From Broken to Boss: Becoming Me

I’ve gone back and forth trying to decide if i want to tell my story. It’s a story full of pain, courage, violence and suicide, abuse. Some of the people that are in my life wouldn’t be happy im sharing this and I guess that’s another reason I’ve wanted to not say anything but the truth is, if it can help just one person it was worth it. I would have killed to have known me when I was younger and for me to just hear it will be okay. I had a hard time believing in god when I was younger, why would he put me through the things he did. I begged him daily and told him often how much I just wanted to die. What changed my life is the day I advocated for myself and left.

My childhood up until 12 years old was good! My parents were in love, my dad was strict but my

Mom stayed home and took care of us. We had a nice home and lived on a Christmas tree farm! We played outside alot and were right across the pond from my grandparents house. My nana is my best friend and i loved nothing more than being with my nana. My dad was a project manager and that seemed to really take off. I don’t have any bad memories of my childhood. The only thing that stuck with me was my parents being over sexual with each other in front of us. Unfortunately my bedroom was right under there bedroom and I unfortunately heard them having sex quite a bit, which I would later find out really put my dad in a weird light for me. Seeing your parents be sexual does weird things to your brain. They would play games in front of us while driving – whoever spotted a papa johns car meant he got something sexual in the bedroom and vice versa. My dad would grab my moms boobs a lot or she would flash him when he would take us to school in the mornings. i see alot of relationships where girls are super close with their dads, hugging and being really close physically and I think seeing my dad be so sexual did the opposite for me. Every time I heard them have sex at night It would make my stomach hurt and I would walk up there and pretend I had a bad dream so they would stop. Or I would wake my brother up to come sleep with me. I was in kindergarten and first grade and I was obsessed with trying to know what sex was. Obviously now looking back on it it’s very obvious why. I was obsessed with wanting to touch my nanas boobs when she would hold me, i then became obsessed with trying to look up sexual images online which also ended up scarring me for life lol. Sexual activity was introduced to me way too young and that had consequences. I remember them finally telling me what sex was. We were on vacation and there was a rape report on the news and I was asking what sex was like I always was and they told me and my brain couldn’t fathom that’s what sex was and then trying to understand rape was a bit too much all at once.

When my dad started making more money and sold land with my grandparents, we moved into this massive house. My room was finally far from theirs, and for a while, I thought that meant I’d get some peace. But it didn’t. If they wanted to sneak off to do something sexual, they’d lock themselves in the basement. I didn’t have to see anything — my imagination did the damage.

It was worse than the nights I could hear them. My stomach would knot up until it hurt, my skin would crawl, and it felt like the air in the house got heavier. I’d lie there in bed, sick, replaying in my head what I thought was happening. Disgust doesn’t even touch what I felt. It was a deep, raw revulsion that never left me.

It’s burned into me so deeply that I swore I would never put my own kids through that. And now, as an adult, I still can’t see my dad in a normal “family” way. Hugs are stiff. Physical closeness feels wrong. Those lines were crossed so early that I never got to have the kind of innocent, safe father-daughter bond other people talk about.

Kids should get to stay innocent. They should see their parents as Mom and Dad — not as sexual people. That boundary matters more than most people will ever understand.