Ragdolls

I was just an innocent little girl.

A baby, brought into somebody else's mess. Tossed around in this world like a rag doll. Treated like a rag doll. That is how the story started — before I had words for it, before I knew what ACEs scores were, before I understood that family systems can wound the smallest people the deepest.

This book is called Ragdolls. It is a drama trauma. A trauma drama. It is the true story of my life, and of my Uncle David's life, and of what happens when the people who are supposed to love you turn their backs instead. It is about being fifty-five years old and still fighting to be seen as a human being. It is about standing up for the little girl inside of me that nobody ever stood up for.

I became the Honey Badger because somebody believed I was sweet as honey.

She was a ninety-seven-year-old lady I took care of as a patient care assistant. I believed in her, so she believed in me. She told me I was sweet as honey — but she saw something else in me too. She saw the spirit that would protect her. The spirit that would not back down. That is the Honey Badger. Honey on the inside, spine on the inside, too.

I had to become her for myself. Because if I do not stand up for the woman I am today, who will? If I do not have a spine for the little girl who was tossed around like a rag doll, who will?

This is not only my story. This is for all the rag dolls in society.

Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. This book is for the children of the world. For the ones who grew up carrying adult pain. For the ones who learned to hide, to please, to disappear. For the ones who are still walking in ambiguous grief, wondering if it will ever stop hurting. For the ones who have been told they are too much, too broken, too loud, too messy.

It is about ACEs — Adverse Childhood Experiences — and how the score is not the whole story. The other part is what you do with it. The other part is whether you decide to break the cycle, tell the truth, and become something new.

Wake up. Do unto others as you would have done unto yourselves.

This is a call to wake up. Family estrangement, alienation, weaponized silence — these things are real, and they are killing people. People are losing their lives because of family systems that look normal on the outside and are sick on the inside. I am putting it in this book because the light needs to shine on it. Not for revenge. For truth. For healing. For every rag doll who is still fighting to be free.

I am walking through ambiguous grief. Some days it feels like it might kill me. But I am still here. I am still standing. And I am writing it down so the next person knows they are not crazy, they are not alone, and they are not finished yet.

Ever onwards and upwards. Amen.