Stephanie Gagos - My Voice of Truth - Reconditioning the Abused Mind and Body

This website is dedicated to all the men and women who have survived the devastation of childhood abuse. Whether you were sexually abused or physically and mentally abused, I hope that this will be a place where you can find your own voice.

Dear Survivor,

I believe each of us must find our own voice of truth among the many voices that threaten to diminish us. As children, our small minds and bodies were subjected to abuse, each act forming beliefs of unworthiness and inadequacy; each strike against our bodies, each word of cruelty conditioning us to believe the very worst of ourselves. These messages later became voices in our heads, voices that many of us have grown so accustomed to that we are not even aware of their impact on our daily lives. For many of us they are quiet and subtle, coming out of hiding only to caution us to remember our place or remind us of our previous failings. These voices are disguised as reason, as intuition, warning us not to risk, not to take the chance. We believe this to be our guiding voice; protection against heartbreak and pain, but it is really a collection of voices from our past. These voices come from our abused and broken minds which now hold our beliefs, which now scream at us, interjecting at crucial times in our lives, telling us “who do you think you are, you can’t do that, you can’t be..., you can’t do..., you just can't”.

I am familiar with these voices of untruth, but each day my true voice becomes stronger and louder, drowning out the deceptions of my childhood. As a writer, I fight these voices each time I return to the page and lay down another piece of my story. As a mother I fight them each time I struggle to make a choice, to stand my ground. As a woman I struggle to love myself in spite of them. I wage a daily battle against the voices of my conditioning- it is a battle I intend to win.

I am here to tell you that there is only one voice of truth. This voice is who you truly are, who you were before they deceived you, before they put their hands on you and took away your innocence and your understanding of your divinity and value. As a child you understood your name, you knew that you could do anything and that the world lay at your feet. You knew your power. Over time that truth became buried under the insanity of what was happening to you. The true you, forced into hiding as the world named you victim, powerless, abandoned. These roles became your story; this story became your life. In time you came to know them as truth. Now as adults many of you are still living in these roles, still replaying your story. These are the voices of the past that mock you, demolish your hope and faith with doubt and keep you from attaining your dreams.

I want you to know that your voice of truth is still alive within you-in fact it is YOU. It is the part of you that is always connected to God. It is the part of you that knows what you are capable of, even when you don’t. This voice will never speak against you or judge you; it will never doubt your strength and power to create the life you dream of. It will never cause you pain. It will not rationalize or defend; minimize or catastrophize, it will never take you down a path of destruction. It just knows and stands firm in the knowing. The more you listen to it, the closer you will come to the essence of who you are. Its sound will become familiar to you and begin to contrast heavily with the voices of your childhood. It is then that you will begin to understand your power to silence the voices of the past and turn up the volume of truth.

Lovingly,

Stephanie Gagos

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