There is a little girl trapped inside of me who, for most of my life, has still been living a nightmare. When she was hurt, she didn’t have a voice or an advocate. She was never really given a chance to live and thrive because, at every turn, it seemed the world was against her.
I’m a strong believer in God, although I have struggled deeply with Him throughout my life. But there have been a few times when I have known, without question, that something was coming from Him. For months, this phrase kept coming to my heart: “She will heal when her side of the story is heard.” I believe with every fiber of my being that those words came from God. So this is her side of the story—not from the perspective of the woman I am today, but from the heart of the 13-year-old girl still living inside of me.
While other young teenagers were enjoying time with friends, participating in sports, and doing all the things young teenagers should be doing, I was fighting demons of self-hate and contemplating suicide, all while attending rape crisis meetings and therapy sessions. I eventually found the temporary relief of street drugs, which helped me numb the feelings of being trapped in utter darkness and despair—a place where there was nowhere to run, no safety, no comfort, no joy, and seemingly no way out of the hell that had become my life.
I was young and had been enduring months of threats, ranging from having my face slashed to being killed and my body dumped somewhere it would never be found. My school tried to protect me, but they refused to allow me to transfer to another school, which was what I desperately wanted and needed. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to change my identity and never be called or known by my name ever again. I was given a pass to leave my classes early to avoid the rush of students in the hallways and was allowed to hide in the principal’s office whenever I needed to. Eventually, I was removed from school and tutored at home. School was no longer safe for me—physically or mentally.
For years, I blamed myself for everything that followed. If only I hadn’t told anyone. If I had just kept it a secret, I wouldn’t have lost everything. Before people found out, school had been one of the places I could escape my troubled home. But once word got out and the police became involved, there was nowhere left to hide from the nightmare that had become my life. And I had no idea it was about to get worse.
I was only 13 years old when I was given no choice but to testify against those who had physically and sexually assaulted me. I remember sitting in a lawyer’s office while adults decided for me that it would be best for their case if I retold the most shame-filled and painful parts of my experience while on display in a courtroom.
The defense attorney paraded my experience before the court and made a mockery of it. He knew he had control of me. I was a child thrown into an impossible battle against a highly educated man trained to question, discredit, and dismantle testimony. He showed no mercy as he ripped my words apart while my attackers looked on. He was so good at turning my answers against me that I froze. My mind shut down. There were important details I couldn’t tell them because I couldn’t make myself speak the words out loud. They simply would not leave my mouth. I was a 13-year-old girl being asked to put words to things I could barely understand, much less describe in front of a courtroom full of strangers and the very people who had done them to me. And the more he questioned me, the more confused and ashamed I became, until I began to believe that somehow I had done something horrible to them, rather than the other way around.
On that witness stand, I felt as though I were being beaten again and again, violated over and over, just like that horrible day and the many others that surrounded it. But this time, it wasn’t happening in the privacy of a locked room, the woods, a basement, the back of a school bus, or any of the other places where their will had overtaken mine. This time, my pain had an audience. I was told I had to give explicit details of what had happened, but some of those details lived in a place inside of me that I could not access with words. I sat there trying to speak about things that filled me with so much shame and fear that my voice simply failed me, while strangers watched with blank, emotionless faces and my attackers sat only feet away, staring me down.
The attorney shamed me, ridiculed me, and called me a liar. Then he turned toward the jury and praised the very people who were responsible for so much of my pain. By the time it was over, he hadn’t only convinced the jury that my account couldn’t be trusted; he had convinced me that I couldn’t be trusted.
I walked out of that courtroom hating myself. Before I ever spoke about what happened, something deep inside of me had cried out, THIS IS WRONG. But eventually, I trusted the judgment of everyone else instead. I trusted the people in my community who rejected me, family members who turned their backs on me, the adults who were supposed to understand right from wrong, the lawyer, and the jury. Surely all of them knew better than me. And slowly, I became convinced that Iwas the problem. I was wrong. I was pathetic. I was evil. So I silenced the cries of that little girl inside of me. I could not trust her.
From that day forward, I began minimizing what happened to me. I tried to forget the feeling of a knife pressed against my neck, the bruises left on my body, and the fear created by repeated promises that I would be killed if I told anyone. I hated myself for feeling pain, anger, and sadness about what they had done. I suppressed those feelings and begged God to forgive me for what I believed was my sin: telling someone what happened and staining their reputations. And I swore I would never forgive myself.
After all, hadn’t everyone stopped talking to me? Even some of my closest friends disappeared. I felt like a disease nobody wanted to catch. At home, what happened was almost never spoken about except when it was used against me in anger. Just before I walked into the courtroom, my father said the only words I remember him ever speaking to me about what had happened: “You just need to forgive them.” Then he handed me a small metal cross and told me God would be with me. While I sat on the witness stand, that little cross broke between my jittery, nervous hands as what little faith and worth I had left seemed to be crucified right along with it.
For decades, I fought against that little girl. I hated her, her pain, and what I believed she had cost me. It became my life’s mission to drown her pain, forget she ever existed, and silence her by whatever means necessary.
But something began to change.
During a long stay at a Christian residential treatment center, I met a psychologist named Dr. Mike Zoda who helped me understand something that I had never truly believed: every bit of pain that little girl felt was justified. What happened to her was wrong. What was done to her was evil. And she was never the one who should have carried the shame.
For perhaps the first time in my life, I began to feel compassion for her. I began to love little me and grieve with her instead of fighting against her. I began to understand why she hurt so deeply, why she was afraid, why she couldn’t trust anyone, why she was so angry, why she ran, why she numbed herself with drugs, why she couldn’t trust her own mind, and why she wanted to die. And I began to understand why some of those wounds still live inside of me today. They may not look the same as they did when I was 13, but the memories are still there, and so is some of the pain.
But now, I no longer believe healing requires me to destroy that little girl. Healing requires me to finally stand beside her—to believe her, defend her, grieve with her, and give her the voice she should have been given all those years ago.
And perhaps this is what God meant when those words kept returning to my heart: “She will heal when her side of the story is heard.” For so long, I believed God had abandoned her. He seemed as far away as the moon while she begged for someone—anyone—to stand beside her and say that what was happening was wrong. Today, I believe He was there. I believe He heard the cry coming from somewhere deep inside that terrified child when her spirit screamed, THIS IS WRONG. And I believe He agreed with her.
So, little one, this is your side of the story. I hear you now. I believe you. I will no longer silence you to make other people comfortable, and I will no longer carry their shame for them. Your pain mattered. Your tears mattered. Your voice mattered. You mattered.
What happened to you was never your fault to carry. Your story has finally been heard.
Rest now, child. I have you from here.
Artwork Credit: Ashley F. Martin @Vera_Faith_Illustrations
