Definition of an Overcomeer
Definition of an Overcomer: someone who rises anyway.
What most people see when they look at me is a speaker.
An author.
A professional woman who gives back.
A high school dropout who somehow made it out of chronic childhood trauma and abuse.
What they don’t see is the pain.
The neglect.
The abandonment.
The quiet suffering that shaped every decision before it healed me.
That little girl in the first photo was only 14 years old.
Just over a year after losing her mother, she had no hope.
Her father—quiet, disconnected, drunk—sat on the couch from sunup to sundown, beer in one hand, cigarette in the other. He rarely spoke to her. No guidance. No protection. No love.
She was forced to make adult decisions as a child, completely alone.
That day was class picture day—freshman year of high school.
She forgot the money.
Her father never asked about school. Never asked what she needed. So she called home and asked him to bring it. He was retired. No responsibilities. The school was close enough to walk.
Instead of coming, he yelled.
He shamed her.
He broke her—loud enough for everyone in the school office to hear.
Humiliated, she hung up the phone and sat for the picture.
The photographer said, “Smile.”
She couldn’t.
That wasn’t a bad day.
That was her every day.
By 10th grade, she stopped getting up for school. No one noticed. No one came looking. The honor roll student who once loved math and science and dreamed of being a veterinarian was now barely passing—if at all.
She stayed in her room.
One day turned into many.
She tried acting out just to be seen. Still—nothing.
Her mother had died from alcoholism when she was 12, after years of abandonment and hidden bottles of scotch. Her father was present in body, but not in spirit. That combination set a trauma-filled trajectory that led to years of survival mode and choices made from wounds, not wisdom.
And yet…
She’s still here.
I share this not for sympathy—but for purpose.
Because somewhere right now is a young person, a woman, a leader, an overcomer in the making who thinks their story disqualifies them—when in truth, it’s the very thing that will one day set others free.
I am living proof that trauma doesn’t get the final word.
Healing does.
Faith does.
Resilience does.
And if this little girl could grow into the woman you see today—so can you.
