Smaller Shadows, Brighter Days: My Journey to Freedom and Honors

Growing up in a fundamentalist polygamist background left me unprepared for the real world. I had been in child labor, so setting boundaries at work was foreign and intimidating. I was isolated from people outside my family unit, which left me with a glaring lack of social skills. This rendered me, at best, without close friendships outside my family unit, and, at worst, vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation.

Before I turned 18, the only education I had access to was a skeletal homeschool curriculum that didn’t even give me a basic understanding of times tables and had stopped entirely when I was 11. This meant that college classrooms weren’t built for students like me, students who didn’t know how to use a bubble test, make slides for presentations, or even know what questions to ask.

However, I could bear that. I could ask the questions that made other students look at me like I was stupid. I could do extra research and study so much that I hardly had time to make friends. What I couldn’t bear was the trauma, depression, and anxiety I experienced as a direct result of my upbringing, one that confused love and community with control and subjugation, protected predators, and filled my life with chaos and fear.

Even after I was living on my own, I felt a growing weight in my mind until I reached a breaking point. One evening, I couldn’t move- not because of anything physical, but because I had reached total mental collapse.

Finding Holding Out HELP gave me and my loved ones access to the help we didn’t have the means to get otherwise. I was able to receive therapy that strengthened my healing and resilience in life-saving ways.

This month, I expect to graduate from college with my bachelor’s degree and high honors. I now have safe, fulfilling relationships, and I feel more equipped to stand up for myself.

As I look back, my past feels smaller, and I feel more free. Bad days still happen, but I’ve learned to question feelings of hopelessness—because I truly believe we deserve better than what happened to us.

By HOH client, in partnership with Holding Out HELP

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