Episode Transcript
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Hi, this is Rachel and recovery. We've got a special guest today.
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Ashley's just going to tell us a
little bit about herself and then she's going
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to answer some questions for us.
Ashley, call us a little bit about
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yourself. Hey, thank you for
having me. I am a twenty five
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year old Chinese American and I am
newly a new writer, working on a
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couple different books and also working on
a few different projects, trying to share
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my own experiences and my own coping
mechanisms and my own tools, mental tools,
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to help other people learn how to
heal from their trauma, using what
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I did to learn from my own. Okay, Um, what things have
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you done for your recovery of being
sexually abused? Well, it's definitely been
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a very long journey. It's taken
years, so there was a lot that
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kind of went into it, but
I think the very first step was to
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admit it. In the first place. I was very scared to tell anyone
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what happened because I was scared of
the ripple effect and the reaction of those
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around me, whether good or bad, or I mean they would never be
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good, but I was scared of
the ripple effects. So I kept quiet
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for so long and I let that
eat me up and so finally, when
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I met my husband, I decided
that it was time for me to start
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telling the truth because this was my
first serious relationship. So I told him,
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which made it a little bit easier
to tell my mom. She was
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then like the first person, like
significant person in my life family wise,
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that I told, and then told
my grandfather, and from that point it
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was just a lot easier to tell
people. And I went through a phase
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where I kind of was just telling
everybody because I didn't know how to handle
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it and it was felt very foreign
to me to tell people the truth.
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So I just told everyone, whether
it was, you know, inappropriate or
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not, because that was just what
I did, that was just what I
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knew how to do to try to
make myself feel better about it, make
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it feel normal instead of a touchy
topic. And then, as I got
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older, I started to teach myself
survival skills, mental survival skills. So
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when I start going through a really
rough patch with you know, mentally,
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I tell myself six months from now
I'll be fine, says, months from
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now, things will be different.
Six months from now, you know,
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life will be different. And I
will be that much further and that's really
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what got me through every step of
the way. And I reached my peak
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most recently when I wrote my very
first diary entry, and in that diary
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entry I set expectations for myself that
there were no expectations, that I might
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write in my diary every day,
I might write every few days, once
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a week, once a year,
it doesn't matter. But when I feel
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the need, that I'm feeling overwhelmed, just write it down. And that
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kind of erupted the thing in me
where now I'm using every outlet and I've
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set no expectations for myself, because
I used to have a hard time picking
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hobbies up and breaking the habit for
one day and never touching it again,
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because I set mental expectations for myself. And now I'm using art as a
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form of coping. So when I
start feeling really dark or gloomy, either
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I write down the words that I'm
feeling or I'll paint the words that are
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paint the patterns and colors that I'm
feeling, because sometimes I feel in patterns
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and colors or in metaphorical pictures,
and so now I've kind of got different
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creative outlets. Every time I'm feeling
emotional, I just follow that and it
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can be something crazy like swinging around
on a tree or going on a jog
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or just any different way that whenever
I'm feeling down and frustrated with the stuff
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like flashbacks and stuff, when I
get overwhelmed, I just pick an outlet
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and I use it and I usually
feel better after important and that's a really
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good way to deal with this type
of trauma, actually probably any kind of
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trauma. So and that's much healthier
outlet than most people. But I know
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you're the fact that you're concerned about
making sure you do it every day.
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Are, you know, getting like
you know that's not healthy for you.
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Right. And what was the most
helpful? I think the most helpful has
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to be gaining confidence in myself.
