Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivor-Aideliz

Summary

Aideliz, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, opens up about her harrowing experiences growing up in a violent and abusive environment. Raised in Worcester, Massachusetts, she endured severe abuse from multiple family members and others from the age of two until her teenage years. Despite the trauma, Aideliz has managed to transform her life, becoming a mother of two, pursuing a career in photography, and bravely sharing her story to inspire and encourage others to speak out. Through her resilience, she highlights the importance of breaking the silence and seeking healing, while also expressing concerns for her safety and the emotional battles she continues to face.

Highlights

• Aideliz grew up with a large family in Worcester, Massachusetts but is now estranged from them. 🏡
• She experienced various forms of abuse from multiple family members and acquaintances. 💔
• After years of silence, she shared her story on TikTok, reaching millions and inspiring others. 📱
• Despite her dark past, she focuses on the beauty of life and aims to break statistics. 🌼
• Aideliz is now a photographer and a nanny, using her experiences to fuel her dreams and career. 📸

Key Takeaways

• Aideliz endured severe abuse from the age of two, mostly by family members. 💔
• She had a difficult childhood filled with violence and abuse, not a typical childhood experience. 😔
• Despite past adversities, she is a loving mother of two and working as a photographer. 📸
• Her resilience is evident as she overcomes the stigma, encouraging others to speak out. 🌟
• Aideliz emphasizes keeping an open mind about why people behave the way they do. 🤔

Overview

Aideliz's story is one of endurance and ultimate hope, having survived an extremely abusive and violent childhood. Growing up in Worcester, she faced continuous sexual, physical, and emotional abuse from a very young age. Despite this, she has managed to distance herself from the negativity of her past and focus on raising her children and pursuing her own dreams. Her courage and resilience set an inspirational tone for many others who face similar adversities.

Though her family environment was anything but supportive, filled with relatives involved in harmful activities, Aideliz chose to separate from them to save herself. She bravely came forward and shared her experiences publicly on social media, despite the risk it posed. Her story has reached far and wide, touching lives and persuading others to seek help or share their stories too. Aideliz believes in the importance of raising awareness and breaking the chain of silence and fear that abuse victims often live in.

Currently, Aideliz is carving out a new path for herself as a photographer while raising her children with great care and love. She has learned the importance of being cautious yet open in relationships, understanding the crucial balance between self-preservation and openness to others. Her ongoing journey towards healing and her refusal to be defined by her past make her story powerful and exceptionally motivating.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Family Background The chapter titled 'Introduction and Family Background' begins with a conversation where the narrator, Edise, describes their origin and upbringing in Wiester, Massachusetts. Edise shares details about a large family, although recounts that they have lost contact with many of them a few years ago. Now, Edise is mainly connected with the immediate family, which includes a mother, a sister, a stepfather, and two sons, one of whom is soon to be six years old.
• 01:00 - 04:00: Early Childhood and Abuse The speaker discusses becoming a parent at a very young age, mentioning that they got pregnant at 15 and had their child at 16. They have a second child who is nearly four years old, indicating a significant gap between the births. The speaker also touches upon their alienation from their family, describing themselves as the 'black sheep' due to differing viewpoints. Their family is portrayed as involved in gangs, violence, and lacking education, which contrasts with the speaker's lifestyle and choices.
• 04:00 - 06:00: Teenage Years and Sibling Experiences The chapter delves into the teenage years and experiences with siblings, highlighting a tumultuous and painful childhood. It is described as a time filled with violence and abuse, lacking the typical characteristics of a carefree childhood. The individual discusses the necessity of separating from certain people and environments to improve their life, emphasizing a life spent in survival mode and the ongoing journey of learning to move beyond that mindset.
• 06:00 - 08:00: Revelation and Legal Challenges This chapter delves into the narrator's early life, characterized by enduring severe abuse starting as young as two years old and continuing until the age of 14. The abuse was multifaceted, involving sexual, physical, and emotional maltreatment by multiple individuals. A poignant detail includes abuse by a stepfather, who was also related as an uncle, highlighting a complex and painful family dynamic. The chapter sets a grim tone, focusing on survival and the harsh realities faced from a very young age.
• 08:00 - 11:00: Continuation of Abuse and Struggles The narrator recounts a traumatic childhood experience, starting from the age of three, involving sexual abuse by a family member. The abuse wasn't isolated to a few instances but was a daily occurrence throughout the narrator's early childhood, emphasizing a continuous struggle faced in their formative years.
• 11:00 - 14:00: Path of Healing and Personal Growth The chapter titled 'Path of Healing and Personal Growth' explores the narrator's teenage years. The narrator aspired to be a police officer and largely stayed out of trouble, engaging only minimally in typical teenage activities like experimenting with substances. Much of this behavior was influenced by a friend, rather than from personal desire. The narrator's main focus was on being a good person and avoiding trouble.
• 14:00 - 18:00: Current Life and Mental Health The chapter titled 'Current Life and Mental Health' focuses on a conversation where an individual speaks about their family, particularly their sibling, and the different experiences they had growing up. The speaker mentions they have one sister, who, like them, endured physical and emotional abuse but not sexual abuse, which is a relief to them. Despite being siblings, the two led completely different lives, highlighting the variation in their experiences and its impact on their mental health.
• 18:00 - 21:00: Importance of Speaking Up and Lessons Learned The chapter highlights the significance of speaking up and sharing one's personal story. The narrator explains that after years of silence, they shared their story on TikTok following their graduation from the police academy. They emphasized the need to help themselves first before being able to help others effectively, reflecting on the importance of self-healing in the process of becoming a capable and authentic police officer.
• 21:00 - 25:30: Conclusion The narrator recounts their experience of going to the police to file a report and meeting with the district attorney (DA) with the hope of achieving prosecution against five individuals they reported. However, after months of investigation, the conclusion reached by the authorities was that there was insufficient information or evidence to proceed with any legal action against these people, who are all part of the narrator's family.

Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivor-Aideliz Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 all right edise edise where are you from originally where'd you grow up from wiester Massachusetts tell me about your family so my family um my I have a huge huge family but I um ended up not I ended up not speaking to them anymore a few years ago so I just have like immediate family I have my mom my sister um and my stepdad and I have two children I have two boys you do mhm how old are you uh soon to be six years old so I had him
• 00:30 - 01:00 really young and how old are you um me I'm 31 I'll be 32 so you started young yeah so I had I got pregnant at 15 had him at 16 and I have another one um who he's going to be four in November so he's three and a half right now so I waited a long time before I had my next one and you're separated from your entire family or pretty much yes uh just didn't see the same way so I'm kind of like the black sheep out of the family so the majority of my family are kind of like gangbangers into like violence and just not educated or anything like that
• 01:00 - 01:30 so in order to like up my life or to get better I got I just don't speak to those people anymore you to separate yourself yeah I had to separate myself for sure and what was your childhood like I mean how would you describe it um extremely extremely painful it was filled with violence and abuse um honestly I wouldn't call it a childhood I would call it I I was surviving you know I've been in survival mode my whole entire life I'm still learning how to get out of survival mode um but I've been in
• 01:30 - 02:00 survival mode I think from the moment I that I can remember is two years old what kind of things were going on that you so it's a really big story but um I was getting abused from the age of two to the age of 14 by multiple people when you say abused you mean sexually abused physically abused emotionally abused but I mean abused hardcore but sexually Abus hardcore so my first memory starts at 3 years old with my stepfather who is also my uncle because
• 02:00 - 02:30 it's my sister's dad so it's my sister's dad who is also my uncle so it's my dad's brother so my first memory starts at 3 years old um being abused sexually and it just went on from there so when I tell people my story a lot of people think it's like one or two three times I've been abused but it was an everyday thing my whole childhood at six seven 8 nine it was an everyday thing
• 02:30 - 03:00 what kind of teenager were you um I wanted to be a police officer so I was a pretty good teenager I did teenager things I did smoke weed drank a tiny bit um but majority that was not like that was put on me by my one of my closest friends it wasn't really my thought process my thought process was more along the lines of being a really good person I didn't want to be in trouble or anything like that I wanted to be a good person
• 03:00 - 03:30 and your family you you had siblings yes I have one sister that's the only one how did she fair in all of this so she didn't go through the amount of things that I've went through she did have physical abuse emotional abuse um to my knowledge and from what she has expressed to me she has never been sexually abused um which is great um but we had two totally different lives completely different lives
• 03:30 - 04:00 and I just came out with this information to the world a year ago actually I posted my story on Tik Tok I posted it on Tik Tok after being quiet for so many years because I went to the police to make a police report it's I just finished graduating the police academy so I felt like I was going to be a phony police officer because I want to help people but I never helped myself so I was like I can't be a police officer if I haven't helped myself yet you know
• 04:00 - 04:30 so I went to the police and I made a police report met with the da and um pretty much after months of investigating um they said that there's not enough information to put any of the people that there's mult there's five people that I I um reported none of the information was enough to sustain a um to sustain um you know some prosecution towards them you know and these are all in your family so um
• 04:30 - 05:00 majority is from the family one is not from my from my family so I was abused by my step my stepfather from the age of 2 to 10 and then we ended up um leaving that um place because of a lot of uh physical abuse the police came and um we ended up being homeless I was in a shelter for about a year and then I lived with my aunt in the projects for about a year um but it was also during that time with my stepfather was my step brother
• 05:00 - 05:30 and my other stepbrother so he has three sons he has three boys um out of the three one was in the Army really good guy never did anything to me the other two abused me and he abused me from the age of like 2 to 10 um and then after that it was my mom's ex-boyfriend um she after we moved out we were in a hotel um and being in a shelter she met a guy who ended up abusing me severely as well like extremely extremely bad for a few years
