Childhood Stolen, Adulthood Redeemed

By Kim McGrath MAGA Viral News | Editorial & Personal Testimony

The Monster

I was four years old the first time he came into my room. He was there to visit my mother, but he came to me. What happened in that room was something I had no words for. He touched me and did things to me that no four-year-old could understand. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t understand why my body could feel something good during something wrong. Those two feelings existed together, and I was too little to make sense of either one.

I can name it now: abuse. Back then, I was just a little girl trying to understand what was happening to me. It continued when he came to visit, through years of my childhood that should never have held anything like this. I was four when it began. Then five. Then six.

By the time I was seven, the man who had been coming into my room was becoming my stepfather. My mother married him. The monster was no longer someone who came to visit. He was family.

The House

He built our home so he could watch me. Surveillance was built into the house itself. The cathedral ceilings let him look into my bedroom. There were holes drilled through the upstairs bathroom floor so he could watch me in the downstairs bathroom—while I showered, changed my clothes, or used the toilet. There was a captain’s window in the upstairs bathroom, too—another way he could watch me. Even with the door closed, I couldn’t feel private or safe. I never knew when he was looking. I only knew he could.

My closet was the only place where I could escape his eyes, but I couldn’t stay there. I had to come out into the same house—the walls, the holes, the windows, and him.

I was a child, and I had to keep living there. Even now, that feeling of being watched has stayed with me. I still look for the places someone might be watching, still struggle to feel completely alone, and still carry that house inside me.

The Physical and Mental Abuse—and the Start of Addiction

It continued into my teenage years, what felt like night after night. I couldn’t make it stop. I couldn’t feel safe in my own home. And I didn’t know how to keep living with what was happening to me.

That was when I started using cocaine.

It numbed me enough that when I came home, I felt like I didn’t care what he did to me anymore. I just wanted to stop feeling it. The fear, the hurt, the helplessness—I wanted relief from all of it, even if it was only temporary.

Then there was the physical abuse. He threw hammers at me. He beat my face with a spoon. And along with the violence came the words.

“Slut.” “Whore.” “You’ll never amount to anything.”

I was still a kid, hearing those things about myself while trying to live through what he was doing to me. There was no relief at home. The place where I should have been protected was the place I needed to escape.

Cocaine became a way to numb what I couldn’t escape. And that was the beginning of another struggle—addiction.

By now, I’m sure some of y’all are wondering, “Where was her mother?”

That’s part of my story too. And it’s the part I’ll tell you next.

Mom

While I was enduring all that from the monster, my mom was slowly chipping away at my self-esteem, but she was still living her best life.

I tried to tell her. I told two therapists, too. But my mother never believed me, and eventually, I stopped telling people. I didn’t know what else to say to make anyone believe me.

At home, even the chores became another reminder that I couldn’t do anything right. Whatever she asked me to do, I had to do over. And whenever the school or someone’s parent called, the first words out of her mouth were, “What did she do?” She hadn’t even heard what happened, and already I was at fault.

She swears that in fifteen years, she never felt him get out of their bed at night. But when he beat my face and my school called CPS, she told me to lie. When there was a chance for someone to find out, my own mother wanted me to hide it.

At nineteen, when I was pregnant, he put a gun to my belly and threatened to kill me and my baby. I had him arrested. Even then, my mother asked me to drop the charges.

Through all those years, I needed a mom I could turn to—someone who would believe me, hold me, and protect me. Instead, I lived under her control without the love and nurturing I needed.

And to this day she still says she doesn’t remember. I’m still left with the memories of what happened, and of every time I needed her and she wasn’t there for me.

What I Thought Was a Normal Life

I married the man I had gotten pregnant with, and we had two girls. Seven years later, we divorced. Eventually, I married my soulmate, and we had a boy. I was building a family and trying to live what I thought was a normal life.

Then the nightmares returned. The constant fear of someone watching me was still haunting me. Even though I was no longer living in that house, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched.

I felt the need to numb myself again. Alcohol was never really my thing, and at thirty-two, I started abusing opiates and stimulants. The years went by, and what I was using to get through the pain slowly wore my body down until I weighed just sixty-nine pounds.

At fifty-one, I attempted suicide. The doctors said that even if I survived, I would be brain dead. God had a bigger purpose for me.

I survived, but I still needed help. That same year, I made the decision to enter a sixty-day rehab program. After so many years of trying to numb what had happened to me, I was taking a step toward learning how to live with it.

How Jesus Saved Me

When I got out of rehab, I stumbled across The Lonestar Cowboy Church and a twelve-week Bible study for sexual abuse survivors. I went there needing help, and through that study, Jesus began changing my life.

One scripture helped me find purpose in a story I had struggled for so long to live with:

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.”
—Genesis 50:20

What happened to me was never good. But God could still bring good from my life. I began to understand that I had something to share with other women who were hurting. My purpose was to share His Word and help them know they weren’t alone.

Today, I lead the sexual abuse survivor Bible study that helped change my life. I’ve also gone into prisons to talk to women and share my story and my faith.

My husband and I were baptized in July of 2023. We’re very involved in our church and Bible studies, and learning God’s Word has become a big part of our lives together.

That has also led me to study what is happening in the world, including Islam, and how it lines up with the Bible. It’s something I care deeply about and will be writing more about.

Now that you know my story, you know the heart behind what I’ll be sharing. I hope you’ll keep reading as I share my faith, what I’m learning, and why it matters to me.

My childhood was stolen. But through Jesus, my adulthood is being redeemed.

Author: Kim Mcgrath

Child of God, wife, mom and Mimi