.png)
In this inaugural episode, Marlon details his earliest memories of abuse and the conditioning that continued to affect him decades later.
Episode-1
Podcast: Rising from the Shadows
(0:08 - 0:32)
Welcome to my podcast, rising from the Shadows, building self-love after narcissistic abuse. My name is Marlon, and I'm privileged to have you join me on my journey of healing and self-discovery. In each episode, we'll dive into the challenges that I faced, the lessons I learned, and those pivotal moments along the way that led me to the profound realization of self-love.
(0:33 - 0:50)
My hope in sharing my story is that you too, like me, will start taking bold steps towards living the life that you were meant to live, and living it on your own terms. Thank you for joining me on this deeply personal journey. Let's begin.
(0:59 - 2:04)
So where do I start? Well, at the moment it is 7.24 p.m. on February 10th, 2024. I'm sitting in my office, and I've been peering over several years of journal entries as I've taken copious notes documenting my life, what has occurred, the players in it, how I've navigated the challenges, where I started, where I am today. It's a really challenging job to figure out where to start in telling your story.
(2:05 - 2:31)
I think a lot of the books, the fairy tales, you hear it starts once upon a time, and it starts at the beginning of something. I don't think it's really appropriate for my story to start at the beginning. Maybe it makes more sense to start at the middle, which I feel that I'm in right now.
(2:36 - 2:54)
As I'm recording this, I'm in the process of filing for a divorce. I've been married for a little over 6 1⁄2 years. I have two children.
(2:56 - 3:13)
My oldest is five. My youngest is 15 months. In this marriage, I've been in a relationship with this partner for 12 years.
(3:23 - 4:40)
And it lasted that long, because throughout the years, I suppress the realization that I was worth being treated like I mattered. When I reflect over the past 12 years, it honestly makes so much sense to me how I ended up here, because from my family of origin, I was set up to accept and be defenseless against abuse throughout my life. See, the earliest memories of abuse that I have happened around four years old.
(4:40 - 4:56)
It was either four or five. I remember my father trying to teach me how to tie my shoelaces. And I was getting it wrong.
(4:58 - 5:32)
However, he was trying to instruct me how to do it, he was naming the different parts of the shoes and what I had to tug on and where it plays and how to loop, I kept getting it wrong. And every time I got it wrong, he would raise his hands and hit me over and over again. I don't remember actually ever getting it right.
(5:33 - 5:50)
I mean, I must have, I know how to tie my shoelaces. I remember that being the pivotal moment where I learned fear, real fear for my life. I was a father of a caregiver.
(5:52 - 6:27)
There were other incidences. When I was five, as most five-year-olds do when they go pee in the bathroom, I wasn't very good at making it in the toilet. I remember my father grabbing me one day from another room, dragging me into the bathroom, pointing to the toilet seat where my urine had splashed on the seat.
(6:29 - 7:03)
I remember him pushing my head down so close to the seat, commanding me, clean it up by licking it up. He never actually made me lick it up. Right as I stuck out my tongue, getting ready to do as he commanded, because not listening to my father was never an option, he pulled me back at the last minute.
(7:09 - 7:25)
I remember my father trying to teach me my multiplication tables. I remember him quizzing me. I would give him an answer that made sense to me.
(7:27 - 7:37)
Most of the times it was wrong. Every time I got it wrong, he would hit me. Sometimes I got it right.
(7:39 - 7:54)
And then he would ask me, are you sure? Well, now I began to doubt myself. So, I changed my answer. And because it was wrong the second time, he hit me again.
(7:58 - 8:28)
When I think about my childhood, these are probably one of the most innocuous examples of abuse that occurred. The truth is, I was frequently beaten to the point I had stripes all across my back. I could barely sit.
(8:29 - 9:07)
My face was beaten so bad, it was swollen beyond recognition. I remember my brothers and I, we used to go in the bathroom after a beating, a particularly bad beating, and we would lift our shirts, and we would compare our backs and see like, who had the biggest stripes? Almost like a badge of honor. My parents raised my brothers and I in a fundamentalist cult called Davidian Seventh-day Adventists.
(9:07 - 9:44)
A very isolated offshoot of the Seventh-day Adventist church. It was created by a Bulgarian who had immigrated to the States right around or before World War II, who had set himself up as some sort of prophet and began writing books and recruiting members. His teachings carried on with his followers long after his death and still carry on today.
