Anxiety, depression, PTSD, adrenal fatigue, autoimmune disorders; these are the common symptoms of childhood trauma survivors, and, unfortunately each and every one has become part of my own story.

I grew up in a home with domestic violence. While labeling the abuse I experienced as “domestic violence” seems appropriate now, it took until I was 25 years old and had been in professional therapy for two years before I could properly name exactly what I had endured throughout most of my childhood.

Like many people, I believed abusive behavior could only be deemed domestic violence if the victim was left covered in bruises. What I didn’t realize was that emotionally abusive tactics consisting of intense imposition of fear and shame, angry outbursts, manipulation, passive aggressive behavior, apathy, and gaslighting can also leave a body broken and battered, and often times with lasting physical damage.

In my earliest childhood years my mother was able to shield me from most of the abuse. She put on a brave face night after night, despite the constant berating she endured from my father behind closed doors. When away from my father, she choose to pour herself into my life, trying to provide as many good memories as possible. 

I remember my earlier childhood years with fondness. I think of my mother homeschooling me, cooking delicious meals from scratch, introducing me to the fine art of rose gardening, letting me play with her 80’s workout gear, and buying me not one, but three different hose attachments for hours of back-yard sprinkler fun. 

What I didn’t see was how my father constantly complained to his co-workers about how lazy he thought my mother was since she didn’t have a job outside of being a stay-at-home mom (which I think any mother will agree is the toughest job on the planet!), or how he would go into a rage when she spent $2.00 over the grocery budget and then he would humiliate her by making her return a box of crackers at the store because it was an “extravagance”.

Unfortunately, as much as my mother tired to absorb the blows of verbal, emotional, psychological, and spiritual abuse alone, she was not able to shield me from its’ effects forever. 

At the tender age of nine, my sensitive, innocent spirit began to crumble under the weight of the same abusive tactics my father used on my mother. I also begin to experience various forms of sexual abuse at his hands which would continue over the next decade.

At 11 years old I began to experience severe and sudden weight loss — to the point that strangers would ask my mother if I had a terminal illness. I also developed alarming digestive symptoms including agonizing abdominal pain, constant diarrhea, and daily vomiting. 

It took two long years of countless doctors appointments and testing to finally get an answer: I was diagnosed with the most severe case of Crohn’s most doctors have ever seen. Through the devastating diagnosis one thing was made abundantly clear — the unrelenting stress had taken it’s toll on my body and was slowing killing me and I spent much of the next several years living in and out of hospitals fighting for my life.

Around the time of my diagnosis my mother my mother and I decided to join a large homeschooling program called The Advanced Training Institute, a sub-program of the international known organization, The Institute In Basic Life Principles (IBLP). I wouldn’t discover until over a decade later that IBLP was actually a dangerous, fundamentalist cult.

Throughout my teens years within the cult I become the target of the President of IBLP, Bill Gothard. He began to sexually groom me starting at age 13 and continued to do so for six years until I reached the age of 18. Gothard knew I was being sexually abused by my father at home and used that knowledge to his advantage to abuse me himself.

By the time I had left The Institute in my early 20’s I was a very broken woman. I’d watched my mother become a single parent through sudden abandonment and my years in the cult had severely stunted my emotional growth. On December 15th, 2015, at 23 years old, with no advanced education, drivers license, or employment,  I made my first brave attempt at seeking professional help. That initial appointment in a counselors office was the first time I’d voiced the abuse I’d lived in for two decades and with that small act of courage, a tiny spark in me was lit. 

Through months of intense counseling I began to come to grips with just how comprehensive the patterns of abuse were and just how much it had destroyed my physical body and my emotional state. As layer upon layer of pain was slowly pulled back and revealed, the obvious signs of PTSD began to appear. Rollercoaster emotions, constant anxiety and hyper-vigilance, as well as violent dreams overwhelmed me but I continued to push through with specialized EMDR therapy, seeking deeper healing. 

During the process of therapy I joined a lawsuit against Gothard and IBLP along with 18 fellow victims. The lawsuit, which lasted five years, took its own toll on my body as well, but I never stopping fighting for healing. 

In 2020 that small spark that was once lit in a counselors office chair had grown into a burning desire to help other victims, and out of that, Thriving Forward was born. I created Thriving Forward to be a safe place for survivors to tell their story, to find validation in their shared experiences, and to discover the hope of healing. Healing from domestic violence can take a lifetime; the physical scars and emotions wounds can run enormously deep. But it is possible to move from just surviving from your past, to thriving in your present.

I am now happily married to my best friend and his love for me has been deeply healing. Our marriage has often has been bittersweet — as an interabled couple we must learn how to manage the physical aftermath of my abuse as I live daily with chronic pain, extreme fatigue, and other debilitating symptoms. I am currently studying to become a certified coach so that I may able to work with victims one-on-one to assist them in seeking creating a safety and escaping from violent intimate partner relationships.

My hope is that you’ll find this space to be a healing place — one where shared experiences are embraced, empathy is abundant, and hope of healing feeds your soul.

Kia Kaha, 

Emily Elizabeth Anderson