46: The Truth They Told Me to Bury - My Story of Abuse, Betrayal, and Reclamation

This is the episode I was never supposed to record.

In Part 1 of Reclaiming Safety & Power After Sexual Abuse, Darla Ridilla shares her raw, unfiltered story—from childhood abuse to adult violation, from being silenced by the people who should’ve protected her to reclaiming her voice on her own terms.

This episode isn’t just a personal account—it’s a wake-up call for every high-achieving woman who was told to keep quiet, stay small, or protect their abuser’s reputation at the cost of their own healing.

You’ll hear what it really means to live with the lifelong echoes of sexual abuse—and how Darla turned pain into power by refusing to keep secrets that weren’t hers to hold.

This is not about playing the victim. It’s about breaking the cycle. It’s about remembering your worth. And it’s about reclaiming what was always yours: your body, your voice, your power.

If you’ve ever been silenced, gaslit, or dismissed, this episode will meet you where you are—and remind you that you’re not broken. Your truth matters. And you’re not alone.

Find Darla Ridilla at:

Website: https://www.highvaluewoman.info

Send me an email: highvaluewoman7@gmail.com

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darla-ridilla-3179b110/

Transcript

Darla Ridilla (00:00)
My whole point of telling these stories is not to play the victim. It's not for you to feel sorry for me. It's for you to hear that if you are also a sexual abuse victim, that you're not alone, that you are not the only one.

that you were invalidated likely, you were likely invalidated.

it's still your truth no matter who says it's not and you have a right to speak of it and I don't want to hear this bullshit that my ex-husband said about Bill Cosby about how he was an old man he shouldn't have been held accountable well of course he didn't want his old man held accountable

It doesn't matter how many years have gone by. If a man has committed a sexual crime, he should be held accountable. I have to live with this the rest of my life. I don't have the privilege of going to jail and getting out in a few years and being done. I get to carry this with me forever.

Darla Ridilla (00:49)
Welcome to You Have the Power, the road to recovery from trauma and narcissistic abuse. I'm Darla Rodilla, a certified somatic trauma inform coach and relationship expert who's been where you are. I work with high achieving women who feel invisible in their relationships and are exhausted from attracting the same emotionally unavailable or toxic partners. This podcast is your invitation to stop settling, to stop shrinking, and to start rewriting your story. Each episode offers raw,

honest insights into trauma, nervous system healing, and what it really takes to break the cycle so you can finally feel seen, safe, and powerful in your own life. If you're ready to reclaim your worth and reinvent your relationships, you're in the right place. Let's get into today's topic.

Darla Ridilla (01:37)
Today we are starting a new four part series. It is called Reclaiming Safety and Power After Sexual Abuse. I do want to give you a heads up that these four episodes, two solos and two guests may be triggering to some. This is a very serious topic, but it's one that needs to be talked about. Unfortunately, I've had some lived experience in this area and I know there's going to be listeners out there that also have as well.

when I'm using my voice, I am acknowledging your experiences, I am giving you the ability to share your story as well in whatever form it is, whether it's privately or publicly. But I want to encourage those of you out there that have also experienced sexual abuse, that it's not your fault. It's nothing that you should nothing to be ashamed of. And your truth is your truth, no matter what people say to you. So

going to share some things. Some of them have already been shared in a public forum, and some of them haven't. And in fact, with our next guest, I'm going to allude to some of that. So I thought that I would kick off this series by sharing what has happened to me.

My history of sexual abuse started in childhood. It goes way back. Five years old is my first memory of that.

And my mom used to babysit, a brother and a sister at that time. And we were up in our room and we were in our closet. And the little boy, I would think if I remember correctly, he was probably around eight, I would say he was two to three years older than me. And it was one of those situations, some people would call it innocent, I don't. Because it's still sexual abuse, even though was a child. It was one of those situations where

If I show you mine, will you show me yours? And that's the first thing that I remember. I don't remember him actually touching me. It was more of a show and tell. But it's still not a healthy behavior. Kids Yes, kids are curious. But curiosity doesn't really necessarily mean morality. So that's

the journey that's been a lifetime of mine. Unfortunately, I've had many incidents of sexual abuse that span from five years old, all the way to as recently as I believe it was 2016 to 2017, when I had an experience as an adult. So let's walk through those.

I definitely know that I was raped at least twice in my life, once as a child, and once as an adult. There may be more. But obviously, those experiences were so traumatic to me that my brain has chosen not to remember them. Or the two incidents I do remember are very fuzzy.

And the truth of the matter is, I didn't even remember them until it was probably 2015, 2016. I would say 2016. It was shortly before I moved to Washington State, I was still living in New Mexico with my ex husband. And what's interesting is when I first met him, he told me he said, you've been raped, and I didn't believe him.

I had no memories up to this point of an actual rape. And I denied it. But one of the beauties of being with him is he's the only person in my life that knows every single detail of my life to this day, even though we're still not married. He's the only person I own, I openly shared everything. And I think that created a safe space for me to start remembering things from my childhood.

And so it was in that first year or so that we were married that I started to have shadowy images. And I started to realize indeed I had been raped. As a child, all I can remember is an older gentleman with gray hair. I would assume elderly, but maybe at that age, they all looked elderly, but that's the impression I'm left with. And then as an adult,

I'm pretty sure I know who it is.

there was an incident where I got really drunk.

It was at a trip that I was on and we had gone with some biker friends out of state and there's one of two things that happened that night.

I'm pretty certain I was raped by the friend, the male friend, because the following year, we went back to that, to that location as a group with a larger group of bikers. And I went ballistic one night, I got really drunk that night as well, and went totally ballistic. And the man that I suspected raped me,

I bit him that night. It's a longer story that has nothing to do with the rape, but it certainly explains the bizarre almost primal behavior that I demonstrated. He tried to physically restrain me. I guess I should just tell the story to explain. My second ex has been cheated on me through our entire relationship.

