Month: August 2020

Last week, we met an amazing resilient artist, Amelia Presley, and learned a little about her story of child abuse. This week, she is going a little deeper and sharing more that I am confident you will find compelling. Thank you for all the comments and shares last week! My followers are the BEST!

I’ll turn it back over to Amelia.

It was very difficult to start talking about “Harm Nobody Else.” I felt that as an adult, I learned to overcome so much. I made it through abusive relationships and decided not to put up with that type of treatment anymore. I joined the military and overcame sexual harassment and abuse. I became a very tough person on the outside.

The Commanding Officer at my first unit referred to me as “stoic.” I gained a reputation of being someone who could take anything thrown my way. I was thought of as strong, and believed that I finally was. The truth is that I had just learned to take any type of abuse and bury it under a tough exterior.

When I told my story publicly, it felt like a huge weight was lifted and was replaced by the weight of pulling that truth into myself. I fell into a very deep depression, but for once, I expected it. I prepared myself to have thoughts of suicide and I did. But since I was prepared to have those thoughts, I was able to get through them. I learned a pretty life-changing lesson through that. I remember lying in bed feeling as if I wanted to disappear. I had no need to reach out for help. I didn’t want help. I wanted to die. Then I remembered to just push through. I told myself to just wait and the thoughts would pass. Sure enough, it wasn’t long until they were gone. Then came the revelation moment. Thoughts of suicide are intrusive. They happen when your mind is not firing on all cylinders. Thinking of all you have to live for during that time does not help, because your mind is not well. Thinking of all you have to live for only makes sense to a mind that is thinking logically. People who suffer from depression should prepare themselves to expect those thoughts to come, but to just remember to wait. Wait and wait until those thoughts pass.

I decided to record a music video for “Harm Nobody Else” by myself in the home where the abuse took place. My three-year-old daughter played me in the video. The decision to cast my daughter came from a very heavy moment in the studio while I was recording the song. That entire day was magic. The people who where with me in the studio were so supportive, cheering me on through the process. Toward the end of the day, I finally broke down. I was recording one last run on the vocals when I started to visualize what the music video would entail. I started to see the words I was singing play out, and I saw my story from start to finish with me as a three-year-old child. My daughter is the same age as I was when the abuse began and I suddenly saw her face replacing mine. Then I broke and stopped singing. I started to cry and couldn’t gather my composure. I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone harming her. She’s so little. I decided soon after that, I had to have her play me as a child in the music video.

I needed the video to be painful because without that, it wouldn’t be real. It’s so easy to go about life and block the injustices of the world out of your mind. That’s a big reason why abuse remains a secret. A “Behind The Scenes” portion was added to the end of the video to show that my daughter was actually having fun when we recorded the scenes. I’m extremely proud of her for taking directions so well, and showing the emotions I was asking her to show. She won’t know how big of a part she played until she is much older. Her performance will change people’s lives.

Facing your own truth is the hardest thing you’ll ever do in life. But it is also the most liberating thing you’ll ever do.

I am dedicated to documenting my healing process in sequence, so that others may feel empowered to do the same. I am dedicated to showing every unpolished truth about the process. That includes insecurities, “mess-ups” on stage, such as my performance on The Country Network when I choked from the nerves of knowing I was about to tell my story before playing “Harm Nobody Else.” It includes being honest about depression and anxiety. It includes being honest about thoughts of suicide.

I want anyone who’s been through any type of abuse to know this: You didn’t ask for the cards you were dealt. It’s time to pass the back to the dealer.

Your abuser will more than likely never accept the blame, but that does not mean that you have to hold onto it. The blame is NOT yours! The shame is NOT yours.

THIS IS NOT YOUR SECRET!

You can follow Amelia’s jouirney here:

https://www.facebook.com/ameliapresleymusic/

https://twitter.com/amelia_presley?

https://www.instagram.com/ameliapresleymusic/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdKSUwVyy7WzSI96mKxfbnw

Hey, you guys! Thank you for joining in on another Sunday Spotlight where we will learn more about an inspiring music artist. Not only is Amelia a distant cousin to The King, Elvis, but she has a chilling story to tell, with raw emotion expressed through her soulful voice. Because her story is so big and universal, she will be back again next Sunday with a wrap-up.

