The Paperwork of Silencing
If you read my DCS file from 2002, you’d think the story ended with a plane ticket to Tennessee and a "Happily Ever After" with family. But the paperwork doesn't show the bruises. In Tennessee, my diagnosis of PTSD became my new family matriarch’s greatest shield. She used the trauma I survived in New Mexico to tell the world that any new pain I reported was just “flashbacks,” "confusion," or flat out "lies."
The Patterns They Dismissed
I learned to outrun the pain by being “perfect”- an honor roll student and a flute player in the band- but the logs show the cracks in my forced mask. While the matriarch of the family told investigators she was “worn by lies,” the medical and state records were quietly documenting my reality:
2007: At nine years old, a classmate observed a "large bruise" on my side.
2009: I was haunted by nightmares of someone “always beating me” whose face I couldn’t see.
2010: A CPS report noted allegation that the “mother forced her head underwater in the toilet”
The Daily Toll: Teachers and staff noted that I would come in the mornings “crying or upset.”
The Medical Truth
The most painful evidence isn’t just the allegations, but in the clinical observations. While the matriarch claimed she “never noticed” any bruises, Vanderbilt doctors were documenting the physical state of a child in total crisis. They recorded “healing superficial cuts to forearms bilaterally.” It was noted that I was getting hit “to the point of bruising, leaving marks and bruises all over arms, legs and back.” The matriarch who claimed I was lying showed her true face during my 2013 suicide attempt. Medical staff recorded that I intentionally ingested approximately 20 tablets of 25mg Zoloft and 13 tablets of 5/325mg Percocet. The ingestion happened in two stages first at 0700 and again at 0745. Prior to the ingestion, I used a box cutter to make bilateral, superficial cuts to my wrists. Doctors also noted healing superficial cuts on my abdomen, flank, legs and the back of my neck from previous instances. I went to school after the ingestion and eventually told the school nurse, who called EMS for an emergency transfer to the Children’s Hospital. Upon arrival at the ER, I was experiencing mild serotonin syndrome due to the Zoloft overdose. This manifested as tachycardia (increased heart rate), tremors, and hyperreflexia (involuntary overactive muscles). While I was in the Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital fighting to survive serotonin syndrome and the weight of my trauma, this matriarchs indifference was clinical. Social workers made multiple attempts to reach my guardians on their cell phones with no answer. Before the doctors could even finish their assessment, the matriarch announced she only had "10 minutes" to spare. She had an executive board meeting with her company president, and that was her priority. The hospital staff saw the abandonment. I sat there with my journal, a 14-year-old child who had just tried to die, and realized she "did not wish to be in her meeting and that she would prefer to be elsewhere." While I begged for a “second” chance, the rest of the family was "deciding whether or not they were willing to take [me] back". They documented that the matriarch was "ambivalent" and "tired" of caring for me. The abandonment was so glaring that the clinical team discussed calling DCS to report child abandonment. She didn't see a child in a life-or-death crisis; she saw an inconvenience to her schedule and her reputation. She used my "unreliability" and my PTSD as a way to ignore the fact that I was a child screaming for help in a house that was breaking me.
So where does that leave us now?
For years, I believed her narrative that I was "crazy" and that my pain wasn't real. Well into my 20’s I in all honesty didn’t know what the reality of my childhood was. According to some family, “You confuse what happened in New Mexico to family that never touched you.” While memories would resurface in therapy sessions or be confirmed by family who were in that very same house. It’s incredibly frsutrating not being able to remember your childhood. I can honestly sit here and tell you I do not remember. I remember pieces but when others speak about my childhood first. I have gone back and forth with the thought of going through more intensive therapy where I would be able to remember. But Romans 8:28 tells us that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him. I see that now in these very records. What the enemy used to keep me trapped, God used to keep a record. The "matriarch" thought she was using my PTSD to hide her abuse, but God ensured that every bruise was noted by a classmate and every tearful morning was logged by a teacher. He allowed the doctors to document the "healing superficial cuts" and the "star scratched into [my] hand" as physical evidence of a soul in crisis. God didn't just see me in that "second desert"; He was the one preserving the truth in files I wouldn't see for decades. He took the "chaos" she blamed me for and turned it into a paper trail. Today, these records are no longer a shield for her; they are a testimony of how God brings the truth to light and vindicates the children He never for a second abandoned.
A Prayer of Vindication
Heavenly Father,
I thank You that You are the God of Truth. Thank You for being with that little girl in morning care when she felt alone, and for standing beside that teenager in the hospital when the world turned its back. I thank You for preserving these records as a witness to my reality. I ask that You continue to heal the places the desert burned, and use my story to bring light to others who are still walking through the silence. Let Your grace be my final word, not their indifference.
Amen.
I am no longer outrunning the pain. I am no longer the "perfect" version of myself designed to keep the peace in a house of war. By the grace of God, I am a survivor whose truth is finally written in more than just the margins of a medical file. I am moving forward, knowing that the God who kept the record is the same God who has set me free.