Finally, I was so insecure for so
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long. I push myself in a
teeny tiny box for so long that I
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just didn't have a voice. I
was scared to speak up, I was
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scared to hurt people's feelings, I
was scared of what people thought about me,
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and then I realized that I need
to be confident in myself because one
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no one's going to be confident for
me, and I basically put a target
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on my back if I make myself
that small. And so I've decided that
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I needed to be confident in myself, which in turn opened up a bunch
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of doors that I didn't even expect, which is I'm no longer embarrassed or
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feet or worried about the embarrassment of
my family, because since I shared my
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story immediately, I got backlash from
my family that they're feeling embarrassed because I'm
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sharing, because it's immediate family that
did this to me. And so now
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they're like, Ashley, why are
you doing this? You know you're shaming
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the family and it's I had to
correct them because now I'm confident in myself,
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I had to correct them. I
am not embarrassing the family. This
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would have never happened if the abuser
had never started the abuse to begin with.
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If you have a problem or you
you feeling embarrassed, you address the
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abuser, you don't address the victim. And when I realized that, I
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shared of my own video explaining that, because I can see how, without
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confidence, you would let that eat
you and you would let that push you
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back into a hole. And so
for me having confidence was just the most
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helpful thing, because that's just one
example, but overall has just helped me
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address all of the toxic members of
my family, give me the strength that
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cut them out and now I live
so much happier away from everyone who's ever
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made me feel small or made me
feel like it was my fault in any
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way. Well, and that's important
and I think in our society and we're
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trying and we're working towards that,
but we are far from victim getting over
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victim blaming for our perpetrators actions,
which is ridiculous. But it's been going
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on for a very long time,
actually since I mean the first encounter I
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can think of is lot and his
daughter's, but that's a whole other spill.
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How did your family respond? Well, my family dynamic is a bit
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different than others. I come from
a multicultural home, but I also part
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of my abuser, which is my
biological father. Part of his technique,
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I guess you would call it,
was to isolate me. I'm a biologically
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and only child and I was isolated. I wasn't really allowed to have friends
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and I did was never really around
any cousins. So it was really just
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me, my mom and my dad, and then I have my grandparents.
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Well, my mom was the first
family member I told. She needed time
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to digest. Part of his manipulation
against her and me was he convinced me
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the throughout my childhood that she didn't
love me. He used her cultural differences
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against me because culturally Chinese people don't
show love the same way Americans do,
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and so he was in my ear
every day. See, look, this
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is why she doesn't love you.
See, this is she doesn't want anything.
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She wanted a boy. She doesn't
want you, like in my ear.
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So when I told my mom,
she at first thought I was trying
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to get back at her. She
thought I was still angry at her because,
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again, the manipulation he put on
us was so deep that we fought
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all the time when I was growing
up before I got put in foster care.
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So she thought I was just trying
to get back at her. She
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thought that maybe, you know,
I was trying to hurt her and she
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hung up with me and it's like, I need to think about this,
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and after about one to two days
she called me back and she was like,
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I think you know, I believe
you, because now I realize things
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are making sense within their own marriage, behind doors that I didn't even realize.
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I guess stuff was going on that
he was like emotionally detached from her,
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treated her really badly in the bedroom, and it's kind of it made
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her realize, you know, it
was happening under her roof all along.
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She had no idea and she could
see after some time to digest it,
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see it plain as day. Whereas
then my next person I told was my
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grandfather, which was his father,
and he to this day is still taking
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it very hard, but he luckily
believes me a hundred percent. He has
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some trouble holding him accountable because of
the good old country boy western, you
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know, way, like how he
was raised. It's hard for him to
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accept it, but he believes me. It's just hard for him to hold
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him accountable. Whereas my grandmother,
which would be his mother, is total
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opposite. She thinks I'm a liar. They're doing everything to incriminate me.
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She's saying I'm a liar, saying
I'm on drugs. Whenever I was saying
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I was going to go press charges. They're trying to fire back and and
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threaten me by threatening my mom saying
they're going to put her in jail for
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blackmail if I said anything so like. They just did everything to try to
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make me seem like the bad guy
and I, and I just recently explained
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to have zero to gain from telling
my truth other than my own personal healing.
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It's not like I'm getting any money
out of it, it's not like
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I'm getting any fame out of it, it's I'm just trying to heal.
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And so that was the reaction.
