Some childhoods are filled with laughter, warmth, and memories that become treasures as the years pass. Others leave behind wounds that no one can see, scars that follow you long after the little girl you once were has grown up and learned to hide her pain. I was once that little girl. I didn't have the words to explain what was happening to me. I didn't understand why the people who should have made me feel safe could also be the ones who hurt me. I only knew what it felt like to be a child trying to make sense of a world that didn't always feel kind. As the years passed, I grew older, but growing older didn't mean leaving those experiences behind. Some things become so deeply woven into who we are that we spend years trying to understand which parts of ourselves were shaped by love, which were shaped by pain, and which were simply ways of surviving. This is my story. Not just of what happened to me, but of what those experiences left behind, what they took from me, and the person I fought to become despite them. Because the little girl I once was deserves to have her story told. And the woman I am today deserves to finally tell it.