Out Here Tryna Survive
This podcast is a trauma-informed, hope-oriented, safe space. It is a warm hug of solidarity for Black women 35+. It is a celebration of our resilience thus far & our determination to not only survive but THRIVE.
Join me, Grace Sandra, a Mama, author, advocate/activist, storyteller, for some good ole self-love shenanigans.
We are braver than we believe✨
Out Here Tryna Survive
Ep 15: Reclaim your voice & heal, Sis.
In episode 15, I'm exploring the journey of reclaiming one's voice after experiencing trauma. Sharing my personal story of abuse, the deep-rooted effects of silence, and actionable steps to empower YOU to find your authentic selves. In this episode I'm covering...
• The silence around trauma and its impact on self-worth
• Recognizing signs of a silenced voice
• The importance of self-compassion and patience in healing
• Practical steps for expressing emotions and setting boundaries
• The ongoing journey of reclaiming one's voice and celebrating resilience
• Encouragement for sharing experiences and finding community support
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GET TO KNOW ME
//Age: 47
//I swear
//Enneagram 7(6w)
//3 kiddos: 19, 15 & 8 yrs. old
//Heritage: Black American + Italian
//Twice Divorced. Now happily in love myself. 🤎
//Sexual, Verbal, Rape, Narcissistic Domestic Violence SURVIVOR.
//Body Positive + Sex Positive
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//Diagnosed ADHD, PMDD & CPTSD SURVIVOR
//Healing from Complex PTSD using EMDR therapy
//Liberal, Jesus-following, justice oriented, feminist, inclusive, divesting + decolonizing from Evangelical Christianity
//Mental Health Advocate, Writer, Speaker, podcaster, TikTok'er & YouTuber
…& yes I believe in prayer AND manifesting! ✨✨✨✨
Have you ever felt like there's a literal force field around your throat, like keeping you from saying what you want to say? Are there times that you've ever felt like saying yes, but what you really wanted to do was scream no? If you identify with this in any way, this episode's for you. Statistics show that one in three women have been a victim of some sort of abuse or violence in their lifetime, and you know what Low-key it's. Probably greater than that, and many like me carry these scars invisibly. I remember a time when I was in high school where I literally was having sex with a man well, a boy, because he was a little boy and I was a little girl. I was 14 and he was 15 or 16. But every single time I wanted to say no and I didn't, and I let him basically just use my body as a masturbation tool, and I want to share more about that story in just a moment.
Speaker 1:The important thing to recognize that we all know is that abuse doesn't just leave physical scars. Of course, the trauma happens in our brain. Literally, read anything by Gabriel Matei or the Body Keeps the Score. I forgot the name of that author, but I will post it in the show notes. What we do know is that abuse and trauma silences your soul, and that's what I want to talk about today is those of us whose soul has been silenced by years of abuse. Our voice is our birthright and we're going to take it back In this episode. I want to dive deep into the very hidden wounds of abuse and really discover how to unleash the power within you. That's something that I've been working on literally for my whole life and I'm 48, so all of my life. Basically, if you've ever felt like your life doesn't matter, your voice doesn't matter, nothing you say or do matters, this episode is for you. If you felt like your thoughts and your feelings are insignificant, this episode is for you. If you felt like what's the point of even sharing, this episode is for you. I want this episode to be a safe space for both healing and empowerment.
Speaker 1:But first let me introduce myself. Hey y'all. My name is Grace Sandra. I'm an author, an activist, an advocate and a mom. You could be literally anywhere in the world that you're here with me, and I cannot tell you how grateful, truly, truly grateful, I am for that. This podcast is a hope-oriented storytelling space. A warm hug of solidarity from me to you. It is a celebration of our resilience and our determination to not just survive but to thrive. Welcome.
Speaker 1:First, let me tell y'all a story. The first time that I was abused, I was sexually assaulted and I was three. I don't remember. Thank God I don't remember. I've probably blocked out I've actually blocked out a lot of the abuse that I endured up until I was 11. I was sexually assaulted by my dad for the first, you know, whatever three years old to 11 years old, and the only reason I know about it is because my sister told me that the way that I responded when it was time to be handed over to my dad who was not her dad, so she wasn't coming with me during my dad's custodial times and then, when I came back, she reported that she told my mom later on that my vagina was always really red and really swollen. She was a lot older than me, by the way, so I think she was 11 or 12 when I was born, so she was still a kid herself. But she remembered, and I'm so thankful that she remembered, because I think that it gives insight into how conditioned that abuse was for me.
Speaker 1:So, as I grew up experiencing what I was doing, experiencing with my dad. He was, I'm trigger warning, first of all for those of you who experience any form of sexual assault. I should have said that earlier. My apologies. My dad was slow and calculated with the way that he actually carried out the sexual abuse and I wasn't going into it screaming, crying, thrashing. I was often quote unquote a willing participant. I was so conditioned to it, it felt normal to me. Actually, I just thought this is what daddies and daughters do. Seriously, he had me actually believing that I was asking for it. Oh, child. But anyway, by the time I told my mom that it was happening, I hadn't thought well, there has no, okay, that's not true. There was one time I did think like maybe this is wrong and that's because I saw a commercial. So I'm, hold on, I'm getting ahead of myself. I was born in 76.