(9:45 - 10:11)
In fact, a major center for Davidian Seventh-day Adventists exists today in Waco, Texas. Now, you may think of the Branch Davidians and David Koresh, which was a different sect that had also evolved from this person, but on a different timeline of sorts. I remember being in Waco when the Branch Davidians were snuffed out by the ATF.
(10:12 - 10:23)
I wasn't on the compound. My family and I, we were in a hotel room. I remember the camera crews reporting on the event as it was occurring.
(10:24 - 10:45)
I remember being able to see the smoke rising from the compound. Now, again, I must stress that we were not part of this group. We were part of a non-violent group, still occult, still oppressive, still manipulative, still extreme.
(10:47 - 11:33)
My parents' extremism carried on in our lives. It's hard to think of what story to tell. There are so many. My inclination is to tell the stories chronologically, that this happened this year and this month and this happened then. There were so many things. There were times where we would be on our knees for hours in these all-night prayer meetings.
(11:35 - 11:53)
I remember being frequently hungry as a kid. We were not allowed to eat in between meals, no snacking allowed. I'd get so hungry I would sneak into the pantry sometimes and grab a handful of dry oats and a handful of raisins just to satiate my hunger for a while.
(11:55 - 12:09)
It must be why I have such an affinity for oatmeal to this day. To this day, if I'm hungry and I can't find a snack, I'll grab a bunch of raisins. Seems like the easiest thing to satiate my hunger in the moment.
(12:19 - 12:34)
We were very isolated from the outside world. I was homeschooled my entire life beginning from the age of six. I did kindergarten at a public school in Warminster, Pennsylvania, Longstreth Elementary School.
(12:37 - 12:57)
I remember being very happy going to that school. I still remember kindergarten. I remember the crafts around Thanksgiving, making the pilgrim hats out of construction paper where you cut the middle and you folded it out and you poked your head in there, making the turkeys.
(12:57 - 13:04)
I remember my friends and playing outside. I remember my teacher, Mrs. Green. To this day, I remember her.
(13:08 - 13:30)
I remember the last day of school and the last time I ever stepped into a formal classroom until college. All the parents were picking up their children in the semicircle, if my memory serves me correct. And I remember getting into my family's red Toyota minivan and I was crying.
(13:31 - 13:59)
And I remember my dad asking me, why are you crying? And I remember replying, I'm gonna miss my friends. My father quickly retorted; you don't have any friends. You don't have any friends.
(14:05 - 14:27)
And from that day really began the rest of my childhood in real isolation. We had exposure to other people, other people in church, other, you know, some family, extended family members, but it was always tightly guarded. You know, I have over 30 plus first cousins.
(14:29 - 14:49)
And I remember knowing how they attended all these family events, family parties, birthdays, things of that nature. And except for a handful of times where on a Thanksgiving, we didn't participate in that because those were things of the world. And we were a special people.
(14:50 - 15:11)
And we had to keep ourselves pure because that's what God wanted. It was a real like psychosis with the religious indoctrination. Back to the cult, there was this, you know, a main prophecy that was always talked about.
(15:11 - 15:59)
And it was the prophecy of Ezekiel chapter nine. For you non-Bible readers, it's a book in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. And in this prophecy, there's a story where God is upset with the children of Israel. And he sends out angels with swords. Oh, I should back up. No, first he sends out one angel with an inkwell. And the angel's supposed to go through all of Israel and find the true believers. The true believers, 144,000. And he was to put a mark on the head of every true believer.
(16:00 - 16:31)
After this angel went and did this, he sent other angels with swords drawn that went through and killed everyone that didn't have the mark of protection from that first angel. Our cult believed that we were the modern-day children of Israel. And that we had to live our life in a certain exemplary way to make sure that we received God's favor.
(16:33 - 17:25)
And we believe quite literally that in the end of times, God would select 144,000 people out of the entire Seventh-day Adventist church and everyone else would be slaughtered. And the 144,000 would be with God and then would go back out into the world and evangelize all the non-Seventh-day Adventists because they didn't get a good chance to hear about the word of God. And a great multitude would come and we'd all live in heaven for 1,000 years if my memory serves me right.
