I never know what to expect when someone sends me their painful story, and each time I’m so honored they entrust me with it. When this story reached me, I felt a sinking feeling in my chest. As a mother of two, I read the unthinkable. It devastates me to understand the lengths of cruelty some will go to against the most vulnerable.
Benji’s message found me on an ordinary day, but there was nothing ordinary about what he trusted me with. At twenty-one years old, he has survived more trauma than most people could comprehend in a lifetime. Yet his words carried something that broke my heart and amazed me simultaneously: the quiet strength of someone who has looked death and abandonment in the face multiple times and chosen, again and again, to stay.
This is his story, shared with his permission, told with profound respect for his courage, and offered to anyone who has ever wondered if survival is enough—because sometimes, survival is everything.
Fighting for Life Before You Could Even Fight
Some people are born into safety, wrapped in love before they take their first breath. Benji entered this world three months early, his tiny body already preparing for a fight that would define his entire existence. The doctors weren’t sure he would make it. His heart required surgery when he was still an infant, his life hanging in the balance while machines did the work his tiny organs couldn’t yet manage.
For months, he lived in the NICU—that liminal space between life and death where parents keep vigil and miracles happen one labored breath at a time. He fought. He survived. He came home.
But home wasn’t the sanctuary it should have been for a child who had already fought so hard just to exist.
“Both of my biological parents were deeply addicted to drugs and alcohol. My father was violent. He beat my mother and he beat me too. When he wasn’t hitting us, he’d lock me in a closet for hours in the dark while he and my mother used drugs.”
I want to pause here and let that sink in. A child who had already endured heart surgery, who had spent months fighting for life in a hospital, came home to parents who chose drugs over his safety, violence over protection, darkness over love. A tiny person who had already proven his incredible will to live was met with people who seemed determined to extinguish that will.
“That kind of fear and loneliness is something I can still feel in my chest even now.”
Trauma lives in the body. It doesn’t matter that Benji was barely old enough to form coherent memories—his nervous system remembers everything. The fear of being locked in darkness. The confusion of being hurt by the people meant to protect him. The bewildering reality of being small and helpless in a world that felt dangerous and unpredictable.
That he can articulate this truth at twenty-one—that he understands how those early experiences still echo in his chest—speaks to a level of self-awareness that most people spend decades trying to achieve.
When the People Who Made You Unmake You
When Benji was three, his mother gave birth to his little sister. For a brief moment, I imagine there might have been hope—perhaps the arrival of another child would spark some parental instinct, some recognition of the sacred responsibility they held.
Instead, it marked the beginning of an abandonment so profound it defies comprehension.
“Not long after that, she abandoned us. She left me and my baby sister in a park on a day when it was over 105 degrees outside. We were both covered in mosquito bites. We had no food.”
A mother looked at her three-year-old son and infant daughter—children she had carried, birthed, held—and made the conscious decision to leave them in a park in triple-digit heat. No food. No protection. No care for what would happen to them once she walked away.
I keep reading this part of Benji’s story and feeling something inside me break anew each time. Not just because of the abandonment itself, but because of what it reveals about the complete collapse of every instinct that should have protected these children. The biological imperative to care for your offspring, the social contract to protect the vulnerable, the basic human decency to not leave small children to die—all of it simply… gone.
“I was never fed properly only given formula even at that age and I was kept in a car seat day and night. Because of that, I couldn’t walk. I needed therapy just to learn how to use my legs.”
This detail haunts me. A three-year-old who couldn’t walk because he had been confined to a car seat for so long that his body forgot how to develop normally. Physical therapy just to learn what most children master naturally: another layer of trauma disguised as medical necessity.
“I remember my teeth were black because no one ever took care of me. No one brushed them. No one cared.”
The specificity of this memory (black teeth as evidence of total neglect) speaks to something I see in many trauma survivors: the way certain details become seared into memory, becoming proof that yes, it really was that bad. That the neglect was real, total, and devastating.
When the police found them in that park, they weren’t just rescuing two children from immediate danger. They were interrupting what would likely have been a death sentence, delivered by the very people who should have died protecting them instead.
The Angels Who Appeared as Grandparents
“When I was around 4 years old my grandparents adopted me and my sister. They saved us. They gave us a real chance at life.”
In the midst of this catalog of horrors, these words shine like light breaking through darkness. Benji’s grandparents didn’t just take in two traumatized children—they chose to become the parents their own child had failed to be. They looked at a four-year-old who couldn’t walk properly, whose teeth were rotted from neglect, who had been locked in closets and abandoned in parks, and they chose love.
This kind of intervention—older adults stepping in to raise grandchildren when their own children have failed—requires a particular kind of heroism that often goes unrecognized. They were likely already tired, already settled into a phase of life that didn’t include sleepless nights with traumatized children or physical therapy appointments or the complex work of healing bodies and spirits that had been so thoroughly broken.
But they did it anyway. They became the sanctuary that Benji and his sister needed, the proof that not all adults would hurt them, that safety was possible even when it came later than it should have.
