Survival is The Only Option

Photo Courtesy of Monique

Written By : Monique Doran

"Be sure to check back next month on my review on her books" Felecia.

I am Monique Doran, mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, and a shoulder for many, but most of all I am a SURVIVOR!

This story is one triumph, though not the first of it's kind, certainly one in which I refused to be forever called a victim, but instead VICTORIOUS!

I was born and raised what many consider a paradise and ultimate vacation getaway island, Jamaica, Kingston to be precise, but by the age of eleven, my euphoria ended, the place that once bought me peace and safety became the hell to escape.

My father, a Sergeant in the Jamaican Constabulary Force, my hero, protector, and friend violated his parental boundaries, revealing a dark side of him, exposing me to a world, foreign, which unbeknownst to me had been happening more rampant that even the news would like to admit.

For three years I bowed in fear to his disturbing grotesque requests, induced by gun threats and other violent means. Wanting dearly to keep my young sister a great distance from any possibilities of hurt, my extremes went as far as purposely failing an interview at a boarding school in the safe country side of the island.

Robbed and drained of all chances at life, left without care of what might happen, I finally broke my silence, finally bringing my mother who lived in the states unlawfully to the light of my grim circumstances.

Sympathetic to my plight, she agreed to allow our stay with her in the winter of "99" after returning us one last time to the hands of my predator, where certain death lingered at my door for months.

The enlightenment put me further down the slope of abuse, after a year of standing by my side, she turned in favor of her husband, throwing me to the cold streets of Philadelphia, with no regards to my chance of living, especially with the added fact that I too had an unlawful resident status in the U.S.

Left without hope, my mind turned towards suicide as the only way out, until Mrs. Wilson, a guidance counselor employed by Roxborough H.S., after learning of my situation reminded me that my life had only began. She told me of the potential she saw in my eyes, that my mother's years were far beyond repair, but that didn't mean mine were to be wasted away on hopes that may never be realized.

That journey has been a loooooooong.... one (LOL), still one worth every single step taken to become the best version of myself.

I often question the universe as to why this burden was given to me of all people, what evil had I committed to receive such a sentence, each time the response remained the same, "that the strongest soldiers are given the hardest fight, that what was meant to break only served to save, and that with the loud, bold, unapologetic voice I'd been given, unashamed of who I was and who I'd become, many would be spoken for"

With that I no longer consider it a curse or a burden, instead it became the greatest blessing of my life, to speak for those who had and still being silenced. To stand in the gap and help other to mend a bridge of love for themselves they had thought impossible to heal.

Today, I ROAR loudly for all of us who have been wronged in anyway, known or unknown, no longer living or here in full life.

I wrote My story as I lived it, as I intend it to be told, a story through which the young and the seasoned have been afforded a chance to truly let it go and know without a shadow of doubt that with will and love impossible becomes I'm possible, that they are worth every second of life afforded to the them.

That broken girl is now the CEO of Moor Publishing House, a self published author, transformational speaker, and lives to help others by giving them "life lifts" when it seems there is no way out.

The future has just begun, and with the help of others, one day I'll provide safe havens for those in need where I didn't have one, help to enforce harsher punishments for those who inflict pain, and heal millions who would have otherwise thought life flat lined, never to be restored again.

I am the face of a SURVIVOR.