Light After the Storm
I was five years old when my parents divorced and my father remarried my stepmother. For a while, things seemed fine, but once my older siblings grew up and started leaving home, everything changed. I was eight years younger than my closest sibling — the last one left in the house — and when they made mistakes out in the world, I became the patsy, the one who paid for them.
The physical abuse started when I was around twelve. My father and stepmother used whatever they could get their hands on — belts, moulding strips with nails still in them, even their fists. The pain was sharp, but what cut even deeper was the silence that surrounded it. Our church members knew, but this was the 1980s and ’90s — a time when child abuse was often brushed off as “discipline.” My father was deeply involved in both the church and state politics, which made him untouchable. People turned a blind eye, and I learned early that no one was coming to save me.
Books became my escape. Between the pages, I could breathe. I could disappear into other worlds where kindness existed, where love didn’t hurt, and where little girls didn’t have to walk on eggshells just to survive.
By the time I neared adulthood, I knew I couldn’t stay. Just before my eighteenth birthday, I ran away. I packed what I could and took a bus from Syracuse, New York to Miami, Oklahoma to live with my biological mother — the same woman who had left my father years before because of his abuse. I didn’t know what waited for me, only that I couldn’t stay where I was. Leaving was terrifying, but it was also the first truly brave thing I’d ever done for myself.
When I was nineteen, I thought I’d found safety — I got married. I was pregnant with my daughter and terrified. I believed no one would want me because I was “damaged goods.” My first husband was different from my parents in one way — he needed alcohol to bring out the worst in him. Every three months, like clockwork, he’d fall off the wagon, get drunk, and get violent.
The night he laid his hands on my baby was the night everything changed. I had just gotten home from working a 3-to-11 shift at a call center. My daughter was three years old, and my second child — my oldest son — was thirteen months old. As I walked in the door, I saw my husband throw our baby boy into his crib so hard that it chipped one of his front teeth. In that instant, the fear that had controlled my life turned into resolve. Hurting me was one thing — but hurting my child was something I would never allow.
Leaving that marriage was terrifying. I didn’t know if I could make it on my own. I was afraid of failing, of being alone, of not being enough. But I left anyway. Because love doesn’t hurt. And survival — true survival — sometimes means walking away from everything you’ve ever known.
Over time, I realized the abuse had shaped me in complex ways. In some ways, it made me softer — more compassionate, more forgiving, more attuned to the pain of others. In other ways, it hardened me. I hold myself to a higher standard now. I work hard, love hard, and live intentionally. As a mother, I made sure my children — my daughter and my three sons — always knew that I would lay down my life to protect them.
And then, when I least expected it, love found me again. I reconnected with my high school sweetheart, Scott. We had both been through our own versions of hell, carrying our own baggage, but together we learned how to heal. Sixteen years later, we’re still standing strong. He helped mend parts of me I didn’t even realize were broken.
If you’re reading this and you’re living in fear — please know that there is light at the end. It may feel impossible, but life outside of abuse is worth every ounce of fear it takes to get there. The air is lighter. Your laughter comes easier. You begin to remember who you are.
You are not alone. You are not broken. You are not “damaged goods.”
You are worthy of peace. You are worthy of safety.
And you are strong enough to step into the light.
Author’s Note
Shared by Tricia Williams, CEO of My Tribe Print & Promo and proud Wyandotte woman.