Dear Survivors,
Silence can be a slow death. At least it was for me. As a young girl, I was told to keep our secret because he was the only one that loved me and who would care for me. I knew that what was happening to me when I was alone with him was not normal. Even at four and five years old, I was very aware that his actions toward me were not in line with what he preached about when he gave his sermons in front of our church each Sunday morning.
But psychological grooming can be even more cutting than the sexual abuse itself. The Reverand, otherwise known by me as Grandpa, convinced me that silence was the only path. And that God understood and forgave our secret.
My silence of what was happening first protected my grandfather when I was a child, and then as I got older it also protected me from the utter shame and disgust of what had been done to me.
Eventually my silence killed my trust, my voice, my motivation, my peace, and my ability to receive and give love. At times I thought that the silence was quite literally choking me out- that it would finally take me over completely and rob me of my last breath. I was a wilted flower, suffocated by my own silence.
I seemed to have it together on the outside but inside I was dying and no one knew it.
I spent my entire childhood and majority of adulthood being a people pleasing over achiever. I needed to control things because everything that I had ever known seemed so out of control.
I often felt like I was two people living in one body- the ugly and broken little girl with the dark secrets versus the overachieving perfect girl who would never let anyone down.
I was brave enough to confront him before he died. He dismissed my memories as I predicted he would, but it still felt righteous to confront him and see him squirm in his deluded victory over my spirit. It was still our little secret, but at least I had confronted him.
Even many years after his physical death I still continued to spend my life living in shame and hiding my truth from most people except closest friends.
In particular, I was afraid to tell my family- namely his wife, my step-grandmother. I carried the weight of this awful secret, thinking I could somehow protect her from finding out what a monster she had been married to for so long. I felt like if I told her, I would break her, and she would never speak to me again.
I promised myself that I would live in FULL AUTHENTICITY this year though and be done with trying to protect and please people. So on January 1, 2025, after fourty years of silence, I took the leep and I finally shared with her what had happened to me as a child.
I was so scared for fear of her being angry, hurt, or not believing me. And she reacted with all of the above.
But the most healing and beautiful thing happened in me being truly authentic and I breaking my lifetime of silence. I realized as I was speaking my truth to her, that her reaction and feelings did not actually matter to me any longer when I was truly being authentic to myself.
This was about ME. Somehow the words poured out like a field of truth.
And so began my first steps on the path of authenticity and healing out loud.
This was about setting free the little girl in me that had been buried for so long. I couldn’t save that little girl then- I let her petals wilt and nearly die-but now I was a phoenix and I would no longer be silenced.
So I used my truth as a torch to light a controlled burn to my forest of secrets- the truth could no longer hide in the shadow of silence because I burned the entire forest of lies and secrets to the ground with my fire of authenticity.
In this process, I planted seeds of truth to grow a garden of safety and authenticity built to bloom forever more- my garden of truth that I now share with you.
It’s frightening to be authentic and expose yourself but what we master and share in ourselves, we water to grow in others.
One little seed can start an entire garden of blooms, and this letter is another seed that I am planting.
Tell your truth.
And bloom on.

Authentically,
The Fiery Girl Who Finally Found Her Voice

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