(17:26 - 18:01)
And at the end of the 1,000 years, we'd come down with Jesus in Israel in the Middle East. Jesus would come down, touch his feet on the top of the Mount of Olives and flatten it out. And that would be the kingdom where Christ's kingdom lived forever and ever and ever. There's a whole bunch of other teachings. But the indoctrination was that we were a special people, that the world was full of sin. The Seventh-day Adventist church itself was full of sin and unbelievers and people that were hypocritical in their devotion to God.
(18:02 - 18:48)
And we were set to be an example. So, this type of thinking really bled into every area of life. What we could do, what we couldn't do, what we could read, what we couldn't read, what we could watch, listen to, what we could eat. I was raised vegan-vegetarian, which is a perfectly okay way, lifestyle to choose, if that's you. I was extremely malnourished as a kid. When I was 14 years old, I was admitted to the hospital for, I believe, 10 days, because my calcium levels were so low, I wasn't getting the right dietary nutrition.
(18:49 - 19:53)
Everything was so extreme in my life. It's so hard to kind of filter through and think of what stories are worth telling, what stories give a good background. I don't know. Shame was a very present figure in my life. Shame of displeasing God, shame of displeasing parents, shame, just shame. And there were always such harsh punishments for behaving in a way that didn't follow the outline set for me.
(19:54 - 20:33)
One of the things I can say, though, reflecting, is that there has always been something inside of me that was rebellious against abuse. Despite the frequent beatings, despite the, oh, I'm just remembering now that my brothers and I got in trouble one time, and nobody would fess up about what happened. So, my father put us on a three-day fast where we were unable to eat or only able to drink.
(20:36 - 21:10)
And I remember him bringing us in the living room and praying that God would make the person who did it throw up so he could know who the right culprit was. It turned out I was the culprit. I had eaten something from the refrigerator and I was so scared to admit that I had eaten something that I went three days without saying a word because the idea of being hungry was easier.
(21:10 - 21:50)
than facing the wrath of my father. It wasn't just physical; it was mental too. I was so scared of my dad that I would betray my body to stay safe. I remember my dad had a recliner and he was always been into speaker systems. He always had, you know, spend a ton of money on, you know, subwoofer, speakers, surround sound, things of that nature. And he used to love to listen to classical music on Friday evenings.
(21:52 - 22:31)
He would sit in his chair, dim the lights, put on Handel's Messiah or some other type of classical piece and he would sit back in his recliner. My dad was a very, I wouldn't call him affectionate man towards us, but I think he was a man with feelings, like he was touchy feely. And so, he would ask me to sit next to him on the recliner with him as he listened to the music.
(22:32 - 22:55)
No wasn't ever in my vocabulary. So, I would go sit next to him, scared to move a muscle. I remember my entire body going numb and, you know, losing circulation, but I was too scared to adjust my body to become more comfortable because I didn't want to upset him if I did.
(22:57 - 23:24)
I remember realizing when he would finally be asleep, sitting in the chair and moving my body so slowly to slide off that chair so I could go and get away. When my dad would beat me, yes, he would beat me on my butt. He's beating me on my back, my legs, everywhere.
(23:27 - 23:51)
He was indiscriminate about that. One time he was beating me with the belt so bad that the belt buckle got out of his hands and started hitting me and my face started bleeding. I remember him, after his rage subsided, that he realized that I was bleeding and then he started crying.
(23:52 - 24:24)
He went downstairs and got a basin of warm water and a washcloth and he was crying and, you know, wiping the blood off my face and now here I am trembling after this man had just violated every part of me and now, he's stepping in as a comforter to take care of me. That really fucks with your mind. And of course, I had to stay there and let him do it.
(24:24 - 24:53)
But God forbid I shrink away because if I shrink away from his touch, that would just anger him more. Another time when he was in a rage, he beat me from, oh, probably five, 5.30 in the morning until eight o'clock. He had a paper route so he was up early.
(24:56 - 25:39)
He had left for the morning and he had left for the morning to deliver the papers so I had to sneak downstairs to the family computer and there was a family friend that was staying with us at that time and he knew how secluded and isolated we were. We somehow convinced him, I mean me and my brother, somehow convinced him to rent some movies for us and so I remember there were three movies. It was Rush Hour 2, I believe Blade 2, or I don't know if Blade 2 was out yet.
