minutes before we started recording. We already had incredible chemistry because we were both so passionate about speaking out, but this hit different. We knew we were starting something special together. I don’t remember which one of us suggested it first, but by the end of the two hours we spent on Zoom together that day, Justine and I were co-producing the Protecting Courage Podcast. 

It was like magic. 

We honed our skills, she as host and I as producer. The rhythm and flow of her interactions with guests became more and more polished without sounding scripted. I was able to extract some beautiful content from the several hours of recordings she gave me. My confidence as a producer grew. I have no idea what I said or did that convinced her to welcome me into producing this podcast, but I know that it crystalized for me that production is my calling. I will forever be grateful to her for that.

I put met in quotations above because Justine and I have never been in a room together. That bums me the hell out of me every time I think about it. We once planned an entire weekend of brainstorming together, talking multiple times per week and researching how and where we would meet for the first time. We’d agreed that Zoom calls weren’t enough, that we needed to be in each other’s presence to figure out the direction and focus of our beloved podcast, plus any other projects we might try together. 

As the plans solidified, I became more excited about working through a creative process with Justine. I knew that I would hug her tight, probably sob uncontrollably, and then we would get to work.

When I self-published my first book, Dangerously Debt Free, Justine was one of the few people with whom I shared the unpublished manuscript. Her positive review and honest feedback meant the world to me. We even did a podcast episode about it, and I was incredibly humbled by that episode.

We identified early on that we had shared many of the same experiences, both good and bad. I told her, as I’m sure others did, that she needed to write her story too. No matter what parts of her past she deemed worthy of sharing with the public, I knew it would change people’s lives. 

My gratitude for this book and her friendship cannot be put into words. 

F*ck This: Permission Granted contains some of the most raw and relevant content I’ve ever read. Justine shares her experiences in a compelling, honest way. You’ll laugh with her, you’ll cry with her, and you will be in awe of her strength. She takes you on a journey with intimate details about subjects that too many others would shy away from. 

My hope is that you read this book and know with every chapter, every revelation of her story, that you have permission to be your authentic self. And to be clear, Justine’s not just granting you the permission with her words of support and encouragement; she walks you through how she found that permission for herself. 

Powerful is an understatement. 

I love you, Justine, and I am honored to be part of this book with you.

J. Gisele

Author’s Note

It’s 6:30 on a Saturday morning, and I’ve been up for an hour with the urge to write. Hell, I’ve had the urge to write this book for over a year, but I talked myself out of it every time I tried to start.

Why is that? Why would I talk myself out of doing something I would be proud of? Why would I talk myself out of something I know in my heart I’m meant to do?

Fear.

Fear of what people will think. Fear of being put into a box. Fear of the labels and assumptions others will make of me. Fear that people won’t take the time to consider my point of view before they spew hatred. Yet, here I am, finally following through despite the fear.

Am I courageous? Some would say so.

In the past, I would never have allowed myself to feel courageous. If I did, then I was full of myself or would have to believe that I could actually do this. See, I have lived my entire life in fear. Until now.

I have allowed fear to control the way I think, the way I act, and even the way I approach my career. I never realized how deep my relationship with fear was until I faced maybe my biggest fear of all, on February 1, 2018.

On that day, I stared down sobriety.

What was I so afraid of? The unknown.

I barely knew the Justine who was hidden under all that wine, ego, sarcasm, anger, and must be the center of attention personality. Fear of the unknown is a motherfucker. Let’s be real here: we all struggle with fear of the unknown and look up to people who find the courage to push forward despite their fear.

Those people inspire us to push ourselves a little harder when we are paralyzed with fear. Maybe I have been talking myself out of writing this book every day for the last year because I don’t think I am one of those people.

I have failed so many times and taken so many wrong turns along the way that I tell myself people don’t want to hear from me. I tell myself I’m not good enough and that I need more practice or skills to write this book. I have even asked myself, more than once, Who the hell do you think you are? Yet here I am, up early on a Saturday morning.

Here I am, writing this book.

When I pursue things that scare me, I experience the most growth, love, and acceptance of myself. Over the last three years I have transformed from a loud, sarcastic, center-ofattention-craving, insecure woman into a woman who loves and validates herself. A woman who accepts herself for where she is today, and a woman who will no longer use fear as an excuse to not do something.

I always thought people who wrote books were smarter than me and that they must be important in the world. I mean, isn’t that true? Writing a book is a big deal and everyone on social media tells me I should be going live, daily, to talk about how big of a deal it is. More importantly, everyone on social media tells me I should tell you how important I am and prove it by taking pictures of my I need to control everything mode for the world to see.

Oh wait… I already do that. Fuck.

I wish I didn’t feel the need to do that but I do, so that’s just where I am today. I hope things will be different someday.

I actually daydreamed of massive post-it notes, with tiny post-it notes on them and a bag full of sharpies mapping out my book for you. I can promise you that at some point in this process, that will happen, but for today I realized that I’m just not there yet. What I really need to do is to sit my ass down, set a timer for thirty minutes and write from the heart. No Instagram, no selfies, no waiting for the perfect rainy day, just today and these next thirty minutes.

Our inner critic cripples us when we’re scared. That bitch doesn’t comfort us; she manipulates us. She makes us think we need to do more research, more networking, and of course, that we must scroll through the social media platforms to see what everyone else is doing first.

Ultimately, that bitch is telling us that we are not good enough. Today, I’m calling bullshit. I played that game my whole life and I gotta tell you: I am tired of playing by everyone else’s rules. So I decided to make my own rules — and holy shit, they actually worked.

Here I am.

This book is not what you were expecting. But I think this book found you, not the other way around. I believe that because this book isn’t for everyone. Not everyone is ready to hear what I have to say. That’s okay; you are.

Prologue

I remember the first time I told someone I liked girls too. It was my mother, and she quickly disapproved. She said I was wrong, then the next thing I remember is running throughout the house and being stunned by a bulletin board being broken over my back. I was in seventh grade. Soon after is when I first learned the power of silence.