Speaker 1:And for those of you who are old enough to remember, y'all remember all the commercials in the 80s about AIDS. There were so many commercials about AIDS. I do remember one time, after a specific sexual encounter, like recalling some of the commercials about AIDS and wondering if my dad was going to give me AIDS, which is just really a funny thought because I've barely ever thought about that before, but anyway I had that one time that I thought that thought, but other than that I didn't even think to tell my mom anything, or anyone else, anything that was going on, because of how much my dad made it believe it was just this normal part of what we did together. So I didn't actually end up telling my mom until I saw a tv commercial and in the commercial commercial they said they showed like a little girl and they showed her in a bikini and it like pointed to the private parts and it was like if you're being touched in these areas then you should tell a trusted adult. And so I just very casually told my mom. I walked into her room.
Speaker 1:It was the middle of the afternoon, it was an afterschool special which, thank God you know. I wish I could find out who produced that after-school special, but it was a story about a little girl who was being bribed by her. I don't even know if it was her mom's boyfriend or maybe an uncle or someone who who was trusted, and the actual after-school special was about him taking her to get gifts to keep her quiet about the abuse that she was enduring. And that's what my dad was doing to me. He was taking me to buy, taking me to Canada, because we live in Detroit, so it's just a quick hop, skip and a jump over to Canada to buy clothes and buy things. And he was completely bribing me into these behaviors with if you do this, if we do this, then you get that. And I was, like I said, very conditioned, very much a willing participant. I was like, okay, daddy, this is what we do.
Speaker 1:So when I told my mom, I didn't even tell her like it was a big deal, I just said, you know, I just saw this special. And they told me that if someone was touching me here and there, that I should tell someone. And I'll just never forget she was laying in bed. I went into her room and it was dark in there. It was like late afternoon, she was sleeping and I just was like mom, I gotta tell you something. And she was dark in there. It was like late afternoon, she was sleeping and I just was like mom, I gotta tell you something. And she was like what you know? And she was just laying there and I told her and I'll just never forget, she sprung up in bed so fast, so fast, like she shot up and I don't remember. Literally the memory is completely goes blank, like the eye shut, just goes blank and I don't remember anything more. But all I know is that rest of the day.
Speaker 1:I don't remember anything more from the rest of the day except that it was chaotic. I remember she was calling people, she was telling people, she took my sister down in the basement and told her. I remember she took my brother down in the basement. She told him they all just kept looking at me and going like this, which was also confusing because I felt like, am I in trouble? Nobody really clarified that I really wasn't in trouble. It was very confusing. I think at that time I might have been nine or 10 or 11. Honestly, I kind of don't remember. I need to look back at court records, but I'm pretty sure I was 10 because when we finally went to court I was 11. Anyway, I won't go into the whole rest of that story because that's not the point of this, but basically my mom did report him, I testified, we went to court. It was a very hard, sad day. I've written about it and I would like to actually write more about that whole story. But for now, he went to prison that very day, like well, actually, you know what my memory is jacked up because I don't remember how many different days I testified, but at the end of it he went to prison. I remember seeing him getting cuffed and carried off not carried off, but walking off and I remember that last look he gave me was like a glare of death, like you ratted us out, that kind of look, and I just remember being like so confused, so confused. So back to the story.
Speaker 1:I wanted to tell y'all because of that that silenced me. I would say that that instance, those years of enduring that from my dad, silenced me for so many years now. Let me just first say, because I can feel myself getting emotional right now, which is crazy sauce because I have talked about this, I've spoke about this, I've spoke nationally, I've spoken on national stages about this, I have spoken to college students for several years. That was part of my job. I actually am a speaker and I've done several speaking engagements. So the fact that I'm getting emotional now after telling this story, probably literally a hundred times, is kind of wild. I am also in perimenopause, as I've told y'all before, and I'm such a cry baby Perimenopause has made me a cry baby so if I cry again in this episode, it's not because it's re-traumatizing me all over again, I'm just. I'm very close to my emotions right now and I feel them very deeply. Even just telling y'all that is making me emotional.
Speaker 1:But anyway, what I wanted to tell y'all about how that silenced me was that for so many years I lived with men, lived in proximity to all the men in my life, whether they were teachers, little boys on my street. You know, as I was growing up, anybody who was interested in dating me or kissing me, you know, in any way that I was around gendered men. I lived without a voice and what that looked like, if you're like, okay, what does that look like? What it looked like for me is I felt like I literally couldn't say no. My orientation was so much about keeping I'm just gonna call them gendered men, keeping gendered cishet men, because that was all I was interacting with. I didn't have any gay guy friends growing up at least I didn't know it and they weren't out if I did. But my whole orientation was keeping gendered cishet men happy, content, not violent. Keeping them contented.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I also grew up with a brother who was pretty violent. There was a few instances of real light assault from him not sexual, physical, but he was a violent presence in my household. He was one of the instances of trauma of my childhood. So between him and my dad's sexual abuse, I think the idea of gendered men was always so much like I just have to do whatever it takes to keep them happy or else I'm not going to stay alive Again. I cannot believe I'm getting emotional about this when I've talked about it so many times, else I'm not going to stay alive Again. I cannot believe I'm getting emotional about this when I've talked about it so many times. I just want you to know I've healed. Okay, I have healed. I'm not like this is not the first time I'm saying this. This is so I feel like I'm almost feeling shame about feeling emotional right now.
Speaker 1:Anyway, y'all, but when I got to high school know there were, there were guys who you know I was considered conventionally pretty. You know I was the you know I was also. I was raised in the 80s and that was like the height. It feels like that was like the height of light-skinned long hair and I was literally light-skinned, long hair with thick legs. That's what all I ever heard. Damn girl you, light-skinned, with long hair, with them thick legs because I was a toothpick and I had no booty and no boobs at all, but I did have the thick legs that I heard about all the time.
