From Horrifying Experience to Shattered Story: Lost Soul is the AU of a Painful Past

 

Writing helps us to heal. In some cases, it can help us to catch a glimpse of what life would have been like if we had taken an alternative path while enduring a harsh experience. In my case, my new novelette is a look into what my life would have likely turned out to be like if I had taken that path.

 

Several years ago, I started writing a story. What I didn’t know at the time was that I was writing an AU story about a painful experience from my past. In the story, my character ran away from home to escape an abusive father and a brother that was molesting her. What happened to my character while she was out on the streets was much worse. Unfortunately, I never finished writing the story; I got stuck and stayed stuck for a long time. Then all thirty-one chapters I wrote vanished when a virus wiped out all of my files.

 

But the story never left me, and the character has always lingered in my mind ever since.

 

I eventually decided to try writing this story again – except with major changes. The friend in the new story is female, not male. And a couple of siblings were added, in addition to a mother. In the old story, I wrote many chapters of how my character was sexually abused. In the new story, it is not so broadly written about.

 

Another change is that the new story is A LOT shorter. In the old story, I wrote about the hardships my character endured while she was out on the streets. In the new story, I included only one thing – how she is abducted and kept in a sex trafficking ring – and the rest of what happened to her later is implied at the end.

 

It was difficult for me to write the new story. I had endured the same home life situation as my character, except I was not the only one responsible for meals and chores. I also changed things about the mother, since I did not want this fictional mother to be based on my real mother. (My real mother treated me better than the fictional mother, although she unfortunately did not interfere when my dad was violent or physically abusive.) I used to have nightmares about the abuse, and especially about my dad and my younger brother being so aggressive and threatening. I also had panic attacks. However, I did eventually make peace with that part of my past. I forgave my dad and I eventually found the strength and the courage to forgive my younger brother as well.

 

Even so, putting those past events into words was not easy. And as a mother, I was screaming in protest over the horrible things that happened to my 16-year-old character.

 

But, I told myself, this story is fiction. And, there was something bigger at work here. I had to write this story, because doing so was my way to change the impact the past had on me. This was not just a story based on something terrible from my past; it was a reminder that I had made the right decision to not attempt for the third time to run away from home to escape from it. I endured it, although the coping mechanism I used was a little questionable. But I endured it. And I survived it.

 

This story is a reminder that I survived it.

 

Yes, I will write about my own experiences in my memoir, but this ebook is a reminder that I made it out of that hell alive. I did not do what my character did; I decided to stay and just put up with it. Thankfully, it all ended at some point.

 

For this reason, I was able to come to the writing of this story as someone who had been there. Aside from the scene where there was a knife at my character’s neck and the torn notebook, the abusive events she went through and the things her parents said to her were all true for me. They came straight out of my past.

 

And at the end of this story, I leave a personal message to anyone else who is going through that same thing or has gone through it. I also list some resources they can turn to to SAFELY and DISCREETLY escape that kind of situation.

 

In the Epilogue, I introduce a character that makes an appearance in a teaser at the end of my book, Bad Girls: Five Tales of Twisted Teens (which are stories with female characters taking a more homicidal approach against their abusers). This was my character’s introduction and that first chapter in Bad Girls takes place after what happened at the end of Lost Soul. You will see more of this character when she gets her own series in the near future.

 

I had some serious misgivings about publishing this story. On one hand, it would likely receive a lot of backlash for portraying a character who is sexually abused, albeit one so young. The sad reality is that there are A LOT of 16-year-old girls in this world enduring sexual abuse – as well as girls a lot younger than that. This is reality. It’s a terrible thing that happens in this world. I also thought I might be perceived in a negative light by my fellow writers, many of whom are my friends, for writing such “garbage.” That remains to be seen.

 

But I did not publish this story to entertain lecherous or crude thoughts about certain things being done to teen girls. I published it because, by seeing themselves in this story, girls who are in such situations may know they are not alone and that this sort of horrible thing being done to them is a very bad and very wrong thing. It is not normal and it is NOT okay. I also hope the resources I included will help them find a way out.

 

In the end, I want to give my readers of this story hope that there are people out there willing to help them, just as there are in this story. They are there, and you can turn to them if you need to.

 

Here is the blurb of the ebook:

 

Dana Mitchells leads a shattered life – until the day she decides to fight back against her abusers. This choice leads her on a dark road that leads to homelessness and despair. Can she find her way out of the darkness before it’s too late?

 

Available free on Kindle Unlimited here