I was born a winter baby. My mother was in her mid forties when she conceived me and according to the story that was told by me from my parents and grandparents I was a premature baby that came with health issues. The first five years of my life I only can remember bits and pieces. It wasn’t until my sixth birthday that my life started to be filled with turmoil and trauma that family members had instilled in my memory and in my life. My father was not any help or parent I could go to for protection. Just as any normal healthy six year old, I like playing with my dolls if I had one and play outside, enjoy birthday gifts and Christmas gifts and also like hugs from my grandparents. I was so excited when my younger sibling and I would go over to grandma house and slept over. I would say I was a normal healthy happy little girl who loved to play and feel important and love the things that any little six year old child does. Than all that changed after a month I just turned six years old.  December 24, 1963, what happen on this cold Christmas Eve would be the memory that sticks with me throughout my life time. Before this innocent happen to me I was a happy, normal every day six year old. I wasn’t much of a trouble kid and never gave my parents a hard time. I was quiet and curious and everything else wrapped up in one. As I was saying December 24, 1963, changed my life forever. Christmas Eve. I was fondle and molested, incest by a few family members. I was no longer the happy little girl I use to be just a month before this incident. My character started to change. I started acting out with angry and rage. My heart started to hardened and get cold. My self-esteem just dropped rock bottom to the point I just didn’t care. I was afraid to go to bed at night, afraid of the dark so I slept with a teddy bear tightly in my arms. It was my security blanket.

I had to live with shame and embarrassment and had nobody to go to that would believe me. My oldest brother an dmy Uncle said if I ever told anybody what been happening to me that my parents would send me away so I learned to live with this secret and kept quiet. No matter how hard I tried to forget this memory, I just couldn’t. I started to have nightmares. These family members turned my life upside down and twist my mind into a pretzel so to speak. Every year as I grew a day older and older I started to rebel against my parents. The abuse just didn’t happen one time, it was going on to way into my middle teens. Finally when I became an Adult and was old enough to move out of my home and started my own family I knew in my heart I needed to tell someone about my deep darkest childhood secret and went for help. I may never get those childhood years back; they were robbed from me and I do not have very many good childhood memories because today I live with Head Trauma amnesia from a blow to my head when I was seven years old by a 2×4 that my middle brother hit me on the top of my head. For many years I had no contact with my family and I still don’t.  As I had to rehabilitated from my past abuse memories, I started living again. I started to leave the childhood memories behind and learning to live life again and forgiving and letting go. Every day it was one more step easier, every day I take another step higher reaching my goals. I went back to school to work towards earning my High School diploma than a couple years later, I was 49 years old exact I went back to school to earn a college degree. Today I have a high school diploma and Associate degree in Criminal Justice, hoping through my knowledge and learning I can help other victims who are struggling today with past abuse memories.