Speaker 1:I just, you know, I was a lot of, I was the object of a lot of desire and I just never felt like I could say no. So, you know, I did learn how to get out of circumstances. I learned what kind of men to not be around. I think I learned from a very young age to trust my gut at least a little bit, with who's safe and who's not. I feel like I could tell pretty quickly as a result of being around a brother who was violent both verbally and physically, and because of my, my dad. I think I did learn like the kind of faces y'all know it the kind of faces that men make when they're sexually violent people. You, you, you know it when you see it and as a woman, and especially as a black woman like you, can never, ever, ever, deny us that gut level, intuition that we have, that we know when we see I was, for the most part doing a pretty good job at just staying out of circumstances, because I knew when I, after my dad, went to prison when I was 11, I was not interested in sexuality, you know.
Speaker 1:I know they love to make it seem like little girls are fast, but little girls are not fast, they're just trying to figure out how to survive and they've been sexualized. This is not rocket science, but anyway, there was a little boy who when I was 14 I was either 13 or 14 and like it was a bunch of couples and we were in a car and he, like just started reaching for my titties and then he just pulled them out and started sucking on them and I wasn't turned on, I didn't like it. You know, I barely even had any titties when I was 13 or 14. I had barely an, a cup, but I didn't like it and I just felt like I couldn't say no. I felt like, well, this is what he want to do and he says he cares about me, which he did, so he's just sucking on my titties in the back of a car. And I was just like what do I need to do to get out of this situation? But then like, and I'm not even sure. I don't even remember what happened after that.
Speaker 1:But then, like the next two days, like all I could hear about in school was that I was a hoe and that I let him suck my titties in the back of a car and I even then y'all I remember being like you know, I was a junior feminist in the making, but even then I was just like, well, why isn't he a hoe? Because I'm probably not the first titties that he sucked in the back of a car like, why am I the hoe? I didn't even like it, I didn't even want him to suck my titties in the back of a car. Like it just happened. I just felt like it was so unfair for me to be the one that got called a freak and a hoe when he was the one who initiated the behavior. That was like my first like entry level into, like girl. You got to be way more careful because, number one, these ninjas will betray you. They will betray you, you know. But also, what actually happened doesn't matter. What actually happened is that I didn't want that to happen and it still happened and I still got called a hoe and I was embarrassed and also I'm making light of it. But I felt so much shame about that. Once it got around school and once the kids started mocking me, I did feel a lot of shame and I cried okay. And once the kids started mocking me, I was, I did feel a lot of shame and I cried Okay.
Speaker 1:So then then I think the next boyfriend I had after that and Chaldea was cousins too, or at least they was play cousins. But my next boyfriend after that, you know, we, we, we went all the way and it was. You know, it took like a good, it took like a long time. It took a long time, y'all, but that's not the point. But by the time we actually did the deed I was not enjoying it at all and I remember the first couple times I felt like it was the equivalent of death. I know that might sound crazy, but you know, just consider my background.
Speaker 1:I didn't have. When I was 14 years old I didn't have any sex drive. I know some 14 year olds do. I've talked to my other girlfriends about this, like, hey, when you were 14, were you having sex? Did you have a sex drive? Some of them have said they did. I didn't at all, and because of what I went through, I was pretty afraid and I was rigid and dry and not wanting it. So when we were doing it it was often excruciatingly painful, not to mention he was 15 or 16. He wasn't trying to actually satisfy me. He wasn't like doing anything that leads to sexual satisfaction, if y'all know what I'm talking about. So it was just in and out, basically, and it was excruciating painful physically painful. But I remember afterwards I was always in some level of like deep psychological pain.
Speaker 1:Let me also add on to that I was going to a Christian school. I had been going. My mom had been sending me to a Baptist church for my whole life. I had been part of Awanas. Approved workmen are not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Okay, awanas is a program for kids where you go every Wednesday night and you memorize Bible verses, and a good number of those Bible verses are about how, if you have sex before you're married, god hates you. Okay, you're going to hell. So I had years of religious conditioning about the role of sex and what God hates and doesn't hate, and it was almost always on women, of course. So I had all all that, plus what my dad had did to me, and I had no voice. No voice when I think about that time.
Speaker 1:There were several times when I told people like I really don't like this, I hate, hate it. I actually, for the first time in my life, had thoughts of wanting to die. That was after we had had sex for the first time. The thoughts of wanting to die were actually like crystallized in my mind. I had never thought that before. It was the first time in my mind. I thought this is, life is bad enough, that I don't want to live anymore.
Speaker 1:I was telling friends and a lot of them were saying, well, why don't you break up with him? Why don't you say no? And I just was like how, how? So there were a few times where I literally went into the sexual encounter with him thinking I'm going to say no this time. I'm going to say no, I don't want to, and I would lay there like a board, like I always did, just taking it, and he would just be doing it and I would be trying to articulate the word no and I couldn't get it out. It was literally like it was like somebody put tape over my mouth or something. I couldn't get it out. I know I can't even tell you that that was the time we were sexually active was like maybe nine or ten months, and I never once was able to say no, not one time. And so what I did was this is crazy, this is crazy y'all.
Speaker 1:What I did was I set up circumstances so that we would get in trouble, like have you ever heard a teenage girl do this before in your life? I actually literally one time called his dad, called his dad to come over to my house and I was like, oh, can you pick up so-and-so because his son, because my car broke, I can't bring him home, or something like that, I don't remember. And I told him to come to the back door and I made sure that me and his son were in the basement on the floor just getting done, timing it. So when his dad came to pick him up and I'll never forget, his dad came. And, by the way, let me also say his dad was like a really popular, really very popular Christian minister, producer, radio vj or something. I don't even know what exactly his job was, but he was really well known Christian leader, I guess I'll just say that.
