Trauma is personal. It does not disappear if it is not validated. When someone enters the pain and heard the screams, healing can begin.

It has taken a lifetime to find courage to share the most influential part of my story; my childhood abuse at the hands of my parents.

My Father was the abuser while my Mother stood by her man.

From my earliest memory, I remember hitting, beating, choking, screaming, and emotional/psychologist abuse. Our home was not filled with love, but terror.

Adults in our life knew, but no one did anything.

After each abuse cycle, our Mother would say to us, “You know your Mother loves you, right?”.

I lived for that. I lived for those little reminders, even though she was part of the cycle of hiding the abuse, covering for her husband who was a monster.

But that wasn’t all of it. There was also sexual abuse at the hands of my Father.

He was not only sexually assaulting his own children, but also grooming other minor females that we knew; who we danced and performed with.

When these allegations of sexual assault were brought forth by two of my female relatives, it was “deny, deny, deny… then assault the victims verbally for coming forward.”

It wasn’t until recently, working with my therapist that I was asked to fill out a trauma timeline. Through this timeline, I was forced to relive an experience from when I was 17 that I just didn’t want to discuss. I was sexually assaulted in front of my Father while he watched. He then left me in that room knowing that the man was going to do worse, and he did.

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become”.

As I accepted what happened to me for the first time, I made the decision to understand the reach my Father had in my community. There were more victims. Women who have had to live with what my Father did to them. Grooming, assaulting, and worse.

As I brought these allegations to family, I found empathy, compassion, understanding, and belief.

There is just one individual who chooses to stand by her man. I shouldn’t be surprised. What did surprise me was what she called his victims, including myself. “LOSERS”.

I survived this horrific abuse at the hands of my Father, and fought to become the incredible, brave, strong, educated woman that I am today! In spite of being trapped in this lifetime of abuse, I got away.

Loser? I don’t think so.

Myself and these other woman survived, and we are ready to tell our stories!

We are strong.

We are brave.

We are worthy of love.

We demand justice.

“A toxic person’s worst nightmare is an educated person with an emotionally strong, bulletproof mindset”.

As I stand in my truth, and advocate for all his victims, I feel safe for the first time in my life. I feel the serenity around me because this darkness no longer gets to thrive. I am learning to love the sound of my feet walking away from things that are not meant for me.

I was created to be groomed into the individual that these abusers needed me to be for them. We were taught to protect the secrets, but never ourselves.

We are survivors, and the abuse and secrets end now.

I am beginning the important task of mourning my childhood, and accepting the fact that I will never have a single parent that protect myself and my siblings. The individual will always choose the abuser and live within the lie at her prison. That doesn’t make the individual the victim. It makes them the accomplice.

I am looking forward to my healing, and letting go of the people and things that have never served me.

If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual assault/abuse, please know that you are not alone. There are placed where you can find support by calling the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.