(25:39 - 26:07)
I think so, it was Blade and then Vin Diesel's movie, Triple X. Okay, so I had snuck downstairs, put in the Triple X movie. Now, my dad had forgotten something and had turned back and so when he came into the house and saw me on the computer watching a movie and by the way, I have to say, we were not allowed to watch TV. We're not allowed to watch movies and things like that so that was certainly a huge infraction.
(26:08 - 26:52)
He saw the cover of Triple X and I think assumed that I was watching a porno so he beat me from like 5.30 in the morning till eight o'clock until he had to leave for his regular job. This was a little different. He made me stand up, keep my hands at my sides, told me to take off my very thick glasses that I've always had and cupped his hands and hit me in my face repeatedly on and off, on and off.
(26:53 - 27:15)
He was in a frenzy. He did that for a little bit and then he went upstairs, woke up my other brother that shared the room with me. He threw all the mattresses off of the bed to search the room to see and I think the phrase that he said was like, I need you to find me all the other contraband and give it to me right now.
(27:15 - 27:51)
So, he tore the room apart looking for everything else that we were potentially hiding from him and as he was doing his search, he would take a pause, come back to hit me in the face again, go back to his search. I remember at one point I had to use the bathroom so I was sitting on the toilet and then he came in to hit me again and then go back to his search. This was the time when my face was so swollen out of recognition and he finally had to go to work.
(27:51 - 28:25)
Thank God. It was around 7.30, eight o'clock and after beating me all those hours and I couldn't put my hands up, right? Like he would instruct me anytime my body moved to shield myself, his instruction was keeping your hands at your side, stay at the position of attention. So, I literally had to betray every instinct of self-preservation to survive this moment.
(28:26 - 28:57)
The damage was fucking brutal. It was so bad and I think he recognized how bad it was that before he went to work, he instructed me over and over again, Marlon, do not leave the house today. Marlon, do not leave the house. Do you understand me? Stay in the house. Do not leave the house. Yes, dad. Yes, dad. Yes, dad, I understand. Yes.
(28:58 - 29:20)
That weekend, we were supposed to go to New York for one of our cult's all-night prayer meetings. So, my whole family got in the van and we drove to Queens, I believe, where a friend from our church lived and that's where the prayer meeting was happening.
(29:23 - 29:51)
When we went in, the wife of one of the sisters, there she said, she looked at me and audibly gasped and like, what happened to Marlon's face? My dad very boldly said, oh, I did that to him. I caught him watching movies, hiding and watching movies while I was gone and I did that to him. Kids have to learn that the rod is for the fool's back.
(29:53 - 30:25)
There were many people in my life that knew how my father was, how abusive he was. Destructive. No one ever did anything. No one in the church. No one in my extended families. Not his brothers. Not his sisters. Not his parents. No one ever stopped him. My mother didn't stop him.
(30:26 - 31:14)
You know, I remember my dad instructing my mother to hold me down so he could beat me. And she complied. You know, I talk about all of this not to try to garner sympathy, but to set the stage that in my early beginnings, I was groomed for compliance towards abusers. I was groomed not to react. I was groomed to betray every instinct that this is not right. Something is not right.
(31:15 - 32:24)
Because these people were my caregivers. It's something I didn't realize until last year. How conditioned I was to not be loved. And not to be cared for. And to think that abuse was just normal. And abuse continued. It continued at the hand of a close family member who sexually molested me. I'm not ready yet to disclose the relationship with me. You know, I'm not here to say names.
(32:26 - 33:44)
I told my parents. And they did nothing. Something that I'm very thankful for, and it's a habit that I've continued to this day, is my habit of journaling. You know, I've got journals from 2006. And I detail these conversations and I've detailed my thoughts. I detailed the things going on in my life. And it's really helped to put things in perspective. It's helped me combat the lies that been told from my abusers about me to other people, to me directly, to try to confuse me and say the things that happened and are happening are not real. I am so thankful that I have this meticulous habit of writing it down.
(33:45 - 34:14)
And writing it down has quite literally saved my life. Writing it down has helped me to reflect and to know when enough is enough. Okay, I've been talking for a little over 30 minutes. This was really hard to get through. I'm going to stop now and try to pick up another time. Thanks, for listening.