Speaker 1:So, and this was like his oldest son, so I was just expected him to be like you will never see her ever again, because you're down here fornicating. And I do remember he did yell at him, he did yell at me and he did yell at my mama a little bit. I mean, like it was was appropriate. It wasn't like terrible screaming and swearing, he was just like this is terrible, this could never happen again. Y'all cannot be, y'all cannot be having sex down here in the basement, like what is wrong with y'all. And I was just like, oh my god, this is perfect, because now he's gonna be grounded, now we can never see each other.
Speaker 1:And and nothing happened after that, literally nothing there. There was no protection for me. I was seeking protection. There was no protection. So then I went to my school and I told my principal Now here's another extra layer my principal had worked for my boyfriend's dad. They were friends, they were friends. So I told my principal I'm having sex with my boyfriend. I hate it, I don't like it, I don't want to do it anymore. I mean also, I'm trying to, I'm making light of this, but I said this through tears and anguish. Okay, y'all, I said it through tears and anguish and I remember.
Speaker 1:I literally will never forget what I looked like, where we were sitting, what he said he was just. He said to me Grace, you know, I'm so sorry because it seems like your boyfriend is addicted to your body. I was just like, yeah, and I was thinking, so, what are you gonna do about it? Like I'm asking for help. I clearly don't know how to get out of this situation.
Speaker 1:When I look back, you know, it's like I can see I was silenced, but I was also advocating for myself and none of these grown-ass men around me were interested in helping me. I'm not sure if they understood that. I felt like I couldn't get out of it, but I finally got out of that situation. It took years and years, and years and years. We were so embroiled in each other's lives. It took probably four and a half years, but I finally got out of it only because I just pivoted to someone else and just was like, listen, I'm with someone else, I can't, I, I can't anymore. And and he went to college before me and then, you know, he started cheating with other chicks and it it was for the best, honestly.
Speaker 1:But like, when I look back on that, I could see how this little child, this little girl. Think about how little a 14 year old girl is. Y'all, I was a little tiny baby having sex. I know 14 year olds have sex, I know I I sound so old, but they shouldn't be. I just do not think 14 year olds are old enough for the responsibility of sex. But anyway, it has nothing to do with anything to do with religion at all. I don't even, for the record, believe anymore that sex should be reserved only for marriage. I don't even believe that anymore. Okay, but I do believe that 14 year old kids should not be having sex. I just think they're too young and too immature and their brain folds are not clearly developed yet. They shouldn't be doing it, okay, but anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, child, let me get back to the story.
Speaker 1:What I want to do is help us recognize the signs of a silenced voice. I mean, I definitely have them and you can probably see some of that, but I want to help you identify if you see it in yourself. Recognizing the signs of a silenced voice, I think, is so important because, like a lot of abuse and trauma that many of us have been through, sometimes it takes a while to even figure. You've been through it, and for a lot of us who grew up in abusive homes or had traumatizing childhoods, it feels normal to us Kids adapt. So here's some signs of an authentic voice, and if you don't hear yourself in this, then maybe you have a silenced voice.
Speaker 1:An authentic voice is really rooted in self-awareness. You first of all understand what truly matters to you, and if you don see it in what's around you, you fight for it. But knowing your values also leads you to know what to fight for and what you stand for. Having your authentic voice and being able to live in it also means that you understand your emotions, what you're feeling, why you're feeling it, how you came to feel it, and you can express it to yourself and to others, and you also have a realistic perception of your own self-worth and capabilities.
Speaker 1:If you have a silenced voice, you probably feel fearful all the time. You feel very fearful. Maybe you just don't feel brave enough, maybe you just don't feel courageous enough to handle the situations that you're in. It usually means that you cannot articulate your boundaries at all. You cannot express or articulate your limits clearly or at all, and you're deeply afraid to disappoint others. So if you listen to my story, you know. That's where I'm at, and I'm also not saying this to shame anybody, because literally that just means you're too traumatized to do so.
Speaker 1:Another sign of a silenced voice is that you feel like you have to be perfect, or your art has to be perfect, or what you say has to be perfect, or you're you have to look perfect, and if it's not like quote-unquote perfect to you, then you can't display it, show it, speak it whatever. A silenced voice makes it really really hard for you to listen to others and hear others, because it challenges your own ego and your own ish so much. Actually, a lot of abusive men tend to have this problem and it's a really big problem, and for that reason they cannot hear what has happened and why women feel the way we do about a lot of the stuff that we've been through. If you have a silence voice, it's really really difficult to get in touch with your empathy for other people. You might have it for yourself, but it still feels very self-centered and very protective.
