Journey to Free the Child Within

By Ethel L. Goodrich

Mental Illness is real and goes undetected every day simply because we focus on the outside, not knowing the demons one may be wrestling with on the inside. It is my belief that the secrets I was carrying caused my mental illness. I also believe that the secrets other family members were carrying caused theirs as well, even landed a few of them in a mental institution.

At one point in my life, I use to suffer from bipolar disorder, manic depression, and paranoid schizophrenic. Which caused me to be emotional detached from my children for fear that something terrible would happen. I was selfish and deliberately set out to harm people, but in the end it cost me and it's a price that I am still paying today. However, God had a master plan and He used what I thought at the time was an unjust; the death of my grandmother to killed me in order to heal me. Now I am a living testimony of His goodness and grace. So much good has come from her death, relationships that I would have never experience merely because I would have never learned how to forgive and that was the key to a life of abundance.

"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worth to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493189588

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Ethel L. Goodrich.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Rev. date: 04/17/2014

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

603553

Contents

Dedication & Acknowledgment

Prayer

Foreword

Introduction

Journey to Free the Child Within

Introducing the Personality of Younique

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Dedication & Acknowledgment

THANK YOU, GOD, for all the second chances You have given me and for all that You have in store for my life, I surrender all. Special thanks to all my family, my sisters, brothers, victory sisters and friends who contributed words of encouragement and the ugly truth that has stayed with me throughout the years.

I dedicate this book to the people who have made an impact in my life, the lessons, and values that I didn’t understand while they were living, but I understand now. Thank you.

Momma, you are a woman of strength that has been thru so much pain. I hope you know how much I love and respect you.

Thank you to my grandparents Herman & Ruthie Bray for always being there for me, to encourage me in my faith and always believing in me. Thank you Daddy for setting an example.

My Uncles, what can I say about my Uncles – WOW! I can never thank you guys enough for all that you have done for me. My friend, my father, and my homey, etc. thank you – I love you.

Laleisha, what can I say, but thank you. God place you here for a reason and I’m glad. You have truly been a good friend. Thank you for being honest and keeping it real. I love you.

Anitha, sis we have been thru it; the good, the bad and the ugly and have survived it all, thank you. I love you.

Johnnie, I would have never survived had God not placed you in my life. He used you to make me look in the mirror and be honest with myself, to think outside the box, be my own person. Thank you. I love you.

Awtar and Mom, only God! And for that I give Him all the glory and honor. Love you.

Finally, my children, I saved the best for last… Jonathan, Nekeya, and Nathan. You three are the reason that I’m doing this book. I know I hurt you and for that I am truly sorry. But I am not sorry for my decision. Because of my love for you, I fought to save you from me. So much was stolen from me through the incest, molestation and rape. You were cheated out of so much and for that I am truly sorry. Know that I love you and I did my best. It’s up to you to do your best with your children. The best gift I ever received was Jesus and I tried my best to give Him to you. In the end Jesus is the only one that can give you rest, peace within. Diddos.

P.S. To my abuser(s), I forgive you and pray that God gives you peace. No one deserves to be held in bondage within their mind, chained to their fears.

Prayer

LORD, thank You for loving me and using me as a living testimony of Your love to reach others in pain. Let Your Holy Spirit reign fresh on me, renewing my faith and reviving my heart. I pray that Your Will be done. Send down Your Heavenly Angels to intervene and change the course of events, let there be a shift in the atmosphere that brings relief.

Thanking You in advance for Your swiftness, grace and mercy in answering the prayers crying out for deliverance from stress, pain, grief, depression, addiction, temptations, financial struggle and bitterness.

LORD, I know I am a sinner that has fallen short of Your Glory, even to this day. Because of that I deserve Your judgment, but Your grace and mercy spared me. I ask that You wash us clean and give us a new heart.

Jesus, I believe that You are God’s only Son, and that You died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. Sin can no longer hold us in bondage because Your death assured that, but our desires can. Therefore I pray that You give us the endurance to stand as You make us free.

Make us into the women and men You want us to be. Fill each of us with Your Holy Spirit and guide us. Help us to trust You for all our needs and to rely on Your Holy Spirit to lead us on this journey called life.

I ask You to convict each of us of whatever desire in our heart that doesn’t line up with Your perfect Will for our lives and that we might confess it to You, knowing that You have already forgiven us. I pray that You will show us Your Will and help us to grow in our faith, lead us to others who can help us to grow.

