A four-year-old girl tries to understand her parents’ abuse; especially her father’s manhandling. Throughout grammar school, her abuse grows more frightening. Meanwhile, the mother offers no secure support. As a sheltered teenager, anxiety grows while she tries to escape the hostile sexual advances by her father.
Coming of age at twenty-one, she provokes a bold move to distance herself from him. Consequently soon after the incident, he dies. Feeling guilty, ashamed and overwhelmed, she could not explain her withdrawal from life. It finally costs her a marriage of twenty-five years.
Following an announcement by her second husband, “She is a very strong woman,” strength of character moves her onward to a patient, caring therapist. Ten years of weekly therapy finally bring answers to many painful questions. However, the next family tragedy she encounters leaves her twisting in the wind.
Priscilla has a lot more to her story, and it can be read in her memoir, The First Day of the Rest of My Life.
Thank you, Priscilla for being brave enough for sharing your story, and for wanting to be the voice for others in similar situations. You are brave. You are strong. You are powerful.
#DomesticViolenceAwareness