My story: The realities of abuse and poverty

I was one of eight children born to a single mother who had me while she was working the streets. I never knew my father. I grew up in abject poverty on a Caribbean island. Our poverty was so severe at times that we would often go for days without eating. (I recall that on one occasion we went for an entire week without food.)

To survive at times, my siblings and I would keep watch for trucks coming from a particular grocery store—one of the few on the island at the time—that would pass us on their way to the island’s main garbage dump. We would then make our way to the dump to collect any food items that were being thrown out—even including chicken. I can recall my mother making every attempt to boil the chicken really well, but even then it still had a spoiled taste. We would say that it tasted like “slow poison,” which was an accurate description, given what we now know about microorganisms and damage they can do. It’s a miracle that we survived, and I know God somehow protected us. Sometimes, I would find other kinds of food on the garbage heap, such as a box of corn flakes; on other occasions, I would resort to stealing from a neighbor’s vegetable garden. Severe financial hardships also forced us to move often. Rarely was there enough money to pay rent, so we were constantly getting evicted.

In addition to those experiences of abject poverty, I had to deal with my mother’s emotional and mental instability, which made her extremely abusive—physically, mentally, emotionally, and especially verbally. I was often subjected to harsh beatings, many times for no apparent reason. On many occasions I was beaten out of my sleep, she threw rocks at me; she beat me with electrical cords, sticks, pots, and pans, sometimes stripping me naked and severely whipping me with belts that left imprints on my skin. On one occasion, all my siblings were going to the garbage site to collect chicken, and I wanted to go with them, but my mother wouldn’t allow me to. I didn’t understand why, and so I resisted. (I was a very strong-willed person, which by the way, I still am.) Well, in the process of beating me with a belt, the belt hit me in my eye, and for days it was black and blue, and swollen so badly that it I could barely see out of it.

On another occasion, I was stripped down to my underwear, severely beaten, and pushed out of the house during a torrential downpour. I was about 12 at the time. It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life, and at the time it occurred, I felt completely rejected and worthless as a human being. This feeling stayed with me for years to come. But even as a child, even in the midst of that brutality, I could feel the deep inner pain of my mother. But what could I do about that? I only knew I wanted to get far away from all of that pain.

The abuse continued into adulthood, when for the most part it took the form of verbal assaults. However, several times I came home to find all my clothes thrown out of the house. One of these occasions was triggered by my mother’s anger over my decision to attend junior college rather than work full time, which my mother wanted me to do in order to support her. With nowhere to go, I asked a neighbor for a place to stay until I found a better living arrangement, which I did. That was a very humiliating experience.

To add to all of this turmoil, we were one of the most divided families I knew, which led to terrible physical fighting and quarrels among siblings. These weren’t just normal sibling rivalry or competition; they were major fights. Some of it was encouraged by my mother, who would sit and watch, laughing at us as if we were her entertainment. We also had serious strife with neighbors to such an extent that my mother would make us throw urine and feces on the doorsteps of neighbors she was fighting with. Another very strange thing my mother did was to make us bring most of our furniture, along with suitcases filled with our clothing and toiletries, outside to be displayed in the street so the neighbors could see. I now understand this behavior to be my mother’s way of letting the neighbors know she had something of “value,” which in her mind would mean she wasn’t worthless.

There was also witchcraft activity in our home. My mother would bring what the local islanders call an obeah (voodoo) man to our house to seek his assistance for “protection.” Once, my siblings and I were summoned to our table by the obeah man to look through a glass object he had on the table, supposedly to see spirits. He also secretly dug holes in our yard in which he buried vials containing strange things. He would come back later when we were home and dig them up, showing them to us as proof that someone was bewitching us, so my mother could continue to give him her protection money. Our homes were also frequently washed in some obnoxious-smelling chemicals, and many times I had to take baths in these chemicals, supposedly for protection from evil spirits. While all these strange and evil activities were taking place, I knew the obeah man was bogus, and I was also keenly aware of the fact that my mother was driven out of extreme fear and a sense of powerlessness over her situation, so she was easily deceived into resorting to these types of measures.

All during that time, I had a tremendous sense of right and wrong and a strong reverence for God. I vowed at an early age to distance myself from such activities because I knew the negative impact they had on people’s lives. I witnessed firsthand the darkness and bondage that these types of activities can bring to people’s lives because they control the victims with paralyzing fear. I also know they could keep a person in poverty. My family often went without food and other necessities because my mother would take her last amount of money and give it to the obeah man—a man devoid of a conscience. But this was to be expected when someone like my mother was in such darkness and deception. Those caught up in such snares deserve genuine compassion, understanding, and prayer because the fear goes deep.

