Finding Yourself (eBook)

Out of the Shadows, Into the Light

Janice Hall (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
120 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-0948-5 (ISBN)

Infos

From the Preface - I share my story not for sympathy, but for connection-for the person who feels alone in their pain, who is questioning their faith, who is searching for hope. Maybe you never had a role model to show you how to give and receive love. Maybe you've never felt worthy-constantly rejected by those who should have cared for you. Maybe you're ashamed of the choices you made just to survive in a world that's been unfair to you from a tender age, where you had to grow up faster than you should have, without a blueprint or a compass to guide your way. But even if all you've ever had is yourself-you are enough. To those who battle PTSD, anxiety, depression, or the weight of past trauma, I say this: You are not alone. Your past may whisper lies, but your future is waiting with open arms. Healing is possible. Freedom is possible.

Janice Hall is a memoirist, mother, and survivor who has transformed a life marked by trauma into a message of hope and healing. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Janice immigrated to the United States seeking a better life-but what followed was a journey through abandonment, betrayal, homelessness, postpartum depression, emotional abuse, and the long, silent battle with undiagnosed complex PTSD. For decades, she carried her pain quietly, raising three remarkable children who would grow into an ER nurse, a film industry professional, and a pre-med student. Despite the chaos around her, Janice never turned to addiction or institutions-instead, she leaned on faith, resilience, and an unshakable will to survive. Her memoir chronicles this lifelong journey: from the depths of despair to the breakthrough moments of spiritual clarity, therapeutic healing, and self-discovery. With unflinching honesty and a voice rooted in grace, Janice writes not just to tell her story-but to let others know they are not alone. With only a high school diploma, she currently serves as a Network IT field managing a team . She's very passionate about mentoring others overcoming trauma and reclaiming their lives. She's the voice for the voiceless, mentor to young single mothers, marriages, and an advocate for children teenagers and young adults . Finding Yourself is her debut memoir.

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- From the Preface Who This Story Is ForThis book is for:? Survivors of trauma who need to know they are not broken beyond repair. ? Those struggling with mental health, searching for hope in the midst of darkness. ? People of faith who have felt abandoned by God in their hardest moments. ? Anyone who needs a reminder that their story is not over. ? Those who have battled suicidal thoughts, addiction, or cycles of abuse, prostitution, and abandonment. This is a story of overcoming. Of faith. Of breaking generational cycles. And of choosing life even when life feels impossible. If you are reading this, know this one truth:You are stronger than your past. You are worthy of healing. And your story is still being written. The silence is not the end. It is just the beginning. At 56 years old, I must now face and fight my demons so I can be whole.

Textauszug

BOOK 1
Finding Myself Through
the Depths of Pain and Water

Who Am I?

Have you ever looked in the mirror and asked yourself, Who am I?

Did you see yourself?

Did you receive an answer?

Or are you still asking that question?

Many of us think we know the answer, or at least have an idea of who we are. But sometimes we shape ourselves based on society, our families, or the people around us.

For me, after fifty-seven years, I finally found the answer.

You see, my life from birth was far from typical. In fact, I don’t think I was ever truly a child. I was born in Kingston, Jamaica, into a multiracial family. We lived in the ghettos of Water House, but in the end, everyone rose above and went on to live a very successful life on their own.

By the age of three, the world had already introduced its harsh realities to me.

I don’t know exactly how it started, but I found myself seeking God for help. I would ask anyone in the neighborhood who was going to church if I could go with them. That’s where I found God. I kept going back, drawn to the altar, crying out, Lord, help me! Week after week, month after month, year after year, I knelt there, begging for help. But help never came.

As a baby, I was given up by my mother and left in the care of my grandmother. I was always crying, and no one understood why. By the age of three, I was placed in a room to sleep at night with my step-grandfather. This room was cut off from the rest of the house—no access, no escape. My grandmother would shut the adjoining door, pushing a bed against it from the other side. There was no way out.

Every night, my step-grandfather touched me. At first, I was too young to understand, but by five, I knew it wasn’t right. As I grew older, the abuse escalated. By ten, my body was changing, and so did his focus.

When my sister and three cousins came to live with us, he began to violate them too, going from one to the other in the room at night. But he always returned to me.

We tried to tell our family, but no one listened. My sister and cousins found ways to fight back, pressing their legs together, even using plastic bags to protect themselves. But for me, there was no escape. Night after night, I endured it alone, tears streaming down my face, dreading what he was doing to me—dreading his touch and the sounds of his grunting.

Eventually, my cousins were taken to the States, and my sister was sent to live with my mother.

I begged to go too, but I was always told, You will never see her. You will never live with her.

And so, I was left behind.

I never slept at night. Instead, I waited—watching, listening, bracing for what I knew was coming. Then, before dawn, I would get up, do my chores, and go to school. No one spoke to me. No one protected me. My aunts, my grandmother—they all carried on as if nothing was happening.