Father, continue to show me how my life can be a blessing to others, and continue to give me the strength and courage to tell others about Your saving grace. According to Your Word in "KJV -John 12:32 - And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." I pray that You will remove the blinders of Satan from our eyes and that we would begin to see through Your eyes.

Give me the words to speak as I share my journey of how You kept me. Telling everyone, of the blessings that came from being in Your Presence: clarity and internal peace. In Your Presence there is security, stability, and there is rest.

Give us peace as we hold onto our faith, hope, courage, and ability to cope; trusting that You have not forsaken us. Not knowing when or how, but trusting that You will deliver us from our own personal hell. Allow us to exhale and breathe in Your strength, courage, wisdom, forgiveness, and Your love. Father, You said in the scripture Philippians 4:6 – To be anxious for nothing, but in every situation, we are to pray and petition our request to You in thanksgiving.

Father, I thank You for Your protection and for Your peace. The peace that passes all understanding, the peace that has kept us calm and secure through our hard times – Philippians 4:7. Now Father, I ask You according to John 14:12 -14, that You destroy any unrighteous agreements that is and will be coming against me. Binding all of Satan’s evil, wicked, demon, lying, and unclean perverse demonic spirits. Make their ears deaf and eyes blind to any prayers, declared or decreed while embarking on this journey. Papa, I ask that You throw the enemy into confusion and that every demonic spirit, messenger of Satan, and wolves in sheep clothing will remain in confusion, so that he or his followers will not be able to come against me or anyone that You are ministering to on this journey.

I’m asking You in advance Lord, to dry up the wrong prayers that may be spoken, make them null and dead and totally ineffective at their root source.

Father, I loose every wrong thought, evil imprint, and evil imagination that will keep us from being in sweet unity with You. I loose strongholds of unforgiveness, fear, bitterness, envy, loneliness, regret, sabotage, and distrust from us. I call forth every word of scripture that has ever entered into our minds and that it would rise up and empower us. I loose anyone placed in bondage from mistakes I have made.

LORD, use this novel to process Your lost. Give them us a greater capacity for conceiving what You have in store for us. By enlarging our mental ability regarding our own self-worth, letting us recognize who we are in You and walk into our destiny.

All this I do ask according to John 14:13 & 14. To God be the Glory! In Jesus Name I pray. Amen

Numbers 6:26

Foreword

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have more than one voice in your head? Talking sensibly and spouting gutter language at the same time? Sharing Scripture and discussing whom you were going to screw next, again all at the same time? Taking a journey through the mind of Essence/Younique is an adventure down the road of a person who has been sexually abused and is trying to deal with it the best way she knows how.

The story is challenging, provoking, and heart rendering. You can’t help but be drawn in by the word pictures drawn by the author and shudder at the possibility that there may be many people living life on/in this split level of living! As you move through the corridors of her mind, you begin to see how life is truly lived on more than one level to accommodate the various changes of a life lived in chaos, yet seeking peace.

As we watch the two personalities merge, and then separate, we get the surprise of another who has come to help Essence. When does the splitting end, does the merge ever really happen? Will the prayers bring healing? Can Younique withstand the faith of Essence to reclaim her very self? You will be held spellbound as you partake in this journey. This book will make you pause and look around you to see who you know that this story may be theirs, too.

~Brenda F. Clark-Dandridge, MA

Founder – Victory Coach

Victim to Victory Ministries

Introduction

It is my hope that this journey will reach many, young or old. No matter how dark your past, your secret, or your shame, someone has walked in your shoes. I can tell you from my own personal experience, you will never have peace until you stop running and deal with your demons. Be honest with yourself about whom you are, taking ownership of the mess that you created and stop blaming others. Many times, we pray and ask God to deliver us from certain things without realizing that He has already done just that, but because we are our own worst enemies, we stay stuck in that same cycle for years, never learning the lesson nor receive the breakthrough.

God never intended for life to be this hard for His children. The enemy plants seeds in our mind that we water unknowingly, causing us to fight the same demons we help manifest. However, God’s love is real and free, we just have to believe that we are worthy. Stop giving in to the demons and begin fighting for what belongs to us. Realizing that we are ROYALTY, a child of the King!