It was it was all, you know,
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different. But I realize now.
I've just recently sent a message to
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my grandmother explaining my case again with
confidence, telling her I don't owe her
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an explanation. I don't care what
she believes or who she supports. If
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she wants to know the truth,
I will tell her the truth graphically and
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in detail. But if she wants
to stay supporting this monster, go ahead.
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I don't, then I have nothing
more to say to her for the
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rest of her life. And that's
that's the extent of my family. I
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mean the right then, the extended
family that I've told you know, like
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like cousins and further on. They're
all in full support of me and my
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mom and no one else is really
kind of against me, which I find
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very fortunate, because I know there
are a lot of people with a lot
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of families that even their people's direct
moms will go and blame the you know,
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the victim, and so I'm very
fortunate my that most of my family
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reacted the way that they did.
No, I mean it can be I
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didn't have anybody not believe me,
but still there's conflict on my dad's side
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of the family and I don't think
it'll ever get better. But how did
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your community respond? I received an
overwhelming amount of love and support. Once
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I find the spoke up. It
was amazing and really the only reason I
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even went public with my personal friends
was because I was not the greatest friend
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growing up and in my late teens, like but basically before I started working
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on my own healing and my own
recovery, like really working on it,
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not just saying I wanted to,
not just like, you know, living
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in despair, and I really started
doing self reflective work every single day and
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once I got to the point where
I really felt like I've evolved into a
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better version. And again, I
don't set expectations for myself. So I
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know I'd a continue. I'm continuing
to grow. I probably won't ever stop
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growing, but once I felt I
was at the point that I was healthy
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enough, then I went public on
my personal pages saying hey to all of
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my friends and family that have known
me and had experiences with me. I
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am sorry, because I really was
a toxic link to them, to most
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of them in some capacity, and
so I explained how there is a secret
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that I have been hiding, not
only to everyone else but to myself,
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which was the fact that I was
being raped and molusted for over a decade
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by my own biological father. And
because I was in denial of that,
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because I stuffed that away, I
turned into just a very toxic person and
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everyone's lives and I was sincerely sorry
about that and I didn't want anyone to
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think that it was either their fault
or that, you know, I would
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never recognize my faults, because I
did at this point. And so once
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I shared that experience and I shared, you know, that self reflective and
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apologize, I got an overwhelming amount
of support from all of my friends and
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family that that read it, and
then I created this new platform on instagram.
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I started on Instagram and I'll soon
expand it. But once I created
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that platform, I first started with
trying to start from scratch. I didn't
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want anyone personal knowing about this platform. I started sharing like my writings and
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stuff on there. My writings are
what helped me kind of cope with all
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of it, because I would talk
in poems or in metaphors or sometimes in
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affirmations, and so I would just
post those on there and once I started
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gaining my own following on my own
then I shared it to my personal platform,
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letting them know, hey, I
really am diving into the mental health
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recovery world and if anyone wants to
join me, you guys can follow me.
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And I again got an overwhelming amount
of support that I did not expect,
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and now I'm I feel like,
though, the feedback is pretty positive.
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Since I've started sharing my story,
I've gotten people that I don't know
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from all over the world reaching out
to me saying how my writings are resonating
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with me. I can see on
my professional, I don't analytics that people
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are saving and sharing my writings,
and so I would I would say for
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the most part I've had a pretty
positive community response. Well, that's that's
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very helpful. Um. was there
any re victimization or victim blaming? I
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think we've talked a little bit about
yeah, they're definitely was personally, like
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internally, through myself, I did
go through waves of it up until recently
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I stopped blame once I finally fully
grasped confidence and held onto it. I
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no longer do that to myself anymore. But throughout the years up until that
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point I was constantly trying to think, well, what if I am putting
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my family through all of this?
What if I am, you know,
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doing this? What if you know? Why didn't I say anything sooner?
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You know, I just constantly found
reasons to blame myself for the situation.