Speaker 1:You might have a silenced voice if you really struggle with assertiveness, um, like I did, or if you're assert, or if you are assertive, it's often like way too aggressive and just wild, like, for example, like the way that I tried to orchestrate getting caught, like yeah, that was me being assertive, but it was just so wild, as opposed to literally just saying, hey, I don't want to have sex anymore, I feel trapped. All I could do was try to orchestrate getting caught. You know, I was 14 at the time. We don't have grace, but I'm just saying it's a great example of like just not being able to use assertiveness in the appropriate way.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes, if you have a very silenced voice, your values don't align with what you're doing, your behavior does not reflect the value and there's lots and lots and lots of incongruence. Another way a silenced voice shows is that you're, you have lost your integrity. And again, I'm not saying this to shame anybody, but sometimes we're doing stuff we don't want to do because we feel so silenced, and it's things that we've already decided we would never do, Taking actions that we already decided. That's not who I am, but then here we are, doing it. Our voice, like I said earlier, is our birthright. It is how we tell and share with the world who we are. Oftentimes our voice is actually our behavior and our behavior should be, ideally, if we want to be healed, hold healthy, beautiful black women, a reflection of our values and what we believe about this world and who we are in this world and how we behave and move in this world. And so if we, if we learn to empower ourselves and get to where we want to be, our voice will be a very like, unique expression of who we are at our core and that's a beautiful person At our core. I believe we all are beautiful people. I believe we are born as love, not born as evil, like evangelical Christianity teaches us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do want to discuss the impact of abuse on this issue of our voice being silenced, because it has a big impact. And one thing I absolutely hate you can ask anybody who knows me. I hate hate when people say don't be a victim, don't think about, don't think about it like a victim. You're not a victim and it's like would y'all please shut the entire fuck up. Sometimes people are literally in the middle of being victimized and somebody will be like you're not a victim, don't have a victim mindset. It's like what the fuck else are you supposed to have while you're being victimized, you asshole anyway, I see it as a way to silence victims, that's. I hate that phrase. I feel like it literally is like you're literally heaping shame and silence on people who need to understand how their victimhood literally affects them so they can be empowered survivors. But that's a whole other subject for a whole other day that I actually really do want to talk about on episode and I will at some point. But the abuses that I went through, where I was actually very clearly a victim, informed years and years, and actually in my case, decades, of my behavioral issues. So I think it's well within.
Speaker 1:I think it's really important actually to address how abuse affects us. First of all, how the hell are you supposed to have a voice when you have issues of trust and safety with the world at large? A lot of times for many of us who were abused in our childhood, like a large percent of Black American women are, the idea that the world is not safe, particularly for us in brown and Black bodies, is just so pervasive. So when you have a loss of trust and faith in others, it really makes it difficult to trust people with your thoughts and your feelings in general, because you don't know who's going to betray you and how and what way are they going to unalive you? I mean what could happen, we don't know, and that leads to self-censorship period. It leads to going inward, to putting up walls or, like me, on the other side, it's led to a lot of over-explaining, trying to overcompensate for all the ways I all the years I didn't feel like I had a voice. It can lead to withdrawal and for some unfortunate, sad women who are no longer with us, it's led to them literally unaliving themselves.
Speaker 1:I just think it's really important to identify the fact that abuse creates very deep-rooted psychological pain and trauma in our body and that these barriers really do hinder self-expression and can for many, many, many years and decades unaddressed. Like I said, abuse can create a interlocking like theory in our brain that equivocates self-expression and negative consequences. So, for example, I never mentioned this earlier, but when I, when my after my dad went to prison, I really thought it was my fault that he went to prison and I felt really guilty for so many years that he went to prison, especially after I learned about the prison industrial system. I'm actually against the prison industrial system. The private for-profit industrial system I think is evil and I don't feel guilty anymore. My tears right now are because of what I said earlier and I don't feel guilty anymore. My tears right now are because of what I said earlier, but I don't feel guilty anymore that he went to prison.
Speaker 1:I do think pedophilia is incredibly dangerous and, as I found out later, I wasn't the only child that he was messing with. But for a lot of my teen years I felt so guilty, I felt like I sent him there. Felt so guilty, I felt like I sent him there and if I keep talking, I'll send other men to prison too, even if they deserve it, which is so sad, because I've been assaulted since then and, um, there is a man who RAPD'd me and I never, never, um, never, reported it and it that's another way. My voice was silenced because I was too afraid that I would send another Black man to prison. It's deep y'all. It's really, really deep and I just am sharing that because I don't ever want to make it small how big these issues are for trauma survivors. Okay, y'all, I had to take a, I had to take a break there for a second because, lord, this episode is getting intense.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is intense today and already so long, but anyway, abuse damages our self-identity, our worthiness. It produces internalized shame and guilt that is not ours to hold and, as you can surmise, this makes it seem like the thoughts we are thinking are. They're not valid, they're not worthy. Why should anyone hear them, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1:This one was big for me, but a distorted self-perception is one of the biggest ways I think abuse perpetuates. In the mind of particularly child survivors of sexual or physical trauma, it's just the idea that it's your fault, that you are a hoe or you're this or you're that. The negative self-image is images, the beliefs that you know, the words that someone said to you. So you know I've talked on other and other mediums and other podcast episodes before how I'm a narcissistic abuse survivor and a verbal abuse survivor. In my second marriage I'm only five years out, really just now in like the last two years getting a good deal of freedom from all of the things that he said to me that made that I believed about myself. Because of things he said to me when we were married, marrying an abuser, it's like the whole cycle started all over again. God, okay, but anyway we're not going to talk about that. That's a whole other episode.
Speaker 1:Another thing I want to hit on maladaptive coping mechanisms. Ciao, I'm only laughing because I'm coping number one, but I know we all have so many. I mean I could just rattle them off, but I'll just say a few developing codependency, people pleasing, developing patterns of people pleasing you know, doing what I did where you you can't say no. You're letting people have sex with you that you don't want to have sex with. You're letting men abuse you or talk to you any kind of way, cheat on you. You are coping with various forms of addictions, whether that be sex, alcohol, drugs, spending, etc. Etc. Like the. The list of maladaptive coping mechanisms is long Emotional suppression, not letting yourself even feel the emotions.
Speaker 1:I have a friend who was very traumatized in childhood, like I was, and she can't cry. Like that's one of her maladaptive coping mechanisms. It's very, very, very, very difficult for her to cry. We all have different ones. Meanwhile I'm over here crying baby. You know I've had issues with sex and sexuality. Some women have had issues with alcohol and alcoholism. I mean, we all are dealing with it differently, but I think it's easy for us to see if you know, if you know you know your own like maladaptive coping mechanism if you were not able to get over the hump of the trauma that you went through without becoming someone that you're not, without being like the true version of who you are. That does not need those things.
