Emotional Child Abuse & Trauma

Emotional Child Abuse

In today’s society, there are many hard questions beneath the surface that need to be addressed, from emotional child abuse, to domestic violence. It was a blessing to be invited to share my experiences on this interview on Steps to Sobriety, a show that demystifies mental health problems with transparency, authenticity, humility, and self-love.

Steps to Sobriety is a podcast that shares stories of people who have been through hell and kept going. I believe that we need to talk about the problems in our society: The intergenerational trauma, the bias, the domestic abuse and the violence. Through my talks, I try to empower women and other people who have not yet found their voice to live a life away from shame, guilt and trauma. I try to help them transform into powerful beings who can live a better life.

A Child's Struggles

The host asked who I wanted to be as a child.

Through my first educator, I wanted to be a teacher because of the huge impact that she had on my life. I wanted to be a teacher like her because she gave me hope. She was not the same race or religion and she did not even know my background or understand the emotional child abuse that I had experienced. I had tests that had misdiagnosed me with mild retardation but I was really going through PTSD. I had spent 6 years with this resource educator. She said something to me that stuck with me for a long time. She said “You are a special child and i’m not going to give up on you.”

“Periodically, different angels will come into your life.”~ K.I.M

I could not retain my memory. I would count from 1-18 and forget where to continue counting from. I had a book that I read with her almost every day. In the 6th grade, I once prayed a child’s prayer to God because I had learned about prayer from my adopted-dad. I prayed that I just did not want to be different. I had experienced bullying, the kid’s weren’t so kind and they would call me “The little retarded brown skin girl.” I felt like my voice did not matter because of the things that I had experienced previously. I did not want to go out to recess because of the bullying so I ended up being the teachers helper. But I never told my parents about the bullying until later.

My Sources of Strength

The host asked about my experience with my adopted-parents.

They were from a different generational era when mental-health education was of lesser priority. It all about religion. There was a belief that you depend entirely on Jesus and you give everything to Jesus to fix.

My adopted parents weren’t really educated to understand the psychology of a child who already knew her real parents but was separated and adopted at 5 years old after a traumatic event. My adopted mom did not understand. She believed I was an unloving child who was hard to love.

The host highlighted how there are others out there with a similar story as mine. At that time I did not have child counseling. It was the 70s and 80s and no-one cared about those kinds of things.

But my teacher was the angel in my life who consistently stayed with me and planted that seed of love and hope. After I said that prayer in the 6th grade, I was in honor role in the 7th and 8th grade. Even though the report said I had mild retardation and would not read or right effectively in my life.

Confronting Society

“We as a society are failing our children, we are failing our women, or sometimes our men. We are failing our men just as much…” ~ Neff

The host highlighted how he was initially labelled as not very clever as well. His initial assessment was that he would never make it to university. He suddenly found that beautiful power in learning and in proving to his teachers that he was not dumb and he could make it in life. He asked when I found that fire within to want to be the best.

In 7-8th grade I found it and it felt absolutely great! I remember there were adults who were broken, there were adults who were healed, there were adults who were uneducated. and there were adults who had went through their own issues as well.

I never found my self-worth until recently and I used to seek approval from the opposite sex because I never found that love from an early age.

Finding Love Within

The host asked if I felt like I deserve love. Sometimes we ask ourselves “Why me?” and our brain comes up with about 20 reasons why we deserve how we are being treated.

It was very hard for me to understand love because of my foundation. I always loved my biological mother but it was undeniable that she never loved me. My adopted mother would wonder how I could love someone who did not love me. That broken foundation of being confused about love was very challenging and I had to go on a mission to find myself and love me, despite of everything that happened.