The Secrets We Keep Book One: Before the Healing

Some truths are buried to survive.

Others are revealed to break free.

The Secrets We Keep is the first installment of my autobiography. It is not the story of healing—it is the story of what came before it.

This memoir begins at birth and follows my childhood through abuse, abandonment, betrayal, foster care, group homes, violence, gangs, and the desperate search for safety in a world that often offered none. These pages reveal how trauma reshaped my understanding of love, trust, family, authority, and survival.

This is the story of a little girl who entered the world believing she would be protected... and the painful journey of discovering she would have to learn how to protect herself instead.

It is raw.

It is honest.

And at times, it is difficult to read.

But it is also the truth.

Rather than telling the story from the safety of hindsight, I invite you to experience each chapter as I lived it—watching innocence slowly give way to survival, fear transform into anger, and a child become someone willing to do whatever it took to make it through another day.

This book ends where another chapter of my life begins.

The story continues in Book Two, where the journey toward reclaiming my future unfolds.

Trigger Warning

This memoir contains discussions of childhood abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, neglect, abandonment, trauma, violence, gangs, substance use, loss, and other experiences that may be emotionally difficult for some readers.

Please honor your own well-being while reading. If you need to pause, take a breath, or return later, that's okay.