Speaker 1:Going through abuse and trauma has a very deep impact on the way that our brain processes anxiety and fear, which often leads to major major depression in a lot of us. I literally think this is kind of maybe potentially controversial to say, but I literally think that nearly all Black Americans have some form of complex PTSD. There's a difference between PTSD and complex PTSD. Complex PTSD is where you experience so many instances of trauma over the course of several years or decades that it like lives in your body and then it is ingrained into your DNA. That is literally passed on generationally. That's why I think that probably all Black Americans have some form of complex PTSD already because of what our ancestors went through in this quote-unquote great nation Eye roll, heavy, heavy, heavy eye roll. But then, in addition to that, just everything we've been through as a result but for those of us who have a very high A score is an indicator of your childhood trauma.
Speaker 1:It can be very, very, very difficult to grow up without complex PTSD, which is an anxiety disorder. So if you often have found yourself having huge bouts of anxiety. You probably growing up as a result of childhood trauma or other trauma you've been through. You probably have complex PTSD and it's worth looking at, looking into there's other physical manifestations, of course. A lot of times people report going through certain kinds of trauma and having a physical manifestation of it, like when I was growing up I was always picking at my fingernails till they bleed, picking at my skin till it bled and other things. And when I was going through domestic violence in my second marriage I started uncontrollably shaking, particularly around abusive episodes. And then I also started having what felt like heart attacks, but they were panic attacks, but I was having them pretty regularly in the last two years. That was definitely a physical manifestation of trauma. And finally, I could go on and on and on.
Speaker 1:But the final one is if you've had difficulty forming healthy relationships, that could be with anyone a parent, a trusted friend, a trusted lover, not so trusted lover or friend or parent, literally your child, literally anyone. It's really hard to express yourself authentically when you don't have a voice and if you can't express yourself authentically, that definitely hinders any sort of healthy relationship from ever being able to form. Please remember that the way that abuse affects people is very individualized, very individualistic for each individual. Sorry, that was a weird sentence, but I think y'all know what I'm trying to say. Like everyone experiences it really differently, so if yours doesn't look like mine, that doesn't mean your abuse was as bad or not as bad or whatever. This is not like the pain Olympics or who had it worse Olympics. If you are experiencing these things and you know that your voice is silenced, the biggest thing that we need to figure out you and your therapist or your trusted friends or family or people or partner or whatever is how to heal so that you can have your voice back and become who you were truly meant to be Reclaim, reclaim, reclaim. Let's move to some just basic steps for reclaiming your voice, and I'll try to share little things I've done along the way.
Speaker 1:Y'all, I'm not exaggerating when I say I've been doing this since I was 11, like literally since my dad went to prison and that was like, I think, the wake-up call for me that I had to find myself again. Which is so weird to say that at 11, to think about myself that way, but it's really true. Like that was I. I understood that I was out as soon as I saw my dad in those handcuffs walk away and look at me with the face, he looked at me like like. He really looked at me like you little bitch like I have just been sentenced to, like I think he originally got sentenced to 18 to 25 years of prison the face he gave me when he walked away I just realized like I am out here fighting for my life, I am out here fighting for my life and I was 11. And I just knew it was like. I just knew like I'm gonna be out here fighting for my life for the rest of my life and sadly, I made that happen. I literally manifested that. I manifested fighting for my life with literally like every man I've been involved with since then. Not every single one, that's an exaggeration, but many, okay many y'all, because I know that I've been like fighting for my life for so long. You know I'm 48 once I realized that I was 11. So that's 30 something years that I've been doing this process over and over and over again.
Speaker 1:I've been doing these steps over and over and over again New person, new step, new person, next step Back. A step up, a step down, a step. Y'all hear me, y'all get what I'm saying. But the first step is definitely acknowledging your past and the trauma. You have to get it out. You have to tell somebody and I'm just going to kind of race through some of these initial steps because some of this stuff is very basic and I know y'all know it, but I do want to say it Emphasize the importance of self-compassion.
Speaker 1:If you don't have compassion on Christianity, you have to kind of break out of the idea of what they tell you is that you're evil and you're just so evil and only God can redeem you from your evilness. Start with something evil happened to me and I'm not evil that that thing happened to me. I am love and I was always loved and I never deserved what I got ever. Here's just a few things, a few things this is super basic that we can do to practically reconnect with ourselves. One and y'all know I'm gonna talk about this all the time is reflect self-reflect journal.
Speaker 1:Start writing down everything you can about what you remember, what you feel, where you're at, what you're having trouble saying no to what you're having trouble saying yes to what you're having trouble articulating. Whatever you feel like is the dynamic. That is the problem. Write it down, y'all. Write it down, just like Erykah Badu said write it down. Start trying to be authentic with yourself, just with yourself, so that you're not afraid. Write in your journal as if no one will ever see it and no one ever has to. But write it like no one will ever see it, so that you just feel free to just get it out. Practice being assertive in whatever you're writing.
Speaker 1:A big thing that people don't talk about a lot is try to figure out how to express what your core values are Like. Make a big, long list of what they are, if that helps, just so that you have a sense of like what is guiding me and should be guiding my behavior that maybe I've been falling short on. Another one is set very small, achievable goals about what you're going to do to work on the ways that you feel silenced and the ways that you're not being assertive and the ways that you're not using your voice the way you should. So, even if that's something really little, like when I'm at Subway, this is this is a real, true example for me. Sometimes I never want to ask them for extra black olives because I feel like I'm being a menace to society while drinking my juice in the hood by asking them for extra black olives, like they will just judge me or something. So that was like a small goal that I set myself for myself is that every time I go to Subway, I'm just going to ask for them extra black olives because that is what I want and I don't have to be afraid. I mean, I literally am sharing y'all, sharing that with y'all as a real example of things I've had to do along the way because I've been so afraid to use my voice in certain circumstances, and that is the that is the most ridiculous one of them all. But it's true, y'all. And that is the that is the most ridiculous one of them all. But it's true y'all.
