Trigger warning, contains stories surrounding, psychological abuse and child sexual abuse. This is my story.

Writing has been the best tool for my healing and I’m currently in therapy and it’s been such a relief to let out all the trauma I’ve been carrying. I write this with a heavy heart as tears flow down my cheeks, I’m coming to terms that I’ll never feel the love of my biological mother and the bond I once thought I had with my aunt was all just a lie in disguise. I feel a great emotional release from the burden I’ve carried for so long, the pain and suffering I’ve endured alone. Every mean word and emotional manipulation that made me question my self worth. I’ll never have my daughter be apart of that dysfunctional dynamic and for that I can say I have done a good job as a mother. The Cycle ends here, with me.

I’m finally able to speak my truth fully. No more covering up for anyone, my experiences inspire and I know I can help so many people by just speaking up and sharing my story. That’s what I’ve done over the last 9 years and I will continue speaking my truth.

Let’s talk about something that rarely gets said out loud:

Toxic family dynamics—especially when they stem from a generation of women who wear masks well.

You see, betrayal too often wears a familiar face. And in my case, it wore more than one.

Two faces of the same coin: my mother and her sister. But let’s not forget the woman who taught them everything they know—their mother, my grandmother. My aunt knows of the generational trauma within the family as in May while in Jamaica for the family funeral, she said that all three of them are similar and are alike in many ways because things have been passed down. The difference is I’m choosing to break the generational curse of this family and not continue it. This toxic cycle didn’t start with them, but it sure as hell didn’t stop, either. But guess what? It’s stopping with me. My daughter will not be subject to this generational trauma and toxic behaviour. Not on my watch. I am the generational curse breaker and I’ve always known that’s why I’ve endured the most trauma in my family, by the hands of my family and others. 

For years, I believed my aunt was the calm one, the drama-free one. The “good” one. But as time went on, the cracks started to show. Subtle comments here, condescending tones there. She’d say things that didn’t sit right with me, and though I couldn’t always put my finger on it, something felt off. I started paying attention.

She showed she was very two-faced. She’d switch up and change sides, twist stories to save herself from the truth.

Once upon a time my aunt was the one I would turn to when my mother would try tiering me down, when I moved to my current home she said something that stuck with me “Now I can cut the cord with you” I didn’t take much notice but it was something that stuck with me. Only now when things are unraveling and being in therapy that I see all these times I thought she was helping me it was never truly because she wanted to out of genuine love. How ironic is it that she was the one to cut my daughter’s umbilical cord, that choice was taken away from me. She never asked me if she could she just told me she was doing it in that moment.

Slowly but surely, I saw her for who she really was—not the peacemaker she pretended to be, but a more covert version of my mother. Her manipulation was just dressed up better. Behind closed doors, she was controlling, cold, never able to admit fault and fake as they come. The truth is, she’s been playing a role—helpful, selfless—to the outside world. But to me and the ones that pay attention, her mask is no longer on.

She would talk about everyone behind their back. The ones that helped and supported her, she would turn around and bitch about them and it never sat right with me. She would project onto me, I was the closest to her in the family and I guess she was comfortable letting me see her true nature. Besides, she had control over me without me even knowing. She would always remind me that she doesn’t business with anyone else apart from her children and mother. My counsellor translated that in simple terms: she only cares about herself.

She would show me parts of herself that she wouldn’t dare show anyone else. The narcissistic, deceitful, selfish version that hides just beneath the surface. Therapy showed me that some of the emotions I carried were never mine, it was hers. 

My mother, on the other hand, never cared much for disguises. Sure, she appears soft-spoken and sweet at first glance. But behind that quiet smile is someone far more cruel. The best word I can use to describe her behavior? Devilish.

This year, I came to terms with something I’ve tried to ignore for most of my life:

My mother hates me.

She always has.

She’s been jealous of me for as long as I can remember. From the way she excluded me, tore me down, blamed me for everything that went wrong—she made me feel like I never belonged. Landing in Jamaica for the family funeral at the airport a family member told me he complemented my mother saying she looks young and her response was “yeah I look younger than Kim”, as if she’s in a competition with her own daughter. This person told me the whole time she’d make out I was the problem in the family but from what’s been unfolding it clear she is the problem and it’s at that point he made the connection with the compliment, hearing the evil things my mother has done to me over the years. 

