Several readers have asked to hear my story. I warn you — it is a difficult story to read. Trust me — it was even harder to live it.
To read my story, click here. Be forewarned that most entries have a trigger warning. Please heed those warnings, and do not read my story if you are in a bad place.
Faith,
What an appropriate name for where you have been and what you have experienced. Especially since you are on the healing end of your journey and sharing to help others feel less alone.
I would like to add you to my resource list on my website. If you are so inclined you can read my PDF as an intro to my story.
Not sure how this all connects (living through abuse) and can’t wait to be on the “other side” to look back and say “WTF” or “Wow, glad I got through that and to the healing side of life before I died.”
Bless you on your journey and suggest you check out Marilyn Van Debur’s story “Miss America by Day” it helped me deal with both my sexual abuse and DID.
Would love to hear back from you if you feel any connection with my story.
In Love & Service,
Mary
Hi, Mary.
I am woefully behind in going through my emails (I receive comments as emails). I have checked out your website. Your book sounds fascinating! I am going to add it to the Book Resources section of my blog. Yes, I would love for my blog to be included on your Resources page. Thanks!
– Faith
[…] Faith Allen’s Story […]
Thanks so much for sharing such a personal story. Your site is beautiful and comforting. I admire your courage and your desire to help others. I wonder if you would contact me. I think we have some synergies that would be very productive. Your work is very inspirational and I look forward to following your work.
[…] Faith Allen’s Story […]
[…] Faith Allen’s Story […]
Hi Faith,
I stumbled across your site today in what must have been an act of fate or kismet.
I am not a survivor of abuse. I feel its important to establish that, though I’m not sure why, and I have spent the past several hours reading through your story and your blog entries.
I have so much that I want to say to you that I don’t know where to start or where to finish.
I admire your strength and I hope you recognize how strong you are.
I cannot comprehend what you have been through; what you have worked through to be where you are and what it must take for you to share your experience with the world, but I want you to know that I cherish your words and your honesty and your spirit.
All I can offer you are my prayers; my words and my tears, and the hope that in your darkest hours you will always find the light.
Much love,
Ruth
Thanks, Ruth. :0)
– Faith
Hi Faith,
I have stumbled across your site today and am in a very wobbly place. I have spent 23 years on my journey and I feel that just recently I have become very weak and unable to deal with life. My inner child is very quiet and anxious and wants a kind mum to cuddle up to but there isn’t one. There never was one and when my father used to physically beat me she would stand and stare and ask him to remove his rings, shouting at him that if he continued to hit me he would give me brain damage! I think I am starting to feel the anger which has been pushed down for over 40 years but I can’t handle confronting it and it’s destroying me. He also exposed himself to me and my mum witnessed this also and ushered him away from me, I don’t remember her coming up to me after these events and believe she just rejected me as I have no memories of love and warmth from her during the whole of my childhood. In 2006 I went through the process of reporting the incidents to the Police and he was arrested for GBH and Sexual Assault of a minor, my mother went with him for questioning and she became hysterical whilst he denied all charges. Sadly due to me being an historic case with little evidence, it never went to court. I knew then that I would have to battle on but that he had had a tap on the shoulder. My mother has never contacted me since. I feel abandoned by her, unloved by her and lost and frightened and it’s real hard to say when your 46 years old. I was such a beautiful little girl, very tiny and very timid and I know that there are more incidents but I cannot access them fully and the more that I think about things the more depleted I feel.
I have just started CBT and it seems to help the way I feel but then my weak, wobbly days arrive and I feel fit for the mental home. I would love to be able to talk to other ladies who know how I feel, who collapse when confronted with angry people and who desperately want to be whole.
God Bless you Faith.
x Melody
This site realy dose help huh, i was also like u im only 20 but i was sexualy abuse and a mother who wasnt there to love and suport me, i know im younger than u and ur proberbly more wise but wat i will say is u have ade it this far, count ur blessings every day and faith has a blog on forgivness. i recently told the police about my case it iddnt go to court either so i know wat it feels like its like justtice hasnt been done. Couceling works for some please but blogging for others or a online person to talk to things about that is wat helps me. also i know what u mean for fit for a mental home i feel like that alot, This kind of thing i dont think the “adults” relise wat effect it has on ur whole life growing up x
@Melody…I just stumbled upon this blog today and see that your post was only a few days ago. I want you to know that someone has read it and is thinking of you. It was very brave of you to write and let others share in your story. I am turning 46 myself and I share very similar feelings of abandonment plus I was a very tiny timid beautiful little girl so your story really touched me and gave me a mirror to validate my own story…thank you.
I found this site while searching for advice on how to love oneself since it is a mystery to me. But I am finally after these 46 years of pain and suffering coming to realize that it is imperative that I learn to love myself before anything else. Scary for a person who is paranoid about being a selfish person.
We can do this.