Speaker 1:Like, I have tattoos that I don't even like because I was afraid to say something to the guy who was doing my tattoo. I don't like that. Or could you do that different? Like what the fuck? What the entire fuck? Yeah, I'm not even lying. I also think it's really helpful to normalize the fear that is associated with speaking up. Like, just be honest with yourself. Like, yeah, this is actually really hard to do. Write that down. I acknowledge that this is hard to do and I'm just going to like go ahead and do it anyway, but I do want to acknowledge that I'm challenged in this area or this area, or this area or this area, and try to be really specific about why you feel challenged. Is it because of you know past circumstances that happened with your, with your dad or with your mom, or you know you're you're afraid of rejection from your boss, or, um, you're feeling undeserving or unworthy because A, b, c, d, z. Just write it all down.
Speaker 1:Another big way huge, huge way that I have reclaimed my voice and my power is just by using it when I'm scared. Using it when I feel like other people look at me, like I'm cringe. Using it every opportunity I get, just living out loud. One way I've done that and this is gonna sound so crazy, but it was so low entry that I just felt like it was easy for me to do. But I started as soon as Instagram opened. The story feature which was in it was the. It was literally in the middle of when I was being a victim of domestic violence, when I was being verbally, narcissistically abused.
Speaker 1:It was like 2016 or 2017, where you could start talking on your Instagram stories. Before you could only share pictures. You couldn't even share other people's pictures. You could only share your individual pictures. You couldn't talk. Okay, when they let you start talking on instagram stories, y'all, I started talking and I never shut the fuck up. I literally never shut up. Still don't shut up on there.
Speaker 1:But that was like the beginning for me, to just practice talking about what I was going through, and I felt better. And I'm sure that I was sharing too much. I'm sure I was oversharing. I'm sure I was cringy. I still think I'd be cringy now but I'm like, oh well, if that's the worst thing about me, oh well, but at least I'm using my voice. At least I'm not afraid to use my voice. At least I'm advocating for other people. At least the worst that can happen is somebody who doesn't care about me or doesn't love me thinks I'm cringy. Someone who doesn't pay my bills or add to my happiness thinks that I'm cringy. Why the fuck would I care? Why? Why? I just think if we normalize the fear of speaking up, it actually just helps us to get it out anyway.
Speaker 1:Here's four key questions to ask yourself that I think will help you as you move forward to find your voice after losing it? One, what is the worst thing that could happen? Two, what is the best thing that could happen? Three, what will happen if you stay silent? And four, what would your future self tell you to do? That is a powerful ass question. Y'all that's a powerful ass question. Like I'm my future self from my 11 year old self, and if I were to sit down and have a conversation with my 11 year old self, I would tell her to do exactly what the fuck she did, which was stick up for herself. That little girl was so fucking brave, which was stick up for herself. That little girl was so fucking brave and so resilient. I just look back at her.
Speaker 1:That day, the testifying, the lawyer who tried to blame me, the lawyer who literally looked me in my eyeballs was when I was on the stand and said you asked your dad for it, didn't you? You asked him for it, didn't you? Didn't you ask to give him a blowjob on the stand with a courtroom full of people, and that little girl was so brave, she actually made people laugh. I forgot what exactly I said, but I got an attitude. I copped a little funky ass attitude problem with it and I said something like oh yeah, okay, because what little girl asked her dad, can I give you a blowjob? And I said it in such a way that I just remember people laughed and I remember, like looking around cause it was the first time I was ever like you know, I'm a speaker At like. At heart I'm really a speaker Like I feel like that's like the job that I never really took really seriously, but like who I am, and so I feel like it was the first time I ever had, you know, like a microphone and like I was looking, I was like I got my first laugh.
Speaker 1:It was like wonderful. And I just look back and I'm like what a kick ass little girl. Like if I could sit her down right now. I was like you are such a beauty Like, you're such a gem You're, you are such a kick ass little child. I'm so, so proud of you. You have no idea, I'm so proud of you. And you know my 65 year old self that's that's 17 years from now I'll be 65. What would she say to me now? You know, what would she say to me now? Like hey, I'm proud of you because when you were 48, you did this, you said this, you stuck up for yourself, you stuck up for other people. I'm proud of you. You know, like, do that, do that exercise with yourself, do that exercise with yourself.
Speaker 1:I do think that it's good to articulate that when you're just learning to re-empower yourself and reinvigorate yourself, it's going to take a lot of practice and a lot of missteps and start with small, very actionable things, like the subway thing, like, like I mentioned. You know, set very clear boundaries for yourself and just try to practice little ones here and there. You know, like something I've said before when I've talked about dating, because the last four years I've been dating, you know, trying to find an actual good man who I'm like, actually compatible with and who I actually want to be with every day, who doesn't like actually irritate the hell out of me and who I like actually respect and, um, as you can see, like a bit of hopelessness has set in about the prospect of like ever being with anyone who fits that description. But anyway, I have used dating as a way of like, like low stakes ways of practicing being assertive, because you know, when you're on a dating app, if a guy says something in the profile, which they do, you know like, oh girl, I can't wait to squeeze that ass. You know it's a very low stakes thing to just to say you will never squeeze that ass. You know it's a very low stakes thing to just to say you will never squeeze my ass, rot in the hell that I don't even believe exists and then block them. That's something I would never say to a man in person, for example. It's just like a low stakes way for me to practice being very, very assertive.