The only place I found solace was church. I kept crying out to God, kept begging Him to save me. But He never did. After nine years of this ritual, I stopped expecting rescue. I accepted that I was alone.

I grew up a quiet child, never speaking much, always sad. Sadness was my only emotion—I knew no anger, no fear. I was simply numb. I asked myself constantly, When will this end? Who will save me? But there were no answers. Unlike my sister, I didn’t rebel. There was nowhere for me to go, no one to take me in. So I stayed, smiling through the pain, through the loneliness, through the endless nights of violation.

My mother lived only a ten-minute walk from my grandmother’s house, but I was forbidden to speak to her. Every day, I walked past her house on my way to school, never allowed to stop, never allowed to see my two older sisters who lived with her. The only time I was permitted inside was once a year—to be fitted for a school uniform and to have my hair cut. My mother was a hairdresser, and every year she chopped off my long, beautiful hair so that I wouldn’t have to return to her again until the next year.

As I grew older, school became my escape. I left the house before dawn and arrived at school early, sitting under a tree, waiting for the bell to ring. When the final bell signaled the end of the day, I dreaded going home, knowing what awaited me.

One semester, swimming was part of our curriculum. I was terrified of the water. I refused to put my face in it, and by the end of the semester, I failed the class. This meant I had to take summer lessons to make up for it. I hated it. I sat by the pool, afraid, until one day, I saw young children—just four or five years old—jumping into the deep end without fear. And something in me shifted. If they could do it, why couldn’t I?

One afternoon, when no one was watching, I stood at the edge of the 14-foot-deep pool. I looked across to the other side. I told myself, If I need to get to the other side, I have to do something. So I jumped.

I don’t know how, but I reached the other side. I clung to the wall, breathing heavily, and when I turned to look back at where I had started, I felt something I had never felt before—accomplishment. I did it again. And again.

The coach noticed. He was angry at first, telling me I could have drowned. But when he saw my determination, he gave me a chance. He trained me. By the end of the summer, I wasn’t just swimming—I was excelling. One day, the coach pulled me aside and asked, How would you like to be on the swim team?

For the first time in my life, someone saw me. Someone believed in me. I ran home, excited, but my family didn’t care. Their indifference didn’t matter. I had found something that made me feel alive.

Swimming became my sanctuary.

The water was my escape, my peace, my calm. In the pool, I was free. Underwater, the world was silent. I could forget everything above the surface, if only for a little while. I trained hard, and soon, I became one of the best breaststrokers in the country. I swam day and night. I pushed myself beyond exhaustion. I had finally found something that was mine.

A Quiet Soul in a Loud World

High school was never easy. In fact, it only became more challenging as I got older. But despite the difficulties, I remained the quiet girl who still didn’t know her place in the world. My first year came and went, yet I constantly found myself being called to the guidance counsellor’s office. They insisted on speaking with a parent, but my mother was never there. Each time they asked about her, I gave the same sad response: “She lives in Switzerland.” I didn’t even know where Switzerland was on the map, but it felt far enough to explain why she wasn’t there to represent me.

I wasn’t a social butterfly, but I found solace in starting a small club during lunch breaks—just 30 minutes to connect with other students who, like me, faced difficult situations at home. I wanted them to know what I had discovered: the comfort of crying out to God.

Though my home situation never changed, my heart did. God was my refuge, my constant listener, the one presence I could always feel even when my prayers went unanswered. No matter how much I cried or pleaded for my circumstances to improve, God never took me out of my pain—but He carried me through it.

My little club became surprisingly popular. At least four or five students would show up, and their stories shattered me. One girl, only 14 like me, was trapped in a relationship with a man old enough to be her father—forced into it to provide for her family. Tears filled my eyes as I listened to her pain. I shared my own story, offering Bible verses and handing out small red and blue New Testament Bibles. We prayed together. For a short time, she stopped seeing him, but then she had to return—because her mother demanded it. I couldn’t save her, just like I couldn’t save myself, but I made her promise to keep reading the Bible, to keep praying. It was the only hope I had to offer.

Even though I didn’t fully understand God’s ways, I clung to my faith. I questioned Him daily—Why me? Why this pain? But no answer ever came. Only His presence remained, and so I continued. I attended church both on Saturdays and Sundays. I was an Adventist and a Baptist at the same time, not caring about the denomination—only about being in a place where I could feel closer to Him.

At the Baptist church, I found something I had never experienced before: a program for kids like me, from poor neighborhoods, seeking guidance and a deeper knowledge of God. I was drawn to it, especially to my Sunday school teacher. She was only 21, but to my 14-year-old self, she was an elder, a mentor—someone I could trust. I poured my heart into letters, and she always wrote back, encouraging me, reminding me of God’s goodness.

But my time there was short-lived. My club at school dwindled. Fewer students showed up. And at 14, my world changed again—my grandmother...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 22.9.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3178-0948-5 / 9798317809485