When I told her I was pregnant with me daughter she responded “ I hope he gave you twins so you can suffer with them alone” this is a shock to you I can imagine reading, but unfortunately this is the kind of evil I experienced growing up from my own mother. On this same holiday she told me to do something unforgivable, she said to me, “tie a rope around your neck and kill yourself.” Not once, but she repeated it and did the same the following morning. She even pointed at the mango tree I should hang myself on outside my grandma’s house. That was the day I cut her out our lives. My childhood friend saved me from that nightmare we were in, my grandmas house. He then became a target, we both did.

I was the scapegoat. The emotional punching bag. The one who was always wrong—even when I was a child just trying to survive. 

There’s a kind of betrayal that cuts deeper than anything else — the kind that comes from those who are supposed to protect you.

I was a victim of child sexual abuse. My grandmother married a man that was known to molest children. When I told my mother what he had done to me she blamed me for it and down the line she now denies I ever told her. Years later I’ve heard my own aunt say she couldn’t tell her mother who to be with, she had to make her own mistake. That proved it again that she was fully aware of everything and chose to cover for a child abuser.

And the most devastating part wasn’t just what happened to me — it was how the women in my family treated the man that they knew was known for molesting children. Three women. My mother, my aunt, and their mother. They all knew who he was. They knew the truth. They knew what he had done to other children and still, they brought their own children around him. Still, they slept under the same roof as a man with a history of hurting children. After my abuse he was later arrested for raping a young girl.

Yet they said nothing. They protected him, not me. The family secret stayed buried.

No one stood up for me. No one confronted him. Let me take you back, I was around 10 years young when on family holiday in Jamaica, it was a week after I was molested, my aunt had just return back to England from the holiday. I got a phone call from my aunt — all the way from England. She didn’t call to ask if I was okay. She called to scold me.

Apparently, her mother (my grandma) had told her I was referring to her husband by his old nickname, “Jumper.” She was more concerned about what I was saying about him. She asked me, “Has he ever done anything to you?” When she asked me that question it told me everything I needed to know. And I said no — not because it wasn’t true, but because I had already told my mother, who had blamed me for what happened.

That phone call made one thing heartbreakingly clear: Her loyalty was not with me. It was with protecting a known child molester. Later down the line I found out my abuser was my mother’s Uncle. 

From that moment, I understood that the women in my family were never going to keep us truly safe. So I stepped into a role no child should ever have to play. I had three younger siblings and a cousin, and whenever that man was around, I made sure I was in every room he entered with them. I wasn’t going to let him hurt anyone else — not on my watch.

One day he did try something with one of my siblings but luckily I was there to protect them. Our mum finished giving us a bath and we had towels around us, I hear my grandmothers husband park up the car and I quickly ran in the room telling my brother to follow. My grandma’s husband walked pass and saw us and he came in, he tried to get close to us and asking what we were hiding. I responded that we’re naked and for him to leave the room. He laughed and kept asking what are we hiding and he tried to get close to touch our towel and I told my brother to get behind me. I then slapped him and he left the room. As I write this I reflect and ask myself, where was our mother? How did she not see him come pass into the room that her two naked children were in that she just finished bathing. I was the protector in the family for the children, as the adults were not going to do it.  There were times I saw my baby sister wondering around in the kitchen alone and he walked in and I quickly ran to take her away.

Even when my aunt had her second son and I would hear her making plans to go Jamaica to stay in the house where the child Molster was, my little cousin was still a baby and my heart dropped. I was deeply concerned for him. Knowing how the women in the family don’t protect their children, I made sure I was on that holiday trip not for fun, but to protect my baby cousin.