It is my intention to make people aware of the struggles that go on within an abused person. Rather the abuse was or is sexually, physically, mentally, or emotionally the shackles are real, being held captive to your fears, paralyzed within the prison in your mind. In an instance lives are changed forever becoming victims walking around in a zombie state of existence, dead on the inside and no one is the wiser. Society looks at the outside and judges according to what they see, not understanding the motives behind the actions that are going on. With God’s help, it is my hope that the child within will find the strength to come forth knowing that someone else understands the pain and wants to help you begin the healing process. This can be the beginning of all generational curses and strongholds being broken.

Allow me to set the stage of this story and you must keep an open mind. I was taught that there was no separation, family was family, and you gave the respect that the elders had earned. I come from a very large family. Siblings on both side and the elders made sure that we were siblings regardless if you had the same mother, father or shared a sibling. My mother had three children and we all had a different dad, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. But we were all family. My sister’s mom was my mom. My mom was her mom. Her grandparents were mine and so on and so on.

As you take this journey with me remember that my mother that is mention, may not be my mother, but the mother of one of my siblings or friends. It goes for an aunt, uncle, cousin or friend. Family is family.

With that said I am enclosing a disclosure, the publishing company will also have a disclosure.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (KJV - Romans 8:18)

"Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." (KJV - Romans 8:26-28)

Ethel L. Goodrich

Journey to Free the Child Within

Can’t sleep at night, no peace during the day because there’s a war within.

You sit outside yourself, watching your mind, spirit, and soul fight and wonder who will win today.

Am I crazy? Do others hear these voices? Why are they living here?

How do I free this little girl within?

This little girl grows up, some battles are won – nah that’s just the drugs, the little girl has new demons that have moved in.

Now she isn’t even safe from herself, she has to find a deeper hiding place, somewhere that the adult girl can’t find the little girl.

How far do I run to hide from myself to get some peace, to stop the voices?

How do I free the child within? Someone please help me free the child within.

It’s dark and cold and I’m all-alone. Why was I left here alone?

Why didn’t someone try to find me before it got dark, now I can’t find my way back? I’m lost and too little to know how to get home.

No one taught me right from wrong; they just took everything away before I knew what right or wrong was.

What is innocence? What is pure? Mines was taken.

Can you help me find my way home?

I met a friend today; her name is Younique she is here with me, and she is going to help me find my way home and protect me along the way.

I like my new friend, when life is bad she shows up and all is good.

One day I will be home and I will be free.

Introducing the Personality of Younique

Younique is extraordinary. Younique is extremely rare. Younique is brilliant beyond her years. She is special.

Men and women desire her, but don’t know why. She is mind-boggling, without equal, she is an individual that is matchless. She is Younique

Chapter 1

As I stood in the shower, the room filled with steam, and the feeling of hot water hitting against my body starts to relax me. I closed my eyes, the worries of the day run down the drain, and my mind started traveling back down memory lane. I could see my cousins, Marcus, Linda, Corey, my brother, Eddie, and I all playing outside in my grandparents yard. It was so beautiful that warm summer day. As usual, the five of us were together and up to no good, while the adults were in the backyard drinking and listening to music, we decided to sneak off. But as always Marcus would end up getting us all in trouble, he loved to steal and make fun of people. While at the corner store he stole some candy but luckily got away with it. However, as we were leaving we ran into his father’s wife. Marcus being Marcus, started teasing her, rattling her up so much she chased us all the way home.

When we got back to the house Big Momma knew we had been up to no good, but she never said anything. Big Momma & Grandpa H raised my cousin Marcus and I, the two of us were the apple of Big Momma’s eye. Now she loved all her grandchildren and in her eyes none of us could ever do anything wrong, but still Marcus and I, we were special. Not once did she ever raise her voice, spanked, punished or ever show any type of disappointment in any of us, her love was truly unconditional. Now Grandpa H was a very different story, he was mean and surly. He put the M in meanness, especially when he was drinking.

I remember one time when we were much younger, Billie Jean was babysitting the five of us along with my cousin Tracy. It was getting late, and all of a sudden we heard a loud noise, it was Grandpa H coming thru the door. He was drunk, cussing and talking to himself. Stumbling all over the place, he started yelling out for Big Momma. When he found her he started fighting with her, he was always fighting with Big Momma when he was drunk. When he finished beating her, he started on us. Billie Jean had us run out the front door and down the street, but to no surprise he was chasing us down the block. Luckily because he was drunk, we were able