In this episode, I chat with an anonymous guest that we’ll call Ava. Ava tells her story of being molested by multiple people – a neighbor, her father and brother. Because of all this, she suffers from depression and anxiety. In 8th grade, she started cutting herself and later in life she considered taking her own life. Ava became addicted to drugs and partying at 16 and then found herself pregnant. She is now a single mom of a child with Autism.*

Ava grew up being molested. It started at age 3.5 with a neighbor who was about 7 years older. Her dad would tickle too close to her privates and when she hit puberty, he would grab her breasts and ask what they were and make other inappropriate comments. Ava’s brother that was just older than her was the worst one, according to her. It went on for years. He struggled with porn addiction and would make Ava watch it with him. Then he would make her do things to him and vice versa. At the time, she didn’t know that any of this was really wrong because it was her brother. It was when she was a little older that she understood. Ava would do things, like babysit over night or early in the morning, just to get away from him.

Later, Ava had a son of her own. He was always really advanced when he was little – super smart. Around 6 years old, she thought that maybe she should get him tested for Autism because his social skills were not what she thought they should be. He would act out in aggression when he didn’t get his way. The test results came back positive. Ava said it has been a huge adjustment learning how to help him and teach him the correct way to react, as well as helping her family to understand her son.

After 23 years, Ava’s mom reconnected with the man she had Ava’s oldest brother with. They ended up getting married and moving to a different state. This was Ava’s Junior year of High School. Ava was super mad at her mom and was trying to come up with ways to get revenge on her mom, but in the end, it only ended up hurting Ava more. Ava admits she sought out the wrong crowds on purpose, to get back at her mom.

Ava quickly became addicted to drugs because of the choices she was making to hurt her mom. She had a pregnancy scare a little after a year into her addiction. She knew she didn’t want to have a drug baby, so she quit everything cold turkey. She wasn’t actually pregnant that time, but about a month later she did get pregnant. That was in November and she found out the end of January.

The father of her baby was incredibly rude while she was pregnant and was making death threats towards the baby. Finally, Ava had had enough and told him not to worry about it because he wasn’t the dad anyway. After she had the baby, the dad said that if at any point she found out that he was actually the father, that he wanted nothing to do with the baby and when the baby asked about his dad, he wanted Ava to tell the baby all of the horrible things he said and did while she was pregnant.

When Ava was in 8th grade, she began harming herself. A big group of friends was doing it, so she joined in, but also as a way to cope with everything that had happened to her. It wasn’t until she was in High School that she actually got professional help. Her sister made her seek help. There was a time after Ava had her baby that she was so depressed. She had started seeking out adoption agencies. She planned to place her baby for adoption and once that was over, she was going to end her life. Luckily, she was able to get help before it got that far.

Listen to the full episode to hear all the details.

*Please note: this is the guest’s story. Their story is how they perceive it. It is not my judgement or responsibility to determine whether or not this story and the things said are true. Please be open minded when listening to/reading these stories.

LINKS TO THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
–Janessa Farrer’s episode
-Dani Bates story
-Dani Bates blog post “He Wasn’t Depressed”
-Ava’s favorite product: It’s a 10 leave-in (I mentioned the one I use, UniqOne by Revlon)
-Ava’s song recommendation: F*ckin’ Perfect by P!nk (listen on the Hard Knocks guest list on Spotify)
-My ending song: Beside You by 5 Seconds of Summer (listen on the Hard Knocks playlist on Spotify)

“I survived the fire. I survived because the fire inside of me burned brighter than the fire around me.”

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