Beneath the Surface of Survival

Surviving It All in Silence

Even though I don’t remember it—because I was just a baby—my story truly started from the very beginning.

My mom was only 18 years old when she had me. Just a few months after I entered the world, my biological father—who I now refer to as my sperm donor—walked away from both of us. He didn’t want the responsibility of being a father. At just 18 himself, drugs and alcohol were more appealing than showing up for a baby girl and the woman raising her.

So, there we were. I was eight months old. My mom was a teenager, now a single mom. And life didn’t pause to let either of us catch our breath.

In those early years, we lived with my grandparents. My mom, still so young, was trying to figure out how to be both an adult and a mother. I don’t remember much from those days—just scattered pieces starting around the time I turned three. What I do know is that at some point, my mom had had enough. Enough of feeling trapped under her parents’ roof. Enough of trying to parent while still being parented. So, she left—and that's when things changed.

She met my first stepfather. 

At first, my mom believed he was a good man. She loved him, trusted him, and believed he would bring stability into our lives. But for me, the next two years were anything but stable. In fact, they were absolute hell for a child. The kind of pain and fear that even now, years later, still echoes in my memory.

My mom stayed, believing in him. It wasn’t until many years later—long after their sudden divorce—that the truth came out. The reason he walked away so abruptly had nothing to do with her and everything to do with what had been hiding in the dark.

Unfortunately, that was only the beginning.

A few years later, stepfather number two entered the picture—a man my mom married quickly, caught up in the rush of love, unaware of the shadows that came with him. After their wedding, life turned into a cycle of packing boxes and starting over, moving from one state to another until we eventually found ourselves back in Alabama with my grandparents. His job dictated our addresses, but the real instability came from everything that happened in between.

What I remember are the moments of physical and emotional abuse my mom endured during those years. It wasn’t until she became pregnant with my brother that things escalated into something truly frightening. His anger turned violent — I recall being pushed into a wall and my mom being kicked so hard in the stomach that she nearly lost my brother. That terrifying moment became the turning point. My mom finally sought help, determined to protect us — the two of us at the time, soon to be three.

Despite the pain, I still hold onto a few happy memories from those years—moments of normalcy, of love, of laughter with my mom. Those moments remind me that even in the darkest times, there was light. But the painful memories still sit somewhere deep within me, quiet but present—especially the day my mom found the strength to say, “Enough.”

That single word changed everything.

This is where my story began. Not in comfort, not in security—but in the chaos of survival. And yet, through it all, there was love. There was courage. There was a mother who refused to give up, and a little girl who learned how to fight—first by watching, and later, by living.

And that’s the part I carry with me now: not just the trauma, but the truth. Not just the pain, but the power of finding a way forward.