It is my great pleasure to turn my blog over to Amelia today, and I hope you enjoy her story and her music!

Hi, everyone, and thank you for taking an interest in my story and my music. The story starts with an adoption. The photo above is of me and my birth mother. I won’t get into the reasons for the adoption here. That’s another story for another time.

The truth is that my adopted mother was an abuser. She abused me mentally and physically from the time I came to live with her through my teenage years. The scars her abuse left are still healing, but at last I’ve finally found a healthy way to work through the mountain of emotions and psychological turmoil. Music has always been my refuge from the storms.

When I wrote “Harm Nobody Else,” I wasn’t at a place in my life where I was able to actually connect with the emotions of the abuse. I wrote the song in July 2018. I was alone in my house that weekend, getting ready for some Highway Sisters tour dates.

That’s when flashbacks of memories I’d rather forget tend to rear their ugly heads – when I’m alone.

I remember I rushed to find paper, pen and guitar so I could get the song down. The first few lyrics played in my head – “I see you walkin’ I hear you talkin…” Then the song just flowed out of my soul and it was done in thirty minutes or less. After I wrote it and recorded it as a voice memo on my phone, I just left it. I didn’t even think about it that much afterward, because I was so used to disassociating from that part of myself.

I performed the song live for the first time at the Mississippi Songwriters Festival. My abuser, the woman who legally adopted me, was in the audience with her new husband, showing the world how seemingly supportive she was. Before playing the song, I explained to the crowd that I wrote it to spread awareness against abuse. I didn’t reveal that it was my personal story. I couldn’t look her in the eyes as I explained the false truth of why I wrote “Harm Nobody Else,” but at a certain point in the song, I looked her straight in the eyes and sang the words. I was terrified and angry as I sang them to her, as if no one else was in the room. She squirmed and left shortly after I finished playing. I never played the song again until the end of this past year.

My abuser cut me out of her life, out of the blue, after she’d sent a text that said, “I love you. Happy Birthday!” My entire adult life, she had seemingly changed. I even let myself get close to her and had what I thought was a good relationship with her until that point, which was one of the reasons I had decided not to expose my story. I wanted to protect her. I started a podcast called “The Insignificant Diary of a Burden Named Phoenix,” where I told my story, but changed the names. I was doing everything I could to find some healing for myself without having to hurt her in the process.

So, when the stark realization hit me that she had not changed and that I had been manipulated to believe she had changed came as a huge blow. She blocked me on Facebook. What mother does that? I couldn’t stay quiet and sent a blistering text, to which she responded in her typical way. She turned it all back around on me and basically told me to butt out and stay out of her life.

I immediately felt a rush of emotions, anger, sadness, defeat and betrayal. I can’t explain it any better than to say I was in shock. I wanted everyone to know the truth. No holds barred anymore. I posted screenshots of her texts on Faceook. I knew it was the quickest way to reveal her secret. I did it out of anger. Then after I posted it, I sunk to the floor, physically and emotional exhausted.

So many emotions I’d kept hidden from myself suddenly slammed me in the face. It was as if I was in someone else’s body.

A month later in December 2019, performing at a benefit for a Texas band who had lost their bus to a fire, I told my story on stage for the first time. The room fell silent as I spoke. I pushed through talking, on the brink of tears. When I finished playing the song, I hung my head. I felt small and vulnerable. But the applause that followed gave me validation. From that point forward I’ve taken every opportunity to tell the truth about the song before I play it because I feel it’s important. There is always someone who needs to hear it.

I don’t ever want anyone to see me hiding the truth again.

Amelia Presley

Folks, there will be Part Two to Amelia’s story next Sunday. She has more to share and it’s such an important message, that I can’t cut her short. So, see you next Sunday for more from Amelia Presley!

In the meantime, you can follow Amelia here:

https://www.facebook.com/ameliapresleymusic/

https://www.instagram.com/ameliapresleymusic/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdKSUwVyy7WzSI96mKxfbnw