Speaker 1:Or even when I went out on literal dates with men and not liked them, I have practiced articulating to them. I'm not interested in just moving on instead of just blocking people and not communicating. Why one? Because I think, even as a woman, even though I'm a very strong feminist, feminist as fuck I still believe that just blocking people without articulating anything to them is really just highly immature. Y'all don't do that shit. Don't do that shit, don't do that. But anyway, that's just my personal opinion. I know there's women out there. You don't owe men anything. You don't. You absolutely don't. You cannot owe men a damn thing and still not be an asshole. I think those two things can exist at the same time. Also, if you're a multiple trauma survivor, then it's a way for you to practice articulating. I just don't like you. I'm just not that into you. I just want to do something else. I'm interested in someone else. I didn't have a great time on the date. It ain't that hard. It actually has helped me realize that's not that hard to do, even though in the past I have really struggled with that.
Speaker 1:I do think it's really important for us trauma survivors to also practice non-violent communication. It's a way to get in touch with yourself and be at home with yourself, for you to articulate. Here is what I feel. Here is what you do that makes me feel that way. Here is how I would like for you to not act in these ways. And I'm not talking about dating anymore, I'm talking about just all around you know kids, parents, family, sister, cousin, uncle, baby, daddy, etc. I try to practice nonviolent communication.
Speaker 1:And finally, y'all a few things to just really embrace your authentic voice. Number one it's a journey. Like I said, it's a lifelong journey. Celebrate the journey, celebrate this whole big, beautiful healing plan and realize that there is never one day where you feel like you've arrived. Now I can tell you that I feel more arrived than I've ever been, like if my healing journey was like starting on ground zero and there was like a long staircase to heaven, into the sky, and let's say there's 1000 steps. You know, like I can say, over the course of my lifetime I've been going up the steps and maybe I'm on step 675 out of 1000 steps and maybe by next year I'll be on step 772. But I'm still going up and I'm still learning. Like every day there's something to learn or there's something, there's some new circumstances to really practice it.
Speaker 1:And I can tell you I don't want to tell you the story, but there was a situation really recently that I feel I felt very silenced and I did not stick up for myself the way I should have. Oh, it was in a work scenario and with everything I've learned and with all the healing I've had and all the experience and healing, I still let a situation really silence me and I look back and I'm like damn, like what happened? Like that situation really took me off guard. So I'm not you know, like I always say, I'm not telling y'all from like a perfect or evolved place. This is just me being honest with y'all Like this ish is a journey. Please recognize that there is an ongoing nature of self discovery and hopefully it will be ongoing until we leave this earth, in this life.
Speaker 1:The next thing is no matter what happens, be kind to yourself and love yourself. And that situation that I was just in recently, where I was kind of disappointed in myself for how I didn't stand up for myself, I still practiced a lot of self-compassion and I'm still learning to practice self-compassion with myself, because that situation it kind of took me to my knees a little bit. It really did. It really took me to my knees, like, but I had to practice self-compassion because I realized if I get lost, if I get buried under the rubble of judgment of how I didn't do this right or how I didn't do this right and in that circumstances I could have done that I'll never heal. I'll never heal, and that's true for you too. You have to practice kindness toward yourself.
Speaker 1:My final words of encouragement is just that oh my God, I'm getting emotional again. It's just that we are and when I say we I mean black women we are braver and more resilient than I think we understand for what we've been through. That is something I have really internalized over the course of my lifetime. It's just that a lot of people would have already unalived themselves if they had survived what I've survived. I've survived. I know that for sure.
Speaker 1:There's not even a doubt in my mind, not even a doubt, not even a doubt, and that protects me. You don't understand how much protection that puts around me. When I even sense even a little bit of judgment from other people about how I've handled things, about what I've done, about the mistakes I've made. It's almost like I just have this beautiful, clear crystal wall around me that keeps me from people's hatred and judgment and their theories or whatever they think they know that they don't really know, or things you know. People will judge you on experiences they've never had and they have no idea what it's like to live or survive through the things you've been through. And I just have it around me and it just serves as this very beautiful, like bubble of self-compassion, like you know, in the movie Wicked, when she comes down in that pretty bubble in the beginning, that's what I feel like my bubble is and it's just like I only really let love into my bubble because I know how resilient I had to be to build that up and and and it's my safe space, you know. And it's also like I don't let anyone else into that space unless they are also very safe and practice love and self-compassion, because it's so important for other people to understand that. So, anyway, I think I'm just trying to say, like, create your own bubble, create your own bubble and don't let anyone judge you, don't let anyone get to you about what you've been through. Okay, I believe in you. I believe in you, anyway, y'all.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a like, subscribe. If you're on YouTube, if you're on Apple or spotify, please subscribe. And please leave me a review on apple podcast. I beg of you, leave me a rating, follow me on all the socials. I'm on instagram at grace underscore, sandra underscore, and also the podcast at out here trying to survive podcast. I also have this tiktok of the same name, out here trying to survive, and I have a newsletter that I only put out once a month and sometimes less, but please join it just in case these platforms ever go away or they hate me and they hate my social justice work and they shut me down. At least you'll be able to keep in touch with me on my newsletter, so please sign up for that and, like I always say remember, you are a beautiful soul, you're strong, resilient and you are very capable of building and dreaming up a life that you deserve. Until next time, keep shining and I'll see y'all later. Bye.
