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by Antoinette McDuffy (Author)
Here I sit, with pen in hand, writing for the 9 year-old girl who endured overwhelming heartache and pain many years ago. I write for myself, and every young child who has suffered at the hands of the ones they trusted to care for them, to raise them, to nurture them and most importantly to help them to dream. To dream of what their future could be. I write for the 9 year-old girl who remained captive in my body, captive in my mind, and captive in my heart and soul. She had no idea on how to start her story or how it would end; she just wanted to be free. All she could see and feel was childhood pain that shackled her feet and cuffed her hands and kept her bound to the open wounds of the past. Pain is all she knew and she has longed forever to be released from it. The battle that she fought was one riddled with questions: Why did this happen to me? Why did God choose me to go through this? Why did my mom fail to protect me? Did I do something to deserve this? Questions that remain unanswered to this day. But it's not the answers to these questions that set one on a journey of healing. It is the power to give voice to one's reality. The voice that gives instruction on how to free yourself from constant hurt and self-inflicted pain. In this book, I give you the voice that was lost or silenced. I invite you, my readers, to go with me on this journey from hurt to healing and forgiveness. When I began writing this book, my thoughts were that my experiences would provide healing to others. As my words started to flow and I began to relive my past, I realized that this was for me, for my own healing. I know there are many who can relate to my journey and that's unfortunate, but it's real. Is there anyone out there who can relate to trauma in his or her life? Your trauma is anything that has happened in your life that has created a disturbance. Maybe you lost a loved one, or were raped by someone you knew or a stranger. Perhaps you experienced a bad breakup with someone, or your parents divorced, or you personally went through a divorce or (PTSD) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Whatever caused you to become deeply wounded and separated from yourself, just know that you are not alone and help is just a whisper away. I had to make some serious decisions in my life that would make me or break me. Was I prepared to deal with my deep-rooted issues that stopped me from living life to the fullest through forgiveness? Or would I allow my past of being molested as a child, abused physically, mentally and psychologically as an adult and my own self-inflicted abusive behaviors continue to hinder me? I had experienced enough negativity in my life, so I decided to try something different - Believing in me.