The fact that Benji can recognize this gift—that he can see his grandparents as the heroes they are rather than taking their love for granted—speaks to his remarkable capacity for gratitude even after unthinkable betrayal.
When Trauma Doesn’t Stop at Childhood
For many survivors, there’s a narrative that once you’re rescued, once you’re safe, the hard part is over. But trauma is rarely that neat. The nervous system doesn’t immediately adjust to safety. The body holds onto hypervigilance. And sometimes, despite the best efforts of loving caregivers, more trauma finds you.
“I was also SA when I was 14 and again when I was 19 it was terrible as well as having my one dog who meant the world to me die in my arms when I was 20.”
The way Benji mentions these additional traumas (sexual assault at fourteen and nineteen, the devastating loss of his beloved dog) speaks to something I recognize in many survivors: the weary acceptance that trauma seems to find them, that they’ve become somehow magnetized to experiences that most people never endure even once.
There’s a particular cruelty in the way trauma can compound. As if surviving the first waves wasn’t enough, as if having already proven your resilience somehow makes you a target for more testing. The loss of his dog (likely one of the few sources of unconditional love and comfort in his life) at twenty years old adds another layer of grief to an already heavy load.
That he can acknowledge these experiences as “terrible” while still maintaining his determination to live shows a level of emotional honesty that many people never achieve. He’s not minimizing his pain or pretending it doesn’t matter. He’s simply stating facts: these things happened, they were awful, and he survived them too.
The Body Keeps Score
“I’m autistic and I live with severe anxiety and POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome). Life hasn’t been easy for me not even from the very beginning.”
Benji’s physical and neurological challenges add layers of complexity to his trauma recovery that can’t be overlooked. POTS (a condition where the heart rate increases dramatically when standing up) means his body is already in a constant state of stress response. For someone with extensive trauma history, this creates a perfect storm where psychological and physiological triggers compound each other.
Being autistic in a world that often feels overwhelming and unpredictable must have made his early trauma even more devastating. Research shows that autistic individuals wake up each morning with anxiety levels that non-autistic people typically reach only at the end of their most stressful days. Autistic people live with incredibly high levels of anxiety as their baseline. Add to that the sensory processing differences, difficulty with changes in routine, challenges in reading social cues—all of these neurological realities would have made the chaos and violence of his early years exponentially more traumatic.
Yet he’s learned to navigate all of this. He’s developed coping strategies, found ways to manage his anxiety, learned to work with his body’s limitations rather than against them. The fact that he can articulate these challenges so clearly suggests someone who has done significant work to understand himself and his needs.
The Father Who Chose Death Over Change
“My father died in 2017. He got high and ran into the middle of the road.”
There’s a devastating finality in how Benji describes his biological father’s death. No emotion, no judgment, just facts: addiction continued to rule this man’s life until it killed him. The father who beat his son, who locked him in closets, who failed him in every possible way, chose drugs over recovery, chaos over healing, death over the possibility of change.
I think about the particular kind of grief this must involve—mourning someone who hurt you, processing the death of a person who was never really a father to you. The complicated emotions of knowing that any chance for reconciliation, for apology, for explanation, died with him on that road.
Some part of Benji might have wondered, throughout his teens and early twenties, whether his father would ever get clean, ever reach out, ever acknowledge the damage he had done. That possibility ended in 2017 with a final act of selfishness that prioritized getting high over staying alive.
The Mother Who Remains Absent
“My biological mother is still alive, but I barely see her. She isn’t really a part of my life anymore. And maybe that’s for the best.”
This might be the most emotionally mature statement in Benji’s entire story. The recognition that sometimes the healthiest choice is to accept someone’s continued absence rather than chase after a relationship that has only brought pain. That his mother’s physical survival doesn’t obligate him to maintain emotional connection.
The phrase “and maybe that’s for the best” carries such wisdom. He’s not bitter, not angry—just realistic about the fact that some people are incapable of the love we need from them, and that protecting ourselves sometimes means accepting their limitations and choosing our own peace.
This is the kind of boundary-setting that takes enormous strength and self-awareness. It’s easier to keep hoping, keep trying, keep believing that maybe this time will be different. To accept that it won’t be, to choose your own wellbeing over the fantasy of maternal love—that’s the work of someone who has learned to prioritize their own healing.
The Profound Act of Bearing Witness
“My story isn’t easy. But it’s mine. I’ve survived things that most people will never understand. And I still struggle every day with the effects of that trauma anxiety, medical challenges, sensory overload but I’m here. I made it.”
These words carry such power, such quiet strength. There’s no self-pity here, no demand for sympathy, no attempt to minimize or dramatize. Just the simple, profound truth: this is what happened, it was awful, and I survived it.
The acknowledgment that he still struggles daily with anxiety, medical challenges, and sensory overload is crucial. Benji isn’t presenting himself as someone who has “overcome” his trauma and now lives happily ever after. He’s honest about the ongoing nature of healing, the way trauma effects ripple through every day, the constant work required to manage symptoms and triggers.
But he’s also clear about something essential: he made it. Against all odds, despite every attempt by genetics, circumstances, and other people to break him, he is still here. Still choosing to wake up each day. Still believing his story matters enough to share it.
