The Background

My story began long before I understood what trauma was.

As a child, I experienced sexual abuse and other forms of abuse that shaped the way I understood myself, relationships, safety, and the world around me. For a long time, I didn't have the words to explain what had happened to me. I only knew that something inside me felt different.

As I grew older, the effects of that trauma followed me into adulthood. I learned ways to survive that I didn't realize were survival responses at the time. I carried shame, fear, confusion, and a deep sense that I somehow needed to keep going no matter what was happening around me.

The abuse continued and intensified well into adulthood. What I had experienced as a child had affected what I recognized as normal, what I tolerated, and what I believed I deserved. Isolated, insecure, and afraid I faced many challenges alone. While I was sexually abused by one man, many people played a part in allowing the abuse to continue. When people who are supposed to be family don’t protect you, it’s hard asking for help from strangers.

Leaving wasn't simple. Surviving wasn't simple. And healing certainly wasn't simple.

But I eventually had to make a choice: continue living in survival mode, or begin building a life where safety, peace, and freedom were possible.

The Turning Point & Survivorship

There wasn't one single moment when everything changed.

There were many moments.

There were moments when I realized that what had happened to me was not my fault. Moments when I began recognizing patterns that I had carried for years. Moments when I understood that surviving something doesn't mean you have to spend the rest of your life defined by it.

I wanted my children to have something different. I wanted them to know what safety felt like. I wanted them to grow up understanding that love should not require fear, control, humiliation, or abuse.

Leaving an abusive situation meant stepping into an unknown future while carrying the responsibilities of protecting my children, rebuilding our lives, and trying to heal myself at the same time.

Survivorship, I've learned, isn't about becoming untouched by what happened.

It's about learning that what happened to you does not have to determine everything that happens next.

I am still healing. I still have difficult days. I still have moments when the past catches up with me.

But I am no longer only the person those things happened to.

I am a survivor. I am a mother. I am rebuilding. And I am learning how to create a life that feels like mine.

Why I Created This Site

I created Through Fire & Brimstone because I know what it is like to feel completely alone inside something you don't have the words to explain.

I know what it is like to be a child who doesn't understand that what is happening is abuse.

I know what it is like to have your world become smaller and smaller until you lose touch with the people who might have helped you.

I know what it is like to carry childhood trauma into adulthood and to spend years trying to understand how it affected the person you became.

And I know what it is like to survive domestic violence when the abuse didn't begin with an adult relationship—it began when you were a child and continued for years.

The name Through Fire & Brimstone came from a conversation I had with my therapist while I was trying to explain the anger and hatred I carried inside of me.

I couldn't find a better way to describe it.

It felt like fire and brimstone.

There was so much anger inside me—not only because of what had been done to me, but because I knew that the person who had hurt me had the opportunity to hurt someone else.

I never wanted him to have that opportunity again.

That was one of the reasons I wanted to press charges. I knew that I couldn't change what had happened to me, but I wanted to do what I could to prevent another person from becoming a victim.

For a long time, I thought anger was something I needed to get rid of.

I've come to understand that anger can also tell us that something was deeply wrong.

My anger told me that what happened mattered.

It told me that I mattered.

And eventually, I had to decide what I was going to do with it.

I could let it consume me, or I could use my voice.

This site is part of that choice.

I created Through Fire & Brimstone because I don't want other survivors to believe they are alone, broken, or responsible for what was done to them.

I want to talk about the realities of childhood sexual abuse, childhood trauma, domestic violence, survival, and healing.

I want to talk about the things that are often difficult to say out loud.

The complicated parts.

The parts that don't fit neatly into a story about leaving and suddenly being okay.

The parts that come afterward.

Most importantly, I want this to be a place where survivors can find information, understanding, and the reminder that their story does not have to end where their abuse did.

I survived what was done to me.

I am still healing from it.

And now, I want to use my voice to help break the silence that allowed abuse to continue for so long.

This is Through Fire & Brimstone.

This is my story.

And this is a place for survivors who are still finding their way through theirs.