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That was until, like I said, I garnered that confidence to realize I
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did the best that I could with
what I could. I was a victim
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and the rest of the chain reaction, including my own victim blaming, a
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still boils back to the abuser and
so kind of touching back on the outside
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of myself, you know, I
definitely have my biological grandmother still victim blaming,
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making her son the victim, the
abuser the victim and me the perpetrator
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somehow. But other than that I
would say that. You know, I
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don't with my confidence. Now,
even if other people were to blame me,
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I wouldn't even care because I'm that
confident in myself and in our situation.
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I know I didn't do anything wrong
and how I'm handling it is I'm
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allowed to handle it however I want
to, because it's my situation. I
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was the victim. Now that's that's
that's a good example for other people's to
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follow. And you know, and
it takes a lot of courage to do
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that, in a lot of ways
it's like, no, this is not
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my fault, this is, you
know, my perpetrator's fault. How has
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this impacted your career? So I
actually am unemployed right now because it impacted
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my career so badly. So I'll
first start with my college career, or
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so I when I aged out a
foster care at eighteen years old and I
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jumped right into college, I suffered. I had PTSD from whenever I was
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in high school and I was going
through it. I was going through I
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was actually removed from my schools multiple
times and cop cars and in handcuffs taking
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me to a mental health facility because
I just was struggling that badly coping with
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what I was going through and and
bottling it up and out lashing to everyone.
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So when I get to college,
I'm, you know, I know,
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more trips to the mental hospital,
but I struggled in school. I
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for me, just looking school was
just a really hard time for me.
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So I had a hard time sticking
to my classes and so I started full
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time and I was like, okay, let me kind of real back a
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little, take a little bit less
classes, and each semester it was like
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that. I just take a little
bit less, little bit less, until
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finally I was like, okay,
this is not for me, I can't
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do this. So I jumped into
the working world and I most recently.
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I'll just use my most recent job
as the example, because that's what really
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was the boiling point for me,
not that people were yelling at me as
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part of my job, but they're
when you're dealing with the general public,
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you sometimes get those upset people that
look at employees as nothing but like part
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of the company, and so they're
yelling at the company but in turn,
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really they're yelling at you because you're
on the phone with them. And so
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even though that wasn't an every single
call type of situation. The anxiety of
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is the next call going to be
like that? That just ate me alive
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for months and my job tried really
hard to work with me. They helped
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me with free counseling. Then they
let me go on medical leave, short
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term medical leave, to kind of
try to get myself together. But ultimately
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I just it. It progressed.
So I wouldn't say rapidly. It took
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a couple years for it to get
to the point that it did, but
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it just progressed to the point where
I just could not work anymore and luckily,
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very fortunately, I have an amazing
husband that, you know, is
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able to work for both of us. I don't have to work, but
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I want. I liked working,
I liked bringing in money and it was
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really hard for me to have to
quit working. And but as of recently
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I've, you know, I found
a new outlet and started writing and I
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don't know what's to come of it, but if it does, I will
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find that very much worth it as
an investment of my time, because now
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I that's my work, as I'm
constantly writing and working on all of my
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books. I'm working on three different
ones right now, and the way that
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I look at it is if it
makes something of it, amazing and if
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it doesn't, these will just be
books for me to read to my children
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some day, whether it's, you
know, for young reading or show them
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as adults. So career wise,
it. It really did hurt me,
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but now I realize I just wasn't
in the right field. Well, and
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you've got to find the right feel. And customer service is a brutal,
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brutal feel to be in from even
mentally healthy people. Yes, it can
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be very people are roofless sometimes.
Yes, how has this impacted your dating
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life? Well, so I tell
people that my husband is my very first
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relationship, in my first boyfriend,
which is true to an extent. Before
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my husband, I was the very
typical this girl's got daddy issues. I
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bounced around guy to guy and like
back then it was, you know,
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it was very like I did not
enjoy what I was doing, but I
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didn't know what else to do.
