Finding My Strength: How Healing Helped Me Reclaim My Life

I am a sexual abuse survivor! I am someone who has been abused by two close relatives, people who I thought were supposed to protect me. That wasn’t the case, and I didn’t realize until I got older that what they did wasn’t right.

The abuse started when I was about five years old and eventually stopped when I was fourteen. But that wasn’t the end of the trauma; it caused a downward spiral when I got older. I ended up doing things just to numb the pain I was carrying. I allowed people to belittle me. I built a wall up of not trusting people and always distracting myself so I didn’t think about the trauma. I had no self-esteem.

Then, I attended the Saprea Retreat in October of 2023, and it has been an amazing journey since. At the retreat, the life-changing experience for me was when I participated in a martial arts class (Muay Thai). I didn’t realize I had so much energy that was not good energy in my body from all the years my abuse had taken place and even all the bad energy that came afterwards. At that point, I realized that my life is whatever I wanted it to be. I could choose to allow others to tell me how to live my life and/or allow my abuse to take over my life. Or, I could change it.

At the retreat that was my turning point. I learned and realized that my life is important, and I survived what I went through because my story isn’t done; there are others that feel they have no voice just like I did, that need me to tell my story.

This is the first time that I actually am publicly sharing my story. But what I hope and believe is that my story can change someone’s life, and that they find the courage just like I did to know they are worth it, and that you are beautiful even when you don’t see it.