My Story

My Story:

Hi. I am Melania Macias and I own Fostering The Inner Child LLC where I coach teens girls and women that have gone through childhood trauma break free through the power of the Lord Jesus. But before I got to where I am now I too had many trauma's in my life that resulted in fear, anxiety, and panic disorder.

This is my story...

I am the youngest child of two other siblings, my brother who is 16 years older than me and my sister who is 14 years older than me. You could say I was a surprise child.I grew up in a small little town in Arkansas and when I say small, I mean 500 people and the nearest city was a 30 minute drive. My mother was a stay at home mom and my dad was an entrepreneur, putting siding on houses. The money wasn't great and it seemed my parents were always struggling to survive. Up to the age of 7 my parents and siblings lived with my grandparents. My dad was working hard and building a house on a 2 acre plot. My dad was a MacGyver (if you have seen that show) kind of guy, always figuring out how to make things work, and that he did. He built our small little house from the ground up and we moved out of our grandparents. This is where my parents made friends with the couple next door to us. We will call them Dan and Ann. They were an older couple, their kids were grown and had kids of their own. Their granddaughter and I became good friends when she stayed with them during the summer time. This was the only time I had anyone to play with. I attended a private Christian school until the age of 9 and when my parents couldn't afford the school I was then homeschooled. My mother was a very protective mother, so much so that me being a Guardian ad Litem I can honestly say it was child abuse. She didn't allow me to play outside so I spent most of my time in doors and in my room. I was very much neglected as a child. I lived with my parents but there was never I love you, hugs, family outings, family trips, nothing. I merely existed. My father was a drinker and my mother too but my dad he would drink to get angry so at a very young age I feared my dad coming home from work. This is when the spirit of fear and anxiety first came in when I was a child. I would get stomach aches all the time and throw up for no reason especially around the time my dad would come home. I remember a few times he got really angry and shot his gun in the house or the time he put a gun to a mans head in a rage. It was very traumatic for me.

The devil had plans to slowly oppress me by bringing trauma on me. You will see as my story continues.

I trusted you...

I remember it was just after my 11th birthday and Dan and Ann asked if I would like to go and see my friend and spend the night. I was so excited but a part of me felt like I shouldn't go. I wouldn't realize till many years later that was the Holy Spirit speaking to me. I asked my mother if I could go and we ended in a verbal fight. I already knew she would say no so what else could go wrong so I fought with her until she actually said yes, to my surprise. So I changed my clothes into some shorts and I packed my bag and walked aross our lawn into theirs and I kept feeling like I shouldn't go but I really wanted to go. So I knocked on the door and went inside. Ann was in the kitchen and Dan was on the couch. At this point I've know them for three years so I trusted them. I sat down on a wooden chair next to the front door when Dan said, hey, come sit next to me. So I went over and sat down. Without going into explicit details, with Ann in the kitchen, Dan molested me. He tried to drag me into their bedroom where I knew things were going to be a lot worse. I finally broke free of him pulling me and I ran to the kitchen and told Ann I felt sick and I needed to go home. I ran all the way back as fast as I could crying. I didn't know what happened. My parents never talked to me about sex or even stranger danger. I had no idea why it happened. I didn't tell my mom. I ended up calling my sister who at the lived in Houston, Texas and I told her what happened and she got so mad at Dan. I was sure next time she saw him he was a dead man. She asked me if I had told mother and I said no. You see, our mother was never nice to my sister. That is not my story to tell but for the sake of my story my sister was always looking out for me and almost like a mom to me. She protected me from mom doing the same to me as she did to her. So, my sister said, I will talk to mom. They talked on the phone and when the were through my mom tells me I must learn how to forget what was done to me and that the same thing happened to her and her mother and no one did anything so why would she. Dan was never in trouble for what he did and my parents continue to be best friends with him until he past a few years ago.

When I turned 15 my sister got legal custody of me till I was 18 and removed me from my parents and I remained with her in Houston, Texas until I moved out on my own.