“To anyone who’s gone through darkness like this: I see you. You’re not alone. And no matter how broken you feel, your story matters. Just like mine does.”
This is why Benji’s story matters so much. Not just because of what he survived, but because of how he chooses to use that survival. He’s not sharing his trauma for shock value or sympathy. He’s offering it as a lifeline to others who might be drowning in their own darkness, letting them know that someone else has been in the depths and found a way to keep breathing.
To Benji, Who Chose to Keep Fighting
Benji, when you decided to share your story with me, you said you hoped it might help someone feel less alone. I need you to know that you’ve done something far more significant than that. You’ve offered proof that the human spirit can endure the unthinkable and still choose hope. That survival itself is a form of heroism.
Your biological parents failed you in ways that should never happen to any child. They were supposed to protect you, nurture you, keep you safe, and instead they chose addiction, violence, and abandonment. None of that was your fault. Not the abuse, not the neglect, not being locked in closets or left in parks. You were a child who deserved love, and the failure to provide it was entirely theirs.
Your grandparents saw a traumatized four-year-old and chose to become your heroes. They proved that while some people fail catastrophically in their most sacred responsibilities, others rise to meet challenges they never expected to face. They saved you, but you saved yourself too: by choosing to trust them, by doing the hard work of learning to walk and heal and grow despite everything you’d endured.
The sexual assaults you survived as a teenager and young adult—those weren’t your fault either. Trauma survivors often blame themselves for subsequent violations, as if having been hurt before somehow makes them responsible for being hurt again. That’s not how it works. You were victimized by people who chose to cause harm, and their choices had nothing to do with anything you did or didn’t do.
Living with autism, POTS, and severe anxiety while carrying all this trauma history requires a level of strength that most people will never understand. Every day that you manage sensory overload, every day that you work with your body’s limitations, every day that you choose to stay present despite anxiety—these are acts of courage.
You mentioned feeling your childhood fear and loneliness in your chest even now. That’s trauma living in your body, and acknowledging it shows incredible self-awareness. Many people spend decades in denial about how early experiences continue to affect them. You’re twenty-one and already understand something that takes others a lifetime to recognize.
Your choice to maintain distance from your biological mother isn’t cruel or ungrateful. It’s wise. You’ve learned to distinguish between biological relationships and healthy relationships, between obligation and genuine care. That wisdom will protect you and help you build the life you deserve.
The fact that you can articulate your story with such clarity, that you can see your own resilience while acknowledging ongoing struggles, that you can offer hope to others while still processing your own pain: these things speak to a level of emotional intelligence that’s genuinely remarkable.
You said you made it, and you’re right. But it’s more than that. You’ve transformed your survival into something that matters beyond yourself. You’ve turned your pain into a bridge for others. You’ve proven that even when everything and everyone fails you, something indestructible inside you can choose to keep going.
Your story matters because it shows that healing doesn’t require pretending the past didn’t happen. That strength doesn’t mean not struggling. That survival can be its own form of victory, even when it doesn’t look like what movies and books taught us to expect.
Thank you for trusting me with something so profound and painful. Thank you for surviving all of it. Thank you for choosing to share your truth with the hope that it might help someone else. That choice—to transform your pain into purpose—is one of the most beautiful things humans can do.
To anyone reading this who recognizes their own experience in Benji’s words: You are not alone in carrying trauma that started before you could even understand what was happening to you. You’re not alone in having parents who failed at the most basic requirements of parenthood. You’re not alone in struggling with ongoing effects of early trauma, in dealing with anxiety and medical challenges that trauma has amplified, in feeling like your nervous system is always on high alert.
Your survival matters. Your healing matters. Your choice to keep going, even when it’s hard, even when you’re tired, even when the trauma effects make everything feel overwhelming—it all matters.
If your family of origin failed you, know that chosen family is real. Grandparents who become parents, friends who become siblings, mentors who become the guidance you needed—these relationships can be every bit as meaningful as biological ones, sometimes more so because they’re based on choice rather than obligation.
Your trauma doesn’t define your worth, but your response to it reveals your strength. The fact that you’re here, reading this, choosing to seek connection and understanding despite everything you’ve been through—that’s profound courage.
Healing isn’t linear. Some days will be harder than others. Some triggers will catch you off guard. Some memories will surface when you least expect them. That’s normal. That’s part of the process. You don’t have to be “over it” to be healing. You don’t have to stop struggling to prove your strength.
There are resources, communities, and people who understand. Therapists who specialize in childhood trauma. Support groups for survivors. Online communities where people share their stories and strategies for healing. You don’t have to figure this out alone.
Most importantly, your story—whatever it contains, however painful it is—matters. Your voice matters. Your experience matters. And you matter, not because of what you’ve survived, but because of who you are: a human being deserving of love, safety, and peace.
Benji found the courage to share his truth. Maybe you’ll find yours too, when you’re ready. And when you do, know that there are people who will believe you, support you, and remind you that survival is sacred, healing is possible, and your life has value beyond what anyone who hurt you could ever understand.