On a separate family holiday in December 2024 which she forced me into through emotional and financial manipulation, my own aunt exposed me while I was naked to her Fiancé, they gave us the room that our bathroom had a second door to their room, weird isn’t it? They didn’t give their children this room. So one day I was naked in the bathroom and she opens the door, she doesn’t close it in a hast like what a normal person would do, she stands with the door wide open where her Fiancé is laying on the bed, I turn around and lock eyes with him in deep embarrassment. I tell her close the door, if she doesn’t see I’m naked, she then says shes trying to give my sister her headscarf, I told her the headscarf can wait and she proceeds to stand there exposing my naked body to her partner just to hand me a headscarf. She didn’t go around to the normal entrance to the room she chose to go through our bathroom. My aunt violated my privacy. That’s Still something I need to process and can’t understand. While on the other hand in London when I stayed over her house once she told me off in private for walking into the living room with a towel around me when her partner was in the living room. Very conflicting and contradictory behaviour right? So much unfolded on that holiday but I’ll speak about that on another post. 

Years later, the hypocrisy only became more obvious.

While on holiday in May, a childhood friend — someone who had helped me escape that toxic environment — was taking me and my daughter to the beach. I asked my aunt if she wanted to come along. She got in the car and, during the ride, casually said: “I don’t business with anyone. I’m only coming for the free drive.”

And yet, when speaking to my sister later, she told a completely different story. She claimed she came along because she “didn’t want me going alone.”

That’s what narcissistic manipulation looks like. She tells different versions of the same event to suit her image, twisting the narrative so she can play both the selfish and the selfless role, depending on who’s listening.

And it didn’t stop there.

During that same car ride, she referred to my friend by a childhood nickname he no longer uses. I corrected her gently, letting her know he now prefers his real name. Her response?

“I can call him what I like. I know him as that, so that’s what I’m going to call him.”

That small moment revealed everything: the blatant disrespect, the refusal to honor boundaries, and the deep-rooted hypocrisy.

She was furious with me as a child for calling my abuser by a nickname — a man who was known as a child molester— but now, as an adult, she defends her right to call someone whatever she pleases, despite their clear wishes. The double standard is astounding.

She even told me she was going to find out information about my friend just to cause drama. In her own words “I’m going to find out information about him, I know who to ask. But I’m not finding out to tell you, I’m finding out to be nosey.”
I paused in shock, my mouth dropped. I was thinking what kind of person are you, her true nature was becoming more evident. I was in disbelief, she’s been portraying herself as someone that doesn’t like drama. The narcissism was no longer hiding. 

Her narcissism isn’t loud. It’s not the kind that storms into a room — it hides behind politeness, behind fake concern, behind carefully curated words meant to manipulate and divide. It’s covert, and only those paying close attention will truly see it.

But I see it now.

And I refuse to stay silent about it anymore.

Now that I’m in therapy I finally have the confidence to call out the abuse I’ve silently been subjected to by my own family.

Even now my own aunt is threatening me with court for the holiday she dragged me on back in December, in May I asked to speak about the December holiday and she responded “I don’t want to discuss anything” then later on in June out of no where I received an email asking for repayment for the holiday from December. 

The funny part about this is the timing, she flew in her mother from Jamaica the same week. This is the same aunt that has the Caribbean food stall in Hoxton market and food truck in Dalston. To add salt to the bound, when I reminded her that I designed her banner for her Caribbean catering business where I received no compensation and she responded in a letter saying “any graphic design services you claim to have performed” what would she be implying? That I didn’t do the work for her business that she’s now making money from? The audacity, she’s someone that uses people. I saw the signs earlier on, she had my brother bake cakes for her business and when complimenting his work she told me to hush and not to speak loud for others to hear someone else baked the cakes. I later on told her that it’s not a good thing taking credit for other people’s work, it’s not nice. Then booom, she seems to be denying the work I created for her, we even had an argument because she didn’t want to compensate me for the work. I’ve even been told by people that when they’ve complimented her banner she’s never said it was her niece that designed it for her. One thing I’ve learned, my aunt likes to use others around her to build herself up. She’ll never give others credit.

To be continued…

I know this sounds like a lot for one person to experience, especially from so young but this isn’t even half of what I’ve gone through. Most people know me to be the most resilient and strong minded person. A lot of the trauma I’ve been through would break a lot of people but still I keep my faith in God. I remind myself Diamonds were made under extreme heat and pressure.
I’m unstoppable and fearless. I am the voice for the voiceless.

– By Rikkisha aka Kim – A young black girl