Today I am keenly aware that those seeds of darkness planted in our souls back then produced a family completely separated and divided. At the time of this writing, I wish I could say my family’s wounds of divisions have been healed, but that’s not the case. We are still not closely connected to each other, and we don’t see or talk to each other often. Although I have done my part to reach out to my family, there’s still no change. I will continue to pray and trust God for emotional healing and salvation for each of my family members. However, I know “it is not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). This lack of unity has no doubt taken a devastating toll on the family, and has stifled the creativity and gifts of so many of us. I can personally say, had I not made the decision early in my life to accept Jesus into my heart (see Romans 10:9-10) and follow the guidance of the Lord, I would not have had the wisdom to make some key decisions along the way that have kept me alive today and in my right mind.

Over the course of my life, I have had to assume full responsibility for myself. I started working at a very early age and put myself through high school, junior college, and then university. While still very young, I knew that I had to work hard to care for myself because all other options would lead to destruction. I started working in clothing stores for US$25 a week to be able to buy school supplies and stay in school. I worked in one store with a woman who would often pinch and slap my hand, saying that mosquitoes were biting me. I am still trying to figure that one out! I also had a job working nights as a bartender while teaching during the day so I could save enough money to travel overseas for my studies. I truly understand what it means to give all you have just to make it

Mine was a truly tough upbringing. As a child, I certainly didn’t understand why my mother was so angry or why she did the things she did. However, knowing what I now know as an adult, I can say that my mother had a lot of buried emotional and psychological problems because of the hardships of poverty she had suffered as a child. In addition, she was never given the chance to get a decent education, and she had no father, mother, or other family members to support her for the greater part of her life. Finally, she found herself on the streets being forced into situations to do things that no woman in her right mind would want to do. I am sure she must have felt hopeless and desperate at the time, and it was a very difficult and lonely road for her no doubt. I do believe she made decisions and did what she could based on what she knew and had at the time, which was not much at all. This is in no way to excuse wrong decisions or bad behavior, but as the saying goes: hurting people hurt people, and my mother had a lot of emotional pain inside of her that she could not seem to escape. Unfortunately, a lot of that pain found release on me.

How you treat others matter

I feel strongly at this point about admonishing people, especially parents, to really consider the treatment of your children, and to seek help for whatever unresolved emotional or mental issues you may be having. You don’t need to suffer silently with inner pain. In addition, your actions and words do have an impact on those around you, especially emotionally and psychologically, long after the physical scars have been healed.

To current or former abusers, allow people to tell their stories! I don’t believe it’s ever the intention of anyone who has overcome enormous challenges or abuse of any kind to share their stories just to demonize others. And the lie so often spoken that says it’s because the former victim has not forgiven must stop: a person who is truly healed on the inside is compelled to share with others what they have been through in life in order to give them hope, encouragement, and wisdom in order to help them get to the other side of their pain, healed and whole.

To persons who have been victimized in any way, don’t ever buy into the lie that it was your fault. You are never to be blamed for the violence that people have inflicted on you. But, to move on with your life, you must forgive, which is not the easiest thing to do. It doesn’t necessarily mean reconciliation either, especially if the abuser continues the same patterns of behavior or continues to deny wrongdoing. At times it may become necessary to remove yourself from the situation so that healing can come to you. In addition, don’t ever make light of your pain or of the evil actions of others because you feel threatened, or because you are afraid of being ridiculed or perceived by others as “no good” or “less than” as a result of what happened to you. And whenever the opportunity arises to share your story, do so without fear, even if the abuser is someone in your family still living in denial, accusing you, blaming you, or refusing to take responsibility.

Sharing your story not only brings further healing to you because what has been exposed to the light no longer can control you, but it also gives others in similar situations hope and encouragement to overcome their difficulties.

Finding a sense of purpose in all this pain helped me to go on. I found purpose in developing a tremendous capacity for forgiveness and a determination to never give up but to keep reaching for a better life; I found the inner strength to endure years of physical hardship and severe emotional and mental pain, and at the same time not hurt others, turn to a life of drugs, crime, or promiscuity, or lose my mind. I also had a firsthand experience of this amazing thing called God’s grace, forgiveness, and unconditional love, which can take a person through anything in life, no matter how painful. I am so thankful that I made the decision early in my life to follow the path of what was right.

While going through all this, I was very aware of how difficult it was, but I didn’t realize the true impact those negative experiences would have on me mentally and emotionally later in life. All those tough times produced a lot of fear, guilt, shame, low self-esteem, insecurity and a deep sense of inadequacy that haunted me for years into adulthood. I made countless attempts to deny and suppress these feelings, erroneously believing that time by itself would somehow heal them. The reality of these inner struggles caught up with me, and in 2003 I paid a heavy price when I became seriously ill. (I shared my journey to physical health in my health and nutrition book called Back to Basics: Common sense nutrition for optimal health.)

An opportunity that changed my life!

As my journey continued amid all kinds of pain, including an extremely emotionally abusive relationship with a man, in 1995 I was given an opportunity to travel to the United States to study biology on a partial scholarship,,,

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