Making bad decisions from the lens of trauma

When someone is molested or raped a person either becomes more sexually active or obstains from sex altogether. I really had no idea what was right. I saw people and things from a different view and I always felt like I didn't fit in. Because my dad wasn't really the dad that I needed I sought other men and because of the molestation I thought that being sexual is what would make them love me. At age 22 I got mixed up with a Indian man from Pakistan. He was a Shia muslim. We will call him Sam. I knew it was a wrong choice to get into a relationship. There again the Holy Spirit saying, don't be unequally yoked but I did listen. Sam was super nice and smart. He took me on trips, bought me clothes, paid for my meals and we never fought but we had a lot of fun. But there was one thing that bothered me...he kept me a secret. No one knew he was dating me and if we did things together it had to be out of town where no one would see us together. He said because I was white and Christian was the reason. One day Sam calls and I hear screaming in the background, it's his dad and Sam says, I told my dad I love you and all about us and he is threatening to send me back to Pakistan if I don't break up with you...I am sorry. Then he hung the phone up. I was devastated! We had been together almost two years and this was so sudden and unprepared for. I started crying, putting his stuff in boxes and then I thought, I am going to his house and asking his father WHY. I crying and thinking what I am going to say, I put the box in the car and drive off. When I got there I knocked on the door and this man that was Sam's father answers the door. I started demanding him to tell me why his son had to break up with me and why me being white and Christian was so bad. He said this in a harsh tone voice, "If my son is seen with you or I hear he is even speaking to you I will send him back to Pakistan where he will be killed." then he slammed the door. I was now more hysterical and more upset at the thought! So I get in my car to leave and as I am entering the freeway, sobbing, trying to catch my breath I am crying so hard. All the sudden my heart starts racing as if I ran a marathon and now tears turn to panic because now I am starting to feel like pins and needles all over my body that is incredibly painful. I knew I need to get off the freeway and I didn't think I was going to make it to the next exit. The next exit just so happens to be a hospital where I barely make it into the parking lot where my body began to curl up into a fetal position, I couldn't open my eyes, my body was in so much pain for what felt like forever. The parking attendent called for help and the put me on a stretcher and wheeled me into the hospital. This is where the spirit of panic is now oppressing me. The next 9 months was a journey...

Learning to cope

From that moment on I feared of having another panic attack which would trigger another panic attack having anywhere from 1-3 attacks a day. I lost all my friends because I wasn't the fun one anymore, I was just trying to survive. No one understood how hard it was to control these attacks. I would later on in life understand that it was hard to control because it was a demonic oppression. I spent 9 months a life unlived. I couldn't get in a car, I couldn't drive, I couldn't leave the house. Loud noises would set off the attacks. But God had other plans...

I decided that I would join Myspace and I would make some Christian friends and I just needed restart. One day I was scrolling and I saw this guys post and he was Christian guy who really loved the Lord so I decided to send him a message and connect and after that he accepted and we started talking. I hear once again the Holy Spirit but he says this time, "This will be man you will marry." I heard that and I started laughing and I said, I can't even drive a car, I am trying to control my blood pressure and these panic attacks, no man wants someone so broken. Well, this man kept pursuing me and pretty soon we are talking on the phone, then on web cam, and then he wanted to meet me. He had no idea what I was dealing with but he helped me to try harder to get everything under control. Then the time came and he flew to Houston and it was time to really meet. When we both met we knew we were getting married! Two months later he proposed, a very cold day in Greenville, SC, I said yes and we planned a wedding within two months. That was 17 years ago and we are still happily in love.

You can't medicate a demon

I was very happy with my husband Jason but I still carried the baggage or the demons of the trauma of molestion, the anxiety, fear, and panic attacks. I managed to keep panic attacks at bay but the mind chatter, these voices that sounded like me, that wasn't me, kept bringing up my past, saying that my husband will leave me, I was not lovable, I was not worthy, etc. It kept me constantly on edge. I finally went to a doctor about the anxiety and was prescribed Zoloft. This may work for some people but because what I was dealing with was spiritual, this medication made me nuts. My husband Jason begged me to get off the medicine slowly because he said he was terrified of me. He said he would wake up to find me standing over him, that I would wake up screaming and to be honest, I remember nothing during those three months I was on it. So, I got off of it and I started thinking, maybe I need to see a preacher, something is wrong with me. So, contacted our preacher and told him everything that ever happened to me and he said, come in, you need deliverance. I was thinking, I am Christian with Jesus in my heart, what does he mean I need deliverance! It actually scared me to think I had demons in me. So I mustered up the courage to go to the prayer meeting and they laid hands on me and prayed and I felt a sense of relief like I felt a little lighter. So after that day I began researching about oppression in the soul and The Lord was teaching me and the more he taught the more deliverance was happening. I started hosting different apostles, preachers, and evangelists that taught about oppressions and did deliverances. I still remember the deliverance of fear. That was the biggest one. Let me tell you if you feel weighted down in a literal sense and you have irrational fear, when you get delivered you will feel tangibly lighter.

My story is my calling

I spent 33 years of my life carrying the weight of anxiety, fear, and panic. The Lord set me free. My trauma and all that had been through, what the devil meant for bad, God turned it all around for good. That's been a decade ago and now I walk in peace and happiness. I now help women and teen girls that have went through trauma of neglect, sexual abuse, child abuse, and find healing and freedom. And find their identity so that your story can be a story to help others. I am living proof that you don't have to live with those oppressions or hurtful memories.

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