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SURVIVOR STORIES

The Best I’ve Ever Felt About My Life

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I WAS a 12-year-old little girl, who had just lost my mother to a tough battle of lung and brain cancer, who was the only parent that I ever had involved in my life. The only world that I ever knew was forever changed from that moment on. I had to move in with my older sister & her family to a different town, start a new school and make new friends and if that wasn’t hard enough, a few months later the sexual abuse started. I had no idea what to do and didn’t want to tell anyone…EVER! I was so ashamed, embarrassed, and scared to death! 

I AM now 48 years old and I feel the best I’ve ever felt about my life since I was 12 when my life totally changed. I am so thankful that I found out about the Saprea Retreat and was able to attend. Everyone there was so helpful and truly cared about me and my well-being. I always knew that sexual abuse had happened to other girls but I never knew the terrible extent that it has happened to so, so many all over the world. Or how the abuse affects how your brain thinks and how it can make you react to different situations and contributes to anxiety, lack of self-worth, and so on and so on! At the retreat, I realized I was definitely not alone or the only one that these unspeakable things had happened to and that helps me more than I could have ever imagined. 

I WILL continue on my journey to heal my soul and share my truth in the hopes that no other child or young woman will ever have to go through what I had to go through! 

I WILL forever be grateful to Saprea and its retreat for giving me my life back and giving me a voice and the courage to share my story! I met 18 fabulous women on this journey and I will forever cherish the sisterhood we now have and they will forever be in my heart! 

-Tammy, Survivor