[TW: Mention of child abuse, sexual assault, and murder.]

A month or so ago, I decided to take a step back from social media to reground myself. I realized that I was unraveling many layers of childhood trauma during my marriage and as a stepmother. 

In this blog, I will go in depth on what my journey has been like to navigate and heal from my past as well as my present.

 

Childhood

As a young girl, I did not receive much maternal nurturing. I’ve never had an inspiring female role model growing up. I was surrounded completely by toxic femininity, something you often see in our culture where females in your family will look for things wrong about you to turn into gossip. Seriously, how many times have we all heard a tia say "estas engordando" or "estas muy flaca?”

While these women in my life were so focused on finding anything wrong about me or my body image, their lack of concern kept them from seeing an unfortunate truth for many young girls today; I was being sexually harassed. I became a victim of sexual assault at the age of 5 and from there on I experienced several other assaults during the rest of my childhood by different men who were supposedly “family friends.”

Spending the entirety of my childhood feeling alone and unsafe was only made worse by being alienated from the only person in the world who did make me feel protected and loved: my father. 

Many parents are not immediately aware of the emotional damage a child is hit with through parental alienation. If you’re not already familiar with this term, it is a combination of strategies that parents use to undermine and interfere with a child’s relationship with the other parent.

This may include:

• Bad-mouthing the other parent
• Limiting contact with that parent
• Forbidding discussion and pictures of the other parent
• Forcing the child to reject the other parent
• Creating the impression that the other parent is dangerous

 

With the solitude created from what I was experiencing, I eventually became more and more rebellious. My taste in music didn’t help the situation either as I started to show interest in rock/metal. It escalated to where the women in my life began calling me a “devil child” to tease me for my behavior and choice of music. I was very much the Lydia Deetz of my family.

[Beetlejuice Lydia Deetz artwork by Joseph Oland]

 

Despite all the judgements about me, I was able to find hope in a song. As corny as this may sound, the lyrics that helped me get through my trauma were from the song “Judith” by A Perfect Circle. In the song, Maynard writes “You're such an inspiration for the ways that I'll never ever choose to be”. These words became my motto. No matter how much negativity I encountered as a child, It was this song lyric that instilled a hope in me that would be carried on into my adulthood. I would become the exact opposite of how others treated me.

 

Tragedy

As time went on, I was impatiently waiting to turn 18. Being of age would mean finally being able to fully reunite with my dad without the control of my other parent.

I was 16 years old, out in the neighborhood hanging out with my cousin and best friend. I received a phone call from my older brother suddenly and out of the ordinary.

"Do you have somewhere to sit? I have some bad news to tell you." He said to me in such a worrisome tone. 

My stomach was in knots, I couldn't sit still, I just needed him to spit it out. I demanded that he tell me the news already.

"Dad is gone.” 

I didn't immediately grasp what he meant by it, but a moment later he followed up by clarifying the worst news ever spoken to me, "Dad died". 

I froze at the news of my fathers death. I couldn't grasp my head around it. My best friend and cousin stood next to me waiting to hear what news I had received. I said it out loud finally, never imagining that I'd ever have to say these words. "My dad died," I said, in a state of confusion. Still tasting these new words as I stood frozen in time. My best friend quickly placed his arms in an embrace around me. That one hug was the most comfort I received from anyone around me as support for the loss of my father in the coming days, months and even years.

I think often of the strength my brother had at the time. Being a teenager himself and having to deliver that heavy news to his little sister, over any of the adults around us. Everyone around me was aware of the bond and love I had for my father. They knew well that he was the parent I preferred, the one I had a strong connection with. Yet why were the adults around me so afraid to tell me, talk about it or even comfort me?

Thinking that the worst was over, I realized I had to learn how he died. At this point I wanted them to tell me everything, to not hold anything back. I had already received the worst news possible. Unfortunately, it got worse from there and to this day I look back and wonder how the hell I managed to get through that part of my life. 

 I learned that my father was stabbed and shot multiple times the day before, on Christmas. It was then that I was told by my grandmother that my father's last words were my name and that he had also asked for me in his final moments.

 It is here where I would like you to understand just how harrowing it was, for a father who simply wanted to be a part of his daughter's life, that his very last words on earth were his own daughter's name and that his last wish was to see his daughter. 

At that moment, the most precious thing in life was taken from me and I had no desire to live anymore. I had nothing to look forward to in my life.

 

Motherhood

Motherhood turned into the most sacred step on my path when I became a mother. It was my opportunity to finally break the cycles of trauma that I had endured and the cycles that came before me. This was my moment, to give my child what I didn't receive and what I always wished for. 

Being a breaker of generational traumas is not an easy journey when there is lack of internal support for you and your child. When you're reconnecting in a society where the majority of people have a western-like mentality and prefer to stay assimilated, it truly feels like it's you against the world. 

