Click PLAY to begin the video

Click PLAY to begin the video

Silent no more

Hoping to help others, church youth director, author reveals troubled past

Posted: 2/8/08

by John Gessner
Thisweek Newspapers

Among some of her closest associates, Bonnie Laabs has been slow to reveal the story of her once-broken life.

She started with fellow staffers at River Hills United Methodist Church, where Laabs is youth director. She then confided in members of a church committee, followed by the church council and numerous parents of children she works with.

“And next is to tell the congregation,” said Laabs, 27.

During both morning services Feb. 17 at the Burnsville church, Laabs will speak on a childhood deadened by drugs, sexual abuse and a toxic home life. Between services she’ll sign copies of her new book, “Becoming Beautiful: A Journey to Transformation,” which chronicles her bumpy ride.

“I guess my biggest fear was that the parents of the kids would say, ‘Eww, we don’t want you hanging around our kids if you’ve made these kinds of choices,’ ” Laabs said.

But the church has embraced Laabs every step of the way, said the Rev. Duane Sarazin, River Hills’ head pastor.

“There’s a lot of that going around – really good kids like Bonnie who just get down the wrong path, and parents who are good people, too, who just don’t have a clue, as she puts it, as to what their kid is really into,” Sarazin said. “She’s trying to use this book as a way to help parents kind of take inventory of their own situations with their kids, and spend some quality time with their kids talking about these things.”

Laabs grew up in Grove City, Minn., where her parents fought bitterly and divorced when she was in kindergarten.

Then her mother took up with a man whom Laabs says was an alcoholic and physically abused her mother, her brother and herself.

“I was sexually abused twice, but not by him,” Laabs said. “One time was the baby-sitter. In my book, I refer to the other one as a friend, but it wasn’t my dad or my mom’s boyfriend.”

One day in third grade, Laabs happened upon the body of a neighbor who had hung himself in his back yard. Her teacher explained that the man was “really sad.”

“I can remember thinking, ‘I wonder if my life will ever be that sad,’ ” Laabs said.

Her mother later suffered a stroke. Her long recuperation left Laabs, then 10, essentially in charge of the family.

“The boyfriend, that’s when he cracked from the stress and left,” she said. “But my mother, who already had low self-esteem, now it was lower, and she just took that out on us.”

In fifth grade, Laabs said, she tried suicide three times. She spent time with a foster family and in a day treatment center. She later returned home, only to be sent to a group home for girls while in seventh grade.

“Acting out, a lot of bad behavior,” Laabs explained. “When I came home in eighth grade, I tried to make good choices.”

But parents of old friends didn’t want her around, Laabs said. “So I fit in better with a bad crowd. That’s when I began drinking and using pot.”

But she was a bright student whose slide was tempered by an enduring wish to attend college. A school counselor told Laabs she could begin collecting credits in her junior year if her grades stayed up.

“I had good Bonnie, who got good grades, and bad Bonnie, who partied,” Laabs said.

Her ethic of self-reliance – borne of experience and necessity – found Laabs working three jobs by 10th grade. Friends turned her on to more stimulating drugs – cocaine and crystal meth – that reduced her need for sleep. By 16, Laabs had her own apartment.

“It was really becoming a habit,” she said of the drugs, particularly methamphetamine. “I liked all that energy. It was like being superhuman. And you don’t eat, so you get thin – and what girl doesn’t like to be thin?”

Except Laabs was getting sick. A doctor diagnosed ulcers. There were sores on her sunken face. She crashed her car during her junior year. Bad grades threatened to sabotage her studies at Ridgewater College. Her school counselor warned she’d have to return to high school.

“I contemplated ending my life,” said Laabs, who was confirmed a Lutheran. “I knew I didn’t want to do that. A lot of things went through my mind. That’s when I started praying, actually.”

At 17, Laabs moved back home, determined to avoid subversive influences and change her life’s trajectory. This time, it worked.

Laabs got her high school diploma and associate’s degree two weeks apart. At 20, she earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Concordia College.

She worked as a substitute teacher in St. Paul and took her first job in youth ministry at Asbury United Methodist Church in Minneapolis.

“I remember being nervous about taking that first job,” said Laabs, who was hired at River Hills four years ago. “I thought, ‘Who am I to be a youth minister? I’ve made so many mistakes.’ ”

Laabs traded past habits for a Toastmasters jones. Now a member of several clubs, she joined with the goal of becoming a professional speaker and telling her story.

She has spoken to troubled teens in group homes and other settings. More than once she’s been asked if she ever exchanged sex for drugs.

“And the truth is that I did,” Laabs said. Her “darkest skeleton” was a key motivation to write her book, for the equity publisher Expert Publishing Inc.

“I didn’t want to have to answer that question in person anymore,” Laabs said. “It just killed me the first time I had to answer it.”

Laabs hopes her story will help troubled teens.

“A lot of them carry an immense amount of pain,” she said.

Laabs will speak at the 9 and 11:15 a.m. services Feb. 17 at River Hills United Methodist, 11100 River Hills Drive. For more information about Laabs, visit www.bonnielaabs.com.

John Gessner is at burnsville.thisweek@ecm-inc.com.