Finding My Voice: A Story of Trauma, Survival, and Healing

As a kid growing up I had no voice. When your father is an abusive alcoholic you have the tendency to remain silent. The less light that shines on you, the better your chances are of getting through the day. My mother was rarely home due to the fact she was working all the time to make up for the lost money my father was spending on alcohol.

When my father, in his insanity, decided we were going to move 3,000 miles away to California, no one asked us kids if that's what we wanted to do. Without the buffer of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, the home environment became more unsafe for us kids.

Now, away from extended family, living in California, with no one to help my parents, we lacked any real adult supervision. So when dad was at the bar, and my mom was working, we ran the streets of Los Angeles unsupervised.

During this time of my life, I had some very horrific things happen to me. But if you don't feel you can trust your parents, your voice is silenced. How can you talk about being molested if you feel as if it's your fault, as kids have a tendency to blame themselves? So fear of my father physically punishing me kept me silent about what the school teacher was doing to me. At seven years old it was more than a child could handle.

After the police showed up asking questions, my parents took me to the police station where I was interrogated as if I did something wrong. All I could do was cry. Afterwards my father could not look at me, or talk to me. This only made me feel like it was my fault. I understand today it was my father's own shame, and guilt of not protecting me.

A year later I was kidnapped, raped, beaten and left for dead, but I never shared the truth about what happened to me when I got home. I just lied to my parents and said that I got jumped by some kids. The fear, the shame, and the memory of the last time haunted me.

I started looking for acceptance outside the home. I started running away from home, doing drugs, and hanging around gang members. Putting myself in harm's way on a daily basis, being shot at, and fighting with adults. I only furthered the trauma I had experienced already in my life. I spent more time living on my own as a child than I did living with my parents. In the process I was being taught how to survive by the adults I was hanging around, the experiences I lived through, and the gang I became part of to survive.

As my drug use continued it blew up into a full blown addiction which led to multiple incarcerations throughout my childhood. By the time I became an adult I was completely indoctrinated into a belief system that I learned as a child in order to survive.

If your parents are not teaching you, someone else will. Although I had parents, I had no voice in that relationship. So my trauma was pushed down into a place of darkness. Like film negatives in the dark, they grow until it comes out. Just like film negatives, it is only in the light that it is destroyed. Meaning my truth needed to be spoken, the child in me needed a voice in order to heal.

My unhealed trauma at the time continued the generational trauma through my own child. Running the streets, selling drugs, in and out of prison until I got a life sentence. Not being there for my child continued the generational trauma. Today I have a great relationship with my daughter who can tell me anything, and she shares her truth with me. Today I realize it is not about me having the answers, but giving my daughter a voice to speak her truth.

Steven Farlow  
Sgt at Arms, MOVTT