So, If you're doing this work while having mother wounds yourself, to reclaim what was yours and what belongs to your children or future children (literally from scratch), I want YOU to know that I am proud of you and that your strength is incredible because you are the new beginning for future generations to come.

 

Full Circle

I persevered through many hardships to reach a peaceful point in my life. In my mid 20’s I was happily dedicated to my community via activism and human rights work and had just met the love of my life.

I then journeyed to California from Florida in 2020 with my son to unite with my husband and his daughter where we later celebrated a traditional marriage or Amarre de Tilma.

 

As we began adjusting to life as a blended family, I saw there was something that my stepdaughter was hurting from behind her smiles and laughter. During instances where she displayed questionable behavior, I could see that they were actually her cries for help. 

Recognizing this behavior mimicked the way I behaved as a child when I had a lot of emotions bottled up and very quickly I learned that she too was suffering from signs of parental alienation. Her experiences were eerily similar to the trauma I experienced. We cried together, bonding through our mother wounds.

Soon after, I found myself unearthing many of my own painful memories. Memories that I had worked so hard to leave in my past. Unearthing these memories became a way for me to provide my stepdaughter with ways to cope when she was facing the same torment. 

My childhood traumas eventually fully resurfaced, staying afloat in my new everyday life and I will be honest in saying that the first couple years of my marriage were probably the hardest years of my adult life due to what was playing out in front of me. I was watching another child go through what I suffered as a young girl all the while watching my husband suffer the way my father did for me. It was like a mirror, parallel to my past.

I spiraled downward.

Having moved across the country to a new state, I didn’t have my friends or family present or easily accessible to help me during this gloomy part of my life. As a mother, new wife, and new stepmom, I was also constantly putting everyone else's mental and emotional needs before my own in this home. So, by the end of the day, my emotional needs were not supported in any direction.

To emphasize, the lack of support at home was not intentional. There was simply no room for it while everyone else in the home was enduring the chaos coming from the other end. Harassing phone calls, threats and more being thrown in our direction on behalf of a HCBM (high conflict bio mom). It's an experience many stepmothers go through, as I was able to learn and understand in many stepmotherhood support groups.

I was swiveling back and forth daily providing emotional support to my stepdaughter and husband. I helped her through sadness, crying spells, anxiety and panic attacks caused by the distress of alienation threats while also supporting my partner with the anxiety and depression he was experiencing from those same threats and attacks to his fatherhood.

Being extremely burnt out from all that I was giving to my family, my body started reacting. I would find myself bleeding excessively due to the stress. For weeks at a time my body would react like a never ending menstruation cycle. I am anemic, so this was a weakness in my body that I had never felt before, where at times I could barely step outside or get out of bed. I felt alone, sick and very depressed.

With my health seemingly deteriorating, I learned how intensely connected my mind was to my body. Undergoing prolonged time with stress and trauma greatly influence how the body responds to these series of mental hardships. One’s emotional state can often be the culprit of many negative physical reactions. Getting sick, pains or aches in the body or even more serious effects could set in. Our bodies and minds are connected more than we know and often directly affect one another. 

 

 Healing

I am currently going through therapy to get over this hump in my life and in the process I am learning to re-discover the things I enjoy most. 

One thing in particular that has also been helping me is following the story of Jennette McCurdy (ICarly), who is also recovering from mother wounds. 

I highly recommend checking out her recently released memoir "I'm Glad My Mom Died" as well as her interview on Jada Pinkett Smith’s “The Red Table Talk.” Although the title may appear off-putting or uncomfortable to some, it does the job well in highlighting the ways in which society tends to lump all moms on pedestals, even harmful moms, which make it very difficult for victims to speak out about their childhood traumas.

 As for my journey to heal my own mother wounds, this process involved seeing my mother as only human and understanding her upbringing as an immigrant and young mother rather than repeatedly questioning her actions. I came to the realization that no one should halt their life in order to wait for accountability and accepting the reality that there are those (even family) who are unable to recognize their own actions. It’s absolutely okay to not grant someone your forgiveness, and reaching this point essentially allowed me to let go of my resentment and set boundaries where needed.

Oftentimes, parents with the above behaviors will even deny certain events ever occurred. They hold themselves in a position where they believe that they are never wrong and refuse to ever see themselves as the cause of harm. You can explain a perspective of an event over and over again but that parent may endlessly invalidate your truths. They simply cannot see it in the ways that it affected you. As the old saying goes, (the unhealthy endgame to any child’s question,) “Mommy knows best/Daddy knows best.” Which today we all know as a facade of narcissism from a parent, rather than an opportunity for growth and honesty with one’s child.

Being a parent comes with a duality that dates back to our ancestral ways where both the child as well as the parent should always learn from one another. Instead of raising your children to fear you or see you as untouchable, raise them to see you as human. A human who is not afraid to own up to mistakes or be open to learning everyday, especially alongside their children. This is the principle of teaching our seeds about humanity, and it begins with you.