‘The blame was never mine’: Vista Maria survivor finds her voice
Podcast host Greg Wier asked ex-Vista Maria resident Jessica if there was anything good about her time at the all-girls facility.
Jessica and her Vista Maria friends, Holly and Tiffany, were guests on Wier’s “More Than Just Luck” podcast. They described the male staff’s alleged physical and sexual abuse in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“Was there anything good about Vista Maria?” Jessica said. “Holly. She was the only good but it didn’t make up for the bad. It felt like a never-ending pit, so you had to grab on to any glimpse of hope that you could and it happened to be Holly and the girls that were there.”
“We wanted to help each other and get out together,” Holly said.
“I’m just glad I’m out of there,” Jessica said. “It felt like you were going to be there forever. The psychological abuse I remember from being in there, it felt like you could never do anything right.
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“Our foster-care worker would tell you this place is going to be great, they’re going to help you become a young woman. Then you go there and it’s the same s—. Only now you’re stuck and you can’t leave.”
At the end of the podcast, Holly read an “emotional letter for everybody, not just me,” about her experiences at Vista Maria. Here’s excerpts from, “I Am More Than What Happened To Me.”
“For a long time, I believed that the things that happened to me were the things that defined me. I was a child when I experienced sexual abuse. I was too young to understand why someone would hurt me and too young to understand why the adults around me couldn’t always protect me. I learned far too early that the world could be unsafe.
“For years, I wondered what was wrong with me. Why couldn’t I just be like everybody else? Why didn’t I have to feel everything so deeply? And why was it so hard for me to trust? Why did I carry anger, sadness, fear, and shame that I couldn’t always explain?
“I understand now that there was never anything wrong with the child I was. I was surviving. I was adapting to circumstances no child should have ever had to endure. The shame was never mine to carry. The blame was never mine. And being different did not mean being broken.
“So today I stand here not as a child who was powerless, but as an adult who found her voice, not as someone’s victim, but as my own survivor. My story began with things that were done to me, but it will not end there. (1:15:12) I get to decide what comes next.”
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