The scars they left

The scars they left part 2

Part 2 — When Faith Became My Hiding Place

I walked out of the laboratory holding my results tightly in my hands.

My heart was beating faster than usual.

I kept telling myself not to be afraid.

"Maybe it's nothing serious."

"Maybe the doctor will give me some medicine and everything will be fine."

I wanted to believe that.

I needed to believe it.

When I reached the doctor's office, I handed him the results.

He looked at the paper.

Then he looked at me.

His expression changed.

My heart immediately sank.

"Doctor, what is it?" I asked nervously.

He paused for a moment before speaking.

"Treasure..."

The way he said my name frightened me.

He explained the result.

I had tested positive for HIV.

For a few seconds, I couldn't understand what I had just heard.

It felt as though the entire room had gone silent.

"Positive?"

My voice was barely audible.

I stared at him.

Then I looked at my mother.

She was staring back at me with tears already filling her eyes.

I broke down.

My mother broke down too.

I couldn't stop crying.

The diagnosis felt like another punishment after everything I had already survived.

I kept thinking about the assault.

I kept thinking about Francis.

I kept asking myself why this had happened to me.

The doctor tried to comfort us.

He explained that I needed to take my medication consistently and follow medical advice.

He prescribed medication for me to take every day and encouraged me not to give up on myself.

I nodded, but inside I felt completely empty.

The Girl Behind the Smile

When I got home, everything looked normal.

The same house.

The same rooms.

The same people.

But I didn't feel like the same Treasure anymore.

I would sit quietly for long periods, staring into space.

Sometimes I cried without telling anyone.

Sometimes I wondered what my future would look like.

Would I ever be happy again?

Would anyone ever love me?

Would I still be able to achieve my dream of becoming a nurse?

There were nights when I couldn't sleep because my mind wouldn't stop racing.

But my mother kept encouraging me.

She reminded me that my life was not over.

My aunt also gave me advice and encouraged me to draw closer to God.

Slowly, I began attending the Catholic Church regularly.

At first, I went because I wanted comfort.

I needed somewhere to breathe.

Somewhere I could forget my problems for a few hours.

Then I discovered something unexpected.

Music.

Finding My Voice

I joined the choir.

The first time I sang with the choir, I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time.

Peace.

When I sang, I wasn't thinking about the hospital.

I wasn't thinking about my diagnosis.

I wasn't thinking about the assault.

I was simply singing.

My voice began getting noticed by members of the congregation.

People complimented me.

"Treasure, you have such a beautiful voice."

Those words meant more to me than they probably realized.

For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was good at something.

I became more involved in the choir.

Eventually, I was made an assistant choir administrator.

I felt proud.

I felt useful.

I began believing that maybe I could rebuild my life.

As my nineteenth birthday approached, I thought I was finally entering a better chapter.

I was wrong.

Reverend Peter

That was when I became involved with a Reverend named Peter.

At first, I respected him.

He was a religious leader, and because of everything I had been through, I desperately wanted to believe that God had placed good people around me.

One day, Reverend Peter told me that he had received a prophecy concerning me.

He spoke with confidence.

He told me there were spiritual problems surrounding my life and that I needed special deliverance.

I listened.

Why wouldn't I?

I believed in God.

I believed in prayer.

I believed that maybe God could heal the parts of me that nobody else could see.

Peter knew that.

And he used it.

He began making me believe that certain things he wanted from me were necessary for my spiritual deliverance.

At first, I was confused.

I questioned him.

But he kept insisting that he was acting under divine instruction.

Because I trusted him, I believed him.

What happened next was not spiritual deliverance.

It was abuse.

He sexually abused me while using religion to manipulate me into believing that what he was doing was somehow connected to God.

I was confused, frightened, and vulnerable.

I didn't understand what was happening to me.

I only knew that I trusted him because he was a Reverend.

Jeremiah

Later, another Reverend entered my life.

His name was Jeremiah.

At first, I didn't understand that I was stepping into another dangerous situation.

I trusted the authority they carried.

I trusted the religious environment around me.

And I desperately wanted to believe that these men were helping me.

But the truth slowly began revealing itself.

I started noticing things that didn't make sense.

I eventually witnessed Peter and Jeremiah behaving sexually with members of the church.

I was shocked.

Confused.

And deeply uncomfortable.

That was when a terrible thought entered my mind:

"What if this isn't deliverance at all?"

For the first time, I began questioning everything they had told me.

I started realizing that I had been manipulated.

But understanding something intellectually doesn't always mean you can immediately escape it.

I was already emotionally entangled.

I had become increasingly preoccupied with s*x, and the situation had started affecting the way I thought and behaved.

Even though I knew something was wrong, I kept going back.

I secretly met the Reverends while telling my mother that I was going to church.

Every time I left home, I carried two versions of myself.

The daughter my mother believed I was.

And the girl living a secret life she knew nothing about.

The Secret I Carried

My doctor had warned me about my HIV status.

He had explained that I had a responsibility to protect other people.

I knew what he meant.

But the Reverends had filled my mind with another kind of belief.

They claimed that what they were doing was under divine instruction.

Somehow, I convinced myself that because they were men of God, they would be protected.

I was confused.

I was vulnerable.

And I was trapped in a cycle I didn't fully understand.

I wanted to stop.

But I struggled to.

The Phone

Then one Sunday, something happened that made my secret life even easier to hide.

Reverend Peter gave me an Android phone.

I was shocked.

I stared at it with excitement.

"Is this really for me?"

He told me that I should tell my mother that the phone had originally been given to him before he decided to give it to me.

I was so happy.

I couldn't stop smiling.

For someone who had never had much, receiving a new phone felt like a huge gift.

I thanked him.

Later, I got his number and created a w******p account.

For the first time, we could communicate privately without having to wait until church.

At first, the messages seemed harmless.

We chatted.

We joked.

He asked about my day.

I told him about mine.

But slowly, the conversations changed.

The messages became more personal.

Then more inappropriate.

And before I realized what was happening, I was becoming even more deeply entangled in a secret relationship that I knew I shouldn't have been in.

I had thought the phone was simply a gift.

I didn't know it would become another doorway into the secret world I was struggling to escape.

And that was only the beginning.

PART 3 LOADING... ❤️