As a child Tennesha Bristol experienced sexual abuse at the hands of a relative and it was subsequently compounded by verbal abuse from other family members who blamed her for what was done to her and did not offer the support she so desperately needed.
She also believes that she was failed by the system as she recalled being in her early teens when a social worker visited her home after the authorities were informed by way of a letter that she may have been abused. “I told her [the social worker] everything and she told me not to worry, that she would take care of me. I never heard back from her. I never saw her again and for me she failed me because I was left there and then my relatives started to verbally abuse me and blame me for the sexual abuse,” she said in a recent interview.
Bristol’s experience created a need in her to support others who experienced childhood trauma and to this end she has recently registered and launched Transcendence Transformation. “It is a coaching, counselling business that focuses on a holistic approach to dealing with childhood abuse and the short and long-term effects of childhood abuse,” she said.
Now a qualified social worker who has done counselling and coaching sessions, Bristol launched the business late last month. It is currently virtual until she finds office space. She offers one-on-one coaching sessions and also plans to launch a small group programme and host seminars and retreats to help in the healing process of women and girls who have endured childhood sexual abuse and trauma.
Since the virtual launching of the business, Bristol said, she has received tremendous feedback even though during the live launch she was interrupted by a female relative who later apologised, claiming that she did not understand the Zoom platform. This forced her to stop accepting people into the Zoom room.
But Bristol said she was happy it happened because when she spoke to her relative following the launch they connected on many levels. Her relative had also experienced similar childhood trauma, they had similar pregnancy experiences and healing and clarity were provided.
“I feel like I am fulfilling my purpose because I thought about it for a while. I prayed about it… Since I was a teenager I knew that I wanted to go in this direction because of what I experienced, but I always felt I was not ready,” the soon-to-be-30 mother of two sons said.
The fee for coaching is $5,000 per hour and at present, Bristol is doing it virtually. She has also formed a Holistic Healing from Childhood Trauma/Abuse Sisterhood group through which support is also given.
Sexually abused
Bristol said she is no longer ashamed of publicly stating that she was sexually abused as a child and suspected to have contracted a sexual transmitted disease as a result. She recalled that her abuser gave her a “black and red antibiotic” and she was never taken to a doctor.
“It was not sexual alone, but that was the abuse that impacted me the most negatively… I [experienced] all the forms of abuse, neglect, emotional, verbal,” she said.
She said as a child she told adults about the abuse, but they disbelieved her and after a while she did not feel comfortable telling anyone as she felt no one could stop it or protect her. She was just about 13 at the time.
Bristol shared that a younger sibling of hers was also abused and after she returned to the country where she lived, it was discovered. The authorities in that country then wrote to their counterparts here and suggested they should investigate whether other children in the home environment were being abused.
“It was at this point the social worker visited the home and she gave me all assurance that things are going to be okay. I told her. But I felt like that was the wrong choice I made; for years I felt that because after I told her I can’t remember anyone playing any role in protecting me. I was left there, and I went through hell,” she said.
“I went through hell because of what was told to me. One of my uncles called me a whore, a bitch, a prostitute and he said I forced myself on [the relative] and how I slept with him and I am a shame and a disgrace and I should shut up and get over it. I was even wished death by my relatives. It wasn’t easy for me and I felt what she [the social worker] came for? What was the purpose?”
She recalled that she was even taken to the hospital to be examined and it was confirmed that she was abused. She was not removed from the home, but at that time the abuser did not live in the house as he was out of the country. Bristol recalled her relatives informing her that they had no contact with him.
Bristol said the abuse started when she was around the age of six. She said she speaks to the relative who abused her as she wants to see if he will say sorry. She recalled that once she confronted him. “I asked him why he did it because I wondered if he was abused also… but he said he don’t know why he does it and in the same breath he was advancing [on me] again and I just leave it because I realised it was not making sense,” she said. She was around 16 years old then. She recalled the wife of her abuser once telling her, “me and you sleeping with the same man,” while she cursed her out.
‘Thrown it in my face’
With regard to her relatives, Bristol said she could not “think about one individual who hasn’t thrown it in my face” and she said it placed her in a zone where she did not want to speak about it. Hatred, anger and bitterness were the emotions she most experienced.
For a while she was in a self-destructive phase because she did not want to live or exist and contemplated death.
“While I was in this dark, destructive state of not loving and appreciating myself and blaming myself for what transpired, I felt worthless and like I had no purpose. I felt alone because it was like I was the only one who went through this and I couldn’t speak to anyone because of past experience of them using it against me,” she said.
She was then in a relationship that was not fulfilling and became pregnant. More angry and resentful, she wanted to abort the pregnancy, but keeping the child, Bristol said, saved her life and when her son was born she just knew she had to do better.
“I could remember when he was born and before they took him to the nursery they gave me an opportunity to hold him and watching at that child it kind of give me some hope and made me feel that it was not about me anymore because I didn’t want to like die and leave him and then have to leave him with my relatives and then he gets abused the way I was abused,” she shared.
While over the years she has faltered, she has remained on the mission of being a better mother to her now ten-year-old son and his five-year-old brother.
“It has not been an easy ride because I wouldn’t say in the first few years of taking care of him I was the best mom. No, I wasn’t. But every day I have grown and I have learnt and I have been able to heal, thanks to joining the social work programme which also provided some amount of healing for me…,” she said.
Bristol said she had to learn to love herself as went through the healing process.
Bristol’s business numbers are 698-0839 and 638-4238.