Hi Drae,
Many thanks for your reply. I am only just starting to realise that I am a very special person and worthy of love and at 46 it is a little scary to be on new ground such as this. Little acts of kindness are happening, like using a beautiful ladies hairbrush and standing infront of the mirror while I lovingly take care of my hair….wow….never thought I would say that. I’m even thinking about having my eyebrows plucked and wearing makeup. I have bought some lovely cashmere jumpers from eBay and adore wearing them. The lady is in me and I can feel her presence. One of the most special parts of my journey has been finding my inner child and I couldn’t have done it without the help of a beautiful old baby doll which I had abandoned to the bottom of a bin liner! A wonderful woman told me that to help myself it could help if I had a little old doll to act like the baby I once was and to help her to grow and my journey began with her over 2 years ago and what a relationship we shared, she came everywhere with me and now I feel that she is within me, my little girl all grown up!…with bushy eyebrows I’m ashamed to say but my point is that as small children we can have experienced the most horrific situations but we can still find beauty from within. No matter how dark that place has been and how rat infested, the light can break through the smallest hole and life can be renewed for us.
I left home and ended up living in a squat in London and had nothing. Life was as bleak as I thought it could possibly get. I now live in a beautiful home in an idyllic village in the country and have another property which I rent out to a lovely family. I am blessed, truly blessed and I new when I was living amongst the cockroaches that life could be better, I just needed to believe in myself and leave the haunting sadness of my early years to another day, maybe a day when I felt more secure and of course that day will always come and thats where I am right now, working through the tough bits.
God Bless you Drae,
Melody x
Hi Victim2survivor,
It was so nice to hear from you. Yes you are right, I have made it through and will always be grateful for each day that God gives me and even though some days are tough, I am beginning to see improvement. I am beginning to love my ‘self’ a part of me that I have only just started to connect with, a part that didn’t have a chance to blossom from infancy. I have days where I really find delight at being with my self. This journey that we all walk as survivors is amazing and at the end of the road the joy of facing a new stronger you will be worth all the pain. The best words of advice that I have ever had at my toughest times were very simply, yet amazingly correct; ‘slow is fast’ ~ take your time working through the stuff and give yourself lots of tlc and blanket hugs (sitting in a quiet place with a cosy blanket and just enjoying the warmth and silence) and the best book that I have ever read to help with the symptoms of mental fatigue and nervous exhaustion that sadly come with working through such traumas was written by Dr. Claire Weekes ~ Help with nervous exhaustion. I shall add you to my prayer list every evening and wish you love and hugs on your journey. Just remember ~ ‘Your worth it’.
God Bless.
Melody x
Thank you Faith. Yours is the first Blog I read after recently being diagnosed with DID. I was out trying to find out if other people are like me, and experience Dissociative Disorder the way I do. Reading your story really helped me a lot. I have been working on my own Blog for a few weeks now but still have it set on private. Hoping to soon have the courage to open up and let others see what I’m doing. You’ve done such a wonderful job with this. It inspired me to write my own life story.
Hi Faith – I have just read your account of the horrific assaults that you and your sister suffered. I have been through abuse myself, and have spent years working with a charity that helps abuse survivors – yet my mind is still reeling at the pain and terror that the abusers chose to unleash on you. You are amazing to have come through it and built your own healthy family, and to have shared your experiences to help other traumatized souls. I wish you love and light and all the best for your life.
Faith, I need to talk to you, I am starting an awareness campaign on mother daughter abuse in South Africa starting with my talk show. There’s many of these stories that need to be told but people are afraid to speak out, thank you for being so brave, many of us are still suffering in silence. My email is tamiqwa@gmail.com
Faith – Thank you for writing and being so brave. My head is jumbled with my memories of abuse. It’s like a picture slideshow, but the pictures are all out of place. There are dark slides missing. I admire the eloquence you write with, knowing how much work it has been for you to straighten the memories out. Peace….
Hello Faith,
Thank you for sharing this story and for sharing your healing process. It is a gift to many people.
I was not a victim of child abuse, thank goodness — indeed I came from a very loving family. And I grew into adulthood with no clue that people could abuse each other, or could abuse their children so horribly. Then I met a man who treated me very well for awhile, until . . . . until I began to realize his relationship with his daughter was very odd. I won’t go into details, but I uncovered his dark secret, and during that time became more and more a victim of his abuse. It turned very cruel when he realized I knew his secret, and turned nearly fatal when I made the moves to escape him.
I was diagnosed with PTSD, and have been working very hard at recovering for about three years. Just had a bad flashback, and in my quest for advice, I found your site. Your material on flashbacks, as well as your story, have helped to strengthen me.
God bless you, your sister, and everyone else who find themselves on this site, seeking answers to the troubling burdens of recovering from abuse. I hope that someday my former boyfriend’s daughter finds you, too —