Reclaiming Freedom: Rising from the Ashes of Trauma, Neglect and Abuse

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

After decades of trauma and conditioning in her youth, one woman finally breaks free to find her way home to her authentic self

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I grew up in a home where at best I was unwanted, at worst, the scapegoat for the family’s woes. The trauma began early, at age four, after being taken from my loving aunt who raised me when my mother, her sister died of cervical cancer. I was six months old. The stepmother was cold, crippled, and bitter at her misfortune and the man my father turned out to be. She never wanted me, only the son who came later, but took the package to get out of her house. I inherited her housework and childcare as she got sicker, and as my father drank and withdrew more, I got her wrath as well.

Nothing I did was ever good enough.