CONTENT WARNING: This testimony contains depictions of sexual abuse and child abuse. Please read with care.

My father raped my mother when I was nine years old. I was in the bedroom next to my parents. I heard everything. Even at the tender age of nine, I knew what my father was doing to my mother. After things quieted down, I could hear my mother pleading for my father to leave her alone. I did the only thing I could think of at the time. I started yelling for my mother to take care of me. I yelled that I had thrown up and was sick. My father let her go, so she could take care of me. From that time forth, I never trusted my own father again.

I was raped at the age of thirteen. I was baby-sitting the next-door neighbor’s children when their father came home early one afternoon. I remember thinking to myself, “Why has he come home so early?” I soon learned why. He raped and sodomized me that afternoon. He put his hands over my mouth so no one would hear my screams. Not one part of me did he not wound that day. It was not just the physical. He had betrayed me in a number of ways. My parents had divorced by now and I had looked to him as the father figure I so desperately needed. My world was shattered. I told no adult at the time. It took me years before I could process what happened that afternoon. Before I could call it what it was—rape!

The day the Twin Towers in New York fell did not really register with me. I was in the psych ward at the Veterans Affairs Regional Medical Center in Ohio. I do not remember exactly how I got there, except my mother talked me into going to the VA. The doctors then admitted me. I was given a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.

That started a seemingly endless cycle of being in and out of the psych ward at the VA for the next several years. Finally, I tried to take my own life. I was very delusional at the time and lived every moment of every day in absolute terror. My mind never shut off even during sleep. The fear from the delusional state took over. There was only darkness, hopelessness, and lack of reason for existing. No sense of self. No identity. No sense of well-being. I felt like my humanity was almost gone. The delusion became my identity.

After my suicide attempt, I re-entered the psych ward at the VA yet again. Several days into my stay the staff told me they wanted me to try a drug new to me—Risperdal. It was a miracle drug for me. There was another miracle also. Some of the staff at the VA were very kind and would try and talk me out of my delusional state. This continued at the group home I was placed in immediately afterwards. I believe God put these people and the drug Risperdal into my life at a time when I desperately needed it. God was looking out for me even then. That coupled with the drug Risperdal brought me out of my delusional state.

And this was the beginning. The beginning of my humanity returning. I could now think like a rational human being. I did not live in absolute terror anymore, but still had fear. This came from the two rapes I had experienced in my childhood and because of the way I was raised. To combat this in my childhood, I had become a compulsive overeater. I medicated myself with food. At one time, I reached a weight of 323 lbs. For the first time in years, I was capable of comprehending that I had no quality of life. Something had to change.

The change and my new identity came when I accepted Jesus as my Savior on December 27, 2009. Almost three years later, the Lord told me He was not pleased with my eating. He then showed me what to do to break the stronghold of compulsive overeating. It took around eighteen months.

That event of breaking the stronghold of compulsive overeating started me on a victorious journey with the Holy Spirit. Through obeying the Holy Spirit and spending every day in the Word, the Lord healed me of many things. I have forgiven my father for raping my mother. I have forgiven the man who raped me when I was thirteen. I have a sense of well-being. I know that I am in God’s hands, and He will protect me. And when I go through trials, Jesus is there holding my hand walking beside me. I am not alone. I now have more than just a sense of self. I have a new identity. My identity is who I am in Christ. I am not who my family says I am. I am not who my neighbors and friends say who I am. I am not who the world says I am. I am who the Bible says I am. Revelation chapter 19 says Jesus is the Word. John chapter 1 says Jesus is the Word made flesh. Jesus is the Word. The Word is Jesus. I am who Christ says I am. I will say it again. It bears repeating. My identity is who I am in Christ.

Because of knowing who I am in Christ, I now live a wonderful life. Even though I am still paranoid schizophrenic, I have been stable for over sixteen years. My life has fulfillment, purpose, and contentment by serving God and people. The Lord also gave me a huge blessing in my husband, Jason. We have a wonderful sex life since the Lord has healed me of the two rapes that happened in my childhood. The Lord gave me the gift of writing. I use it for the betterment of God’s Kingdom. I volunteer at my church and help whoever God puts in my path. I know who I am because of my beloved Savior, Jesus Christ. My life will never be the same.

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Nila K. Bartley: I am in my late fifties and live in Ohio. I am married to my forever love, Jason. I volunteer at my church. My writing ability is a talent from God and I serve Him with it. My hope and prayer is that people are blessed by what I write.

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