I tried to get an emotional attachment to
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these guys and you know, when
you're young and you're like late teenagers,
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hormones and you know how it is, and so I would try to garner
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an emotional attachment, but ultimately it
would always lead to just something physical and
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then it was over and then it
was on to the next one. And
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I didn't like that life, but
that's just how I guess I was dealing
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with it. And then finally I
decided I was going to move to a
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new city that I'd never been to
and go to college there. And I
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told myself the whole point of moving. I was like, actually, you
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were done work focusing on guys.
You need to focus on yourself, you
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need to work on yourself and healing
on yourself, because you can't expect anyone
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to respect you and care about you
if you're not respecting and caring about yourself.
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So I moved away to Gainesville,
Florida, which is where you know
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UF is, and started college there
and after about three four months of only
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focusing on myself, I then met
my husband in one of my classes and
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I remember it was it. I
won't go into our love story, but
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I just remember that I told myself
when I first started talking to him,
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I was like, I know,
I told myself I didn't want to meet
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guys. I know I told myself
this was about me, but I just
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had such a strong gut feeling about
him. So I went out on a
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limb and I talked to him,
and thank God that I did. It
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worked out amazingly. But then,
after like a week of talking, he
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invited me over to his house,
and that was rule number two for me.
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I was like, I am not
going to end up in someone else's
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house again, because I put myself
in too many so suations that I did
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not want to be in by accepting
invitations to people's houses. So, but
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in his case I had such a
strong up feeling and we were you know,
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that first week that we were we
met each other and would talk in
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school. It was just different than
anything I've ever had or felt before.
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So I was like, okay,
Ashley, last time, this is the
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last time. If it doesn't work
out, you're done and you are focusing
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on yourself to you're out of college. But luckily it worked out. It
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did not turn out like all of
the past experiences and we moved on pretty
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quickly. But here we are,
five years later and stronger than ever,
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and he really has been my backbone
and I don't think I would have healed
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to the extent that I did without
him, which I know is bad to
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say. I know it's not good
to be code so codependent, but he
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really helped build me up by keeping
my confidence, constantly reassuring me that he's
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here for me, that he loves
me, even whenever I went into my
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immersion emotional mental breakdowns. I had
several of those throughout our relationship and you
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know, I lashed out on him
several times emotionally and he just stuck by
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me because he knew what I went
through, knew what I needed, and
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that really helped me heal in the
end well, and I don't think it's
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a bad thing. I think that's
you know, that's what part of being
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in a relationship is and you know, if it's a healthy attachment, then
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it's a healthy attachment. Yeah,
we have definitely got to the point where,
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as we stand right now in our
relationship, I love myself as an
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individual, I'm happy with myself as
an individual, and he, you know,
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same thing for him. And now
we're at we're both at the point.
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We definitely needed each other throughout those
early years and we couldn't have said
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the same thing in those early years. But now, as we're matured and
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we've grown together, we've worked really
hard to grow together, and that we've
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grown as individuals. So we're both
content and love et ourselves for who we
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are, but then we also can
share that love with each other, and
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it just made our relationship that much
better that we are both now confident in
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ourselves, and I really don't think
we could have gotten there without each other.
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Thanks for listening, guys. Rachel
and recovery will be back with Ashley
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00:27:59.039 --> 00:28:06.440
Chung Journey Part Two, and you
can always follow us on your favorite platform
326
00:28:06.480 --> 00:28:15.559
for social media or for podcast,
and patron is now supplying us with tshirts,
327
00:28:15.640 --> 00:28:23.160
mugs and other other kinds of swag
that you may enjoy. For sponsorship,
328
00:28:23.240 --> 00:28:29.000
says low as ten dollars a month, and you can always come to
329
00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:33.039
our website at Rachel and Recoverycom,
especially if you want to be a guest
330
00:28:33.079 --> 00:28:37.720
on the show. That would be
awesome, thinks. As always, I'll
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00:28:38.480 --> 00:28:45.599
hear from you, guys next week
at ten am on Thursday.