• 05:30 - 06:00 like one or two years and then um my whole story is extremely sad but I ended up meeting my father who left when I was like 2 years old I met him when I was 13 years old I flew to Puerto Rico all by myself I met my father all by myself for the first time um the first month with him I spent like a month and a half with him the first month with him was um the dream um he took me on my first motorcycle ride he took me me to see
• 06:00 - 06:30 Daddy Yankee he was just like the dream father the father figure that I always wanted he was so sweet kind tentative cooked for me was amazing um until one night where he abused me in his bedroom um he did it one night yeah he did it one time so my story got worse from there so I was abused my whole life by all these different people finally my father and my father also abused me you never quit it never quit yeah so I haven't been abused my life has been I think since I got pregnant since I was
• 06:30 - 07:00 15 it stopped when I was 14 but since I was like 15 I've been on a path of healing and a path of um you know trying to get past what has happened to me and how have you done that I've done that by just staying hope positive and hopeful and just seeing the joys of life like I really like nature I love the moon I love the clouds I'm just I am amazed to be a human like I love
• 07:00 - 07:30 being me but it just it sucks that we have people like this around us um and I fought really hard I'm still in survival mode at this moment um I fight every day to not be the statistics because statistics say I should be doing drugs I should be getting abused or be a be an abuser I should be dep like I do have depression and stuff like that but I should be really depressed or like in an asylum or something based on what I've been through because what I've been through to be honest
• 07:30 - 08:00 I I believe it's close to War I was in war for my whole childhood so um it's everyday is a fight to be a good person and drugs have never been something you've gone to no I I was forced to do drugs at like six um crack I was forced to do crack I was I seen drugs I was in the Dare program drugs have never been an issue for me because I I just don't know I'm not going to say anything about other people I just don't know how they get into it if they know how bad it is like I know it's terrible um but drugs
• 08:00 - 08:30 have never been an issue for me or being violent or anything like that I've been the opposite of everything that I've grew up with I'm literally the opposite yeah and how are you supporting yourself I'm a photographer right now and a nanny so I've been in and out of jobs my whole life from like working at CVS at 18 working at Blockbuster at 20 working at a nursing home but right now my career where I'm going I am a nanny and I do want to be a really like famous photographer I do want to go down that
• 08:30 - 09:00 line I'm not sure for what um but I'm a portrait photographer right now so I love doing portraits and you have the father of your children with you so I my first CH child his father um got deported three months after I got pregnant to Guatemala so he was never inside his child's life he has come back and forth um into the US illegally um and I tried to let him be a father but he got deported again twice actually
• 09:00 - 09:30 um cuz he was I guess a drunk apparently or something like that so he has not been his life and then my current child um we have a good co-parenting um relationship right now it did not work longterm um and that's because I just got diagnosed with ADHD two years ago and I think that was a maage a major concern for our relationship is not understanding my emotions and how to deal with them and stuff like that um and I learned it was ADHD but I I think it has to do with my childhood but they're calling it
• 09:30 - 10:00 ADHD what what is the hardest part of your life now I mean you you don't have support of your family the hardest part of my life is not thinking about the past um I do have a lot of nightmares and fears um I am pretty fearful honestly for like my children and and for myself just being out in the open open about this um I'm I am putting myself out there so if they
• 10:00 - 10:30 if my abusers were to come across any of this information they could T try to retaliate or um you know hurt hurt me or my family so um it's just been me dealing with that if you had your life to live over again would you have done things differently um and you were so young when the abuse was happening that you couldn't really do that so the thing is I I was terrified this the my first
• 10:30 - 11:00 abuser was my stepfather he's the epitome he is what the devil is he is really really evil like extremely scary scary of a person so I just lived in fear but if I could live my life over again I wish I did speak to the people around me so there were many many many times that I wanted to tell my teachers right but my teachers were so oblivious to the to what was going on like I had slashes on my back from being hit with belt and like I had marks bruises um and
