MALANA SPEAKS OUT: THE NEXT CHAPTER

It's been almost two years since I named my father for sexually abusing me– where it started and where I'm going next.

Nearly two years ago, I hopped on a podcast with my spiritual teacher,

Liana Shanti

, and for the first time, I named my father for sexually abusing me– then I booked a one-way ticket to Hawaii with just a suitcase to my name.

That episode was downloaded over 100,000 times, and I received tons of messages from women thanking me for the courage to speak out, letting me know it helped them make sense of their own abuse, too.

A few months before that, I’d recorded another podcast episode with Liana where we talked about my experience of being in a psychologically abusive marriage – abuse in childhood often leads to abuse throughout adulthood – and that one sparked many powerful conversations, too.

Then a friend asked me to contribute a part of my story for her book.

Before that, I’d started writing more in-depth posts on my Instagram about my sobriety and the abuses I’d experienced from childhood throughout adulthood, and I learned how cathartic and liberating it felt to finally start speaking openly about things I’d kept stuffed deep down inside for so long.

And before that, I was responding in an online forum where a smear campaign was targeting Liana and her students, including myself. Since her teachings help women heal from trauma and abuse, naturally, abusers don’t like that.

Then once I got to Hawaii, I started this Substack to continue sharing the truth, which branched off into having it documented on an advocacy website called Exposing Family Abuse.

These are all the things that come up now if someone were to search my name online– me speaking out.

And it’s not at all something I’d planned. Because before I started publicly sharing some of the most intimate details of my past, I was simply trying to rebuild my life and start a health coaching business.

I’d shared a few PG-rated snippets here and there of the abuse I’d overcome for healing and educational purposes – it’s what contributed to my health issues so I know it plays a role in other women’s health, too – but for the most part, all I wanted to talk about were the benefits of green juice and how to naturally heal your acne.

That’s why when “everything happened” (i.e. got sober, faced my abuse, estranged myself from my family, and got divorced– all within a year and a half), I thought I’d just happily skip into the next chapter of my life and help women eat, look, and feel better. I still had more healing to do, of course, but for the most part, I was very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about the whole thing.

At that point, I had yet to learn just how deranged abusers can become once they’ve lost control of their victims.

I wasn’t thinking about publicly naming my father or my ex-husband, or going as deep as letting anyone who was reading and listening know that I’d been sodomized when I was 6-years old. And that it wasn’t my only abuse, and that my father wasn’t my only abuser.

I was still naive enough to think that when I chose to estrange myself from my family, that they’d simply go one way and allow me to go another. Of course, it didn’t quite turn out that way. Instead, what transpired was like something out of a movie. That’s not an exaggeration- sometimes I would sit and think “I can’t believe this is really happening. This feels like a movie right now.”

And the whole thing that sparked me to start speaking out with the fervor and intensity that I did was not because I particularly wanted anyone watching and listening to know my most intimate details or the names of those who’d hurt me, especially while I was still processing all of it.

The reason I started speaking out is because it was the right thing to do.

Liana, a woman I cared about and who had helped me start turning my life around was being bullied, harassed, threatened, and defamed by my family– lies spread about her online that were legitimately harmful to her business and jeopardizing the safety of her and her children.

For me, there was no time to ask myself “How will this impact me? What will this mean for my future?” I really did not care. I saw evil and abuse taking place right in front of my eyes, and I chose to act by sharing the truth.

My family was bullying, harassing, threatening, and defaming me too, but lying about Liana was beyond unacceptable– she hadn’t abused me, and yet, their guilt and shame was being flung onto her instead of remaining on their shoulders where it belonged.

And I felt partly responsible.

I felt partly responsible because, in a way, I could have made different choices during my healing process to help prevent some of those lies.

Like divorcing my ex-husband sooner, when my body was screaming “END IT NOW!”– so he wouldn’t have seen and heard so much about my healing path and distorted the truth out of revenge.

Like not sending emotionally reactive texts to my mother when I began facing the fact that she’d known that I was sexually abused– sharing too many details that she’d use against me to pretend to others that I’d been brainwashed.

But I did not know then what I know now. Which is a whole lot.

It was through all of those experiences that I learned about spiritual abuse, narcissistic abuse, childhood trauma and memory repression, domestic violence, smear campaigns, family cults, and so much more– it was a crash course for three years straight. No, actually, it was more like a Master’s level education.

Because to top it all off, there was an incident at my Florida apartment on the afternoon of January 8th, 2023 that involved a call to 911, believing my life was in serious danger.

One minute I was in the shower, the next minute the cops are in my apartment, and within a couple of hours, I’m boarding a plane, never to return again. Three weeks after that, I left the mainland for good and landed in Paradise.

Although it took awhile for it to start feeling like Paradise.

I had more memories of abuse coming through, I was in the thick of PTSD (acute trauma) while already healing from C-PTSD (chronic trauma), and I was working to hold my father accountable for the ongoing harassment, threatening behavior, and suspicious activity that gave me strong enough reason to feel he was involved in what happened the day that I left.

After a few months of communicating with law enforcement, filing reports, facing my father in family court, and writing posts and articles, it was time to put more focus back on myself and feel into how I wanted to move forward. Except I was having trouble feeling. And moving forward.

I definitely had some highlights my first few months in Hawaii and made progress on things here and there, but for the most part, I was feeling stuck and unsure. Any sense of empowerment I’d fostered before I left Florida had diminished, and when able to, I found myself choosing comfort over healthy challenges that could move me forward.

This, I would come to learn, was called ‘functional freeze’– a symptom of C-PTSD and PTSD. I might have appeared somewhat okay on the outside, but on the inside, I was feeling numb, disconnected, and even helpless at times– an extremely disempowering state to be in long-term.

Thankfully, I finally started thawing out this year and could more clearly see the steps to take to move myself forward and leave any traces of victimhood behind that had seeped their way in. Like allow myself to trust that I can settle in now and embrace Hawaii as my home. Because it is now. I am HOME.

And now it’s time to more fully embrace who I AM.

Speaking out about my abuse was just the foundation. It’s not the foundation I thought I’d lay, but it’s exactly what was needed for my path.

Where my focus was once on protecting myself and defending the woman who helped me change and save my life – which I will always do – that fervor and intensity is now being channeled towards other woman who need to be reminded of who THEY are without the shame and shackles of abuse.

This is the next chapter of my life, and it’s more exciting and purposeful than I’d ever thought possible for myself. In fact, just this week, I was presented with an opportunity that’s going to help me reach and support so many more women who need it, and it’s all because I made the choice to speak out.

It’s not the way I thought I’d make my mark on this world, and it’s definitely not how I wanted to do it, but that’s the thing– what we want and envision doesn’t always work out because the Universe has bigger and better in store for us. And we often don’t know what or why that is until we do.

There is one thing I do know, though.

I will NEVER be silenced.

– MALANA