SISTERSPEAK EXCLUSIVE: DEBUT AUTHOR LILADA GEE TALKS WITH SISTERSPEAK

ABOUT HER NEW BOOK, I CAN'T LIVE LIKE THIS ANYMORE

Part II of a 3-part Interview

SisterSpeak is pleased to present to you a deeply talented author, Lilada Gee, who has managed to pen one of the most compelling and revealing personal stories I have ever read. Her recently published book, I Can’t Live Like This Anymore, offers a raw, deeply personal, and often painfully vivid account of her struggle & triumph over childhood sexual abuse. 

Because our interview was so personal and so lengthy, we published it in three segments.

Lilada is a native of Chicago, IL but grew up in Madison, WI where she currently lives with her children. She is also the Founder & President of Women of Worth Incorporated, and a co-founder of the Nehemiah Community Development Corporation in Madison. She is also a motivational speaker and licensed social worker and minister.  The following is Part I of our interview series which chronicles our recent conversation about her new work and her personal journey back to wholeness.

--Lisa Peyton-Caire (SS)

SS: Over the past 5 years I have met a number of women, many of them close friends, who have revealed that they too were molested or sexually abused as children. It breaks my heart to know this and to begin to realize that sexual abuse, and incest, are not as rare as I believed them to be. What are your thoughts on this? How prevalent is sexual abuse of children, and particularly in our families?

Lilada: Lisa, unfortunately, sexual abuse of children is very pervasive and this is extremely heartbreaking. The devastating impact of incest and child sexual abuse crosses every ethnic, racial, economic, geographical and religious line. It is estimated that 1 in 4 women will be victims of sexual abuse before the age of 18 and 1 in 5 boys. In cases involving girls, over 80% of them know their perpetrators. They are usually our fathers, our uncles, our brothers, our cousins and our family friends. I don’t believe that sexual abuse is more prevalent among any one group, but each group may deal with the aftermath of sexual abuse differently. For instance, I speculate that many of our sisters suffer silently. It seems that is it more difficult for us to reach out for the help that we need—perhaps because we have reached out and have not had those we need to respond to our cry for help, so we stop crying. Even as adult survivors Black women often do not readily seek out professional counseling or mental health services to help them heal. I encourage women to do what you must do to get it right.

SS: In Chapter 12 of your book, which you titled "As Good as it Gets", you talk a great deal about depression which is a subject we cover often, and which concerns me personally. As we know and as you referenced in your last comment, Black women suffer disproportionately from depression but we're the least likely to seek help. So many of us can relate to one another's experiences, and to be able to talk about them without shame is so important as a means of releasing the hold of depression over us. In your own words, you said:

I lie in bed paralyzed...I can't move. I just want to shut down, shut out everything and everyone around me...Just staying alive is an everyday fight...I feel like an inmate, chained and shackled in my own body. I feel powerless to stop the downward spiral that began the moment I opened my eyes this morning...I cannot muster the strength today to do better even for my own babies. 

When I read these words, I felt the hairs stand up on my neck, as I've been there in my life as well. Tell us what that period of your life looked like, and how did you emerge from the "bottomless pit"?

Lilada: Girl, let me tell you, that was a very, very dark period of my life. At times I was afraid that I would never overcome. I felt like I was in the middle of the ocean with no life preserver, unable to sink, unable to swim. During that time I didn’t live, I just existed. I went through the motions of living, but I was void of peace, joy and hope. I emerged by the mercy and grace of God, his call of purpose on my life and the love for my children. I didn’t feel that I could do better for myself, but I knew that I had to do better for my kids. At the times when I was most in despair and felt that my only relief would come from the taking of my own life, it was the thought and love of my kids that prevented me from slitting my wrists. God would give me visions of myself living life on a higher level—for the longest time I thought those visions were cruel taunts of a life that I would never live. When I could not find hope in my day or circumstances, I began to rely on those visions to be the guiding light that lead me out of the hell-hole that I was in.

SS: Reading your book conveys with a certainty what we already know...that childhood experiences, particularly traumatic ones, can leave us with a lifetime of scars. The demons, if you will, don't disappear overnight. And for you, they followed you for years, throughout your childhood, teen years, and into your adulthood and your marriage. Yet, you have broken free. What is it like to finally break free from what felt like an eternal nightmare? Explain for our readers what it took for you to move forward, pick up the pieces, and to throw off the past for a new present and future?

Lilada: It took everything that I had and didn’t have. It took everything that I was and wasn’t. I had to reconstruct my life. I had to evaluate everyone in my life—were they life giving or life stealing? If they were not adding to my life, they had to go! That might sound cold, but girl I was in the fight for my life! I didn’t have the strength to drag around deadweight. I evaluated the things that I had in myself. If they didn’t add joy, they had to go. I evaluated the places that I went and the things that I did. If they didn’t bring peace, they had to go. I prayed. I read every self-help book that I could get my hands on. I went to counseling. I took medication. I sat by the lake and stared at the water. I meditated. I begged. I cussed. I promised. I bargained with God. I exercised. I ate better. I made amends. I wrote affirmations. I listened to Eminem’s Lose Yourself over and over again. Basically Lisa, what I am trying to tell you is that I did whatever the hell I had do to LIVE! I got tired of life passing me by. Healing isn’t for the weak—at times if felt as if I were dying all over again, but the key is DON’T GIVE UP! No matter how difficult it is…DO NOT EVER GIVE UP!

END--

Go to Part III

Click here to read Part I of Lilada's interview in case you missed it!

Readers, you can get a copy of Lilada's book, I Can't Live Like this Anymore! from Lilada's website at www.Lilada.com, at Amazon.com, or by contacting her offices at (608) 257-2453. Lilada is also available for workshops, seminars, retreats, lectures, or keynotes.

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