• 11:00 - 11:30 just my personality and there were many times where I would look at my teacher and hope that they would see through me um one of my favorite books actually um is called A Child Called It um pretty much my life was like that type of abuse but I wouldn't say worse but maybe worse because of my sexual abuse you know I wasn't it wasn't just little stuff I was getting like extreme extreme abuse like
• 11:30 - 12:00 tied up um penetrated with things that were way too large for me like really extreme extreme abuse um so I think the hardest part about being myself is not like people don't know who I actually am so this whole time I felt like I've been a lie I've never been my true self because my true self is my past and no one knew about my past are you able to have relationships with men after everything you've been through yeah um for sure I men are great there's still a
• 12:00 - 12:30 great men out there um I I'm just a little bit more cautious um with myself and what I bring to the table so I I I'm fine with men have had healthy relationships I've never been abused I've never been even cussed that um I've had really good partners um but just I knew in the end they weren't long-term Partners they weren't like my soulmate is the reason why we would break up never had any violence on my on my side I wouldn't allow it which is I think very different because
• 12:30 - 13:00 a lot of people they've been around abuse so it's abuse is easy to be around um I refuse to be around that type of environment what do you go through emotionally it's tough It's really tough the um I have major depression I have anxiety I have a binge eating disorder I use food as a coping mechanism I love food um I think it's really really tough to be honest going through I've been through and I hear a lot of people tell
• 13:00 - 13:30 me like oh it's in your past move past it or um like there's nothing you can do like they just don't understand the the how your brain develops after being abused for your whole childhood um not by one person but by multiple people and then the people that are supposed to be the ones that take care of you of course so like it it is definitely it's very very traumatizing and no amount of healing honestly will would ever take away that pain but um I know it as time
• 13:30 - 14:00 goes by it does get easier and now that I'm open and speaking about it I feel like a new person and I feel way stronger than I ever felt yeah you're very strong thank you um I'm just really surprised by how everything has moved like I posted it on Tik Tok and I've reached millions of people around the world I've had women men message me and tell me that I've changed their life just by speaking up um I've helped them gain the courage to
• 14:00 - 14:30 speak up some have like um spoke to the police some have spoke to family some have just been inner healing because of me just speaking up so that's why I'm pretty much here I I want to speak up and I want to let people I want people to know that it's never too late to speak up um and I do want them to know um in that moment there may be a lot of fear for you where you may like you're you're fearing that you're going to not
• 14:30 - 15:00 speak to your mother or you're going to upset someone but I promise it's better to speak then than to wait till later until it's too late um like in my case they can't be arrested apparently based on the information that's provided so I just want people to not be so scared of speaking up because the help in that moment is going to be better than staying stuck in that in that environment where they can get hurt they can possibly get killed or just never really heal from that
• 15:00 - 15:30 Ed what do what would you say is the most important lesson you've learned the most important lesson is never like it's to keep your mind open on how why other people are behaving the way that they're behaving that's great because you never know what they're going through um me I was the shy Little Nerd little weird girl um but I was only that way because of the things that was happening in my My Life um teachers
• 15:30 - 16:00 friends not no one knew I was a smiling person right my pictures my photos were all smiling but I was being severely severely abused and I kept on smiling so you may see someone smiling but that doesn't mean that's exactly how they they feel so that's my biggest lesson I when I see people now I always think deeper I never like if let's say I'm walking and I get pushed I I'm not going to react to that I may be like oh maybe they're in a rush to like a funeral or maybe they're
• 16:00 - 16:30 have go to go use the bathroom or something I always think deeper about how people are yeah it's really great all right ad thank you so much for sharing your story thank you I appreciate it wish you lots of luck from here you're very brave thank you thank you e