And he disappeared. We had a rule as bikers that we never went anywhere alone. We always went in at least pairs if not groups. And I think it was a really good role. And he just conveniently disappeared and took off by himself. He wasn't answering his phone, which when you're cheating on your wife with another woman, you're not going to do but at the time I didn't know that now I know that's what was happening. But at the time I didn't.

My worst fears came to surface and I went into catastrophe mode and I thought that something bad had happened to him and maybe he was dead because I couldn't reach him for a while.

I got so upset when I finally did reach him, I actually stormed out of the bar to go find him. I lost it. I'm not a violent person, but I did start to punch him. It was in that moment, you know, when your kid disappears and you're so relieved when you find them that they were just riding their bike around the neighborhood or something like that, or at a friend's house and didn't call you or tell you, but you're so...

so distraught in a moment you have a duality of emotions. On one hand you're so relieved they're okay but the other end you're so pissed off because you were worried and I was in that duality moment and drunk off my ass. Really bad combination.

I'm not excusing that I did that. But I'm explaining the intensity of the situation. So there were people in the group who started to physically restrain me, which pissed me off more. I was I was kind of in a feral moment. And I think a lot of my previous abuse came to the surface.

erupted in that moment as well. There was one man who was physically restraining me and wouldn't let me go and since I couldn't move my arms, I had another weapon and that was my teeth. So, I bit him.

As I go back and think about the year before our vacation in that same location, that was such a strong reaction. I couldn't understand it. It was very upset by that, by that in the moment and for a long time afterwards. And as I started to remember my rapes, I put two and two together. And so here's my theory on what happened the weekend a year before. Yes, I do think that man raped me.

And I think my ex husband either participated or watched. When you're dealing with a malignant narcissist, that's how really sick it gets. And it's very disturbing to talk about that. It's disturbing that it happened in the first place. And then it's disturbing that the man I trusted and loved and was married to, I think participated in some way. Talk about a betrayal.

it goes way beyond the sexual part of it. And it goes into the mental part of it. But as I said, I suspect there are more incidents, I just don't remember them. And I'm okay with that. It's probably best I don't. Because there's a reason. And I don't need to remember them to heal from them. There have been many other incidents in between that and my childhood experiences. So

I've been molested many times by men, either a family figure or a family friend. And this is often the case where sexual abuse comes from someone we know it's a very common experience. For some reason, my father when I was 13 started to molest me. My assumption is that because I'm a very willful

person and was as a child as well. It was it was a way of being a threat. You know, I referred to him as a bully before. It was a way of trying to put me in my place. And it was an assault.

And what often happens, particularly in family situations, when we tell people what happened to us, people will often call us liars. They will discount our experience. They will tell us to be quiet. They will say that didn't happen. You misunderstood. And of course, your abuser is going to deny it. And that's exactly what happened to me. I told my mom, I started to tell her when it started to happen. And she confronted my father. And of course, he said he didn't do it.

So you may have heard me talk about this before that I had in the past said that I wanted my parents to split up. That's not a normal feeling. Most children don't want their parents to get divorced. I did. That should have been a red flag right there. But I would have never lied to make that happen. But my mom, because she chose not to believe it,

for whatever dysfunction she was going through, she chose to believe my father and called me a liar and said that I made up the story so they would split up.

So this happens a lot. We've already been assaulted by someone. We're reeling from that. And then the people around us abandon us as well. And they don't support us when we need them the most. It's being traumatized twice over the same thing. And it's very difficult.

and then it happened again.

My parents got separated when I was 15. And my mom went back to Pennsylvania where her sisters were living and most of her relatives. She went back there and we were hanging out at her best friend's house.

And I went upstairs to use the bathroom. And when I came out, the husband of the friend was at the top of the stairs waiting for me.

and he molested me upstairs.

I grabbed his hands and pulled them away and I said no and walked away. I was devastated and of course, you know, the rest of the visit I'm trying to act like nothing's happened, which going back, I wouldn't have done. I would have called him out in a moment and embarrassed him in front of everyone. But when you're 15 and you're not as mature as a 56 year old woman, you don't think of these things.

You're not probably even capable of them, to be honest. When we went home that night, I told my mom what happened. Once again, denial.

Her response to me was, ⁓ we can't tell my friend. It would destroy her marriage.

Darla Ridilla (15:10)
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Darla Ridilla (15:53)
There's a lot of things that I need to work through. I may not ever offer forgiveness to my mother for the her participation in my sexual abuse. But what I am going to do is I'm going to offer forgiveness to myself for how I didn't speak up in a moment and how I didn't make a scene because I did the best I could with who I was and at my age.

But the fact remains that once again, my mom chose herself over me and put me in harm's way.

And I'm really sorry for those of you out there that this has also happened to. This is a story that I've never shared publicly before.

And I hate to say it, but I don't think my story is rare. I think it happens a lot. And I know that there are men out there as well that are sexual abuse victims. I have talked to them and those stories are theirs to share and not mine. But I think as women, we experience it more.

And so you fast forward to more modern times.

I don't think I've shared this story publicly either.

and my last marriage.

I can remember when we were planning from moving from New Mexico to Washington and my ex's concern about it. And I'll admit I wasn't concerned. But then again, I had never met the monster of a father that he had.

I'm a grown ass woman at this point. This is 2016, 2017. Probably, you know what? I think it was closer to 2017. That's irrelevant, but anyway. So that's just what? Eight years ago.

And we had moved to Washington state because his father's health was failing. He was showing this first signs of dementia. But what happened had nothing to do with dementia because it was well planned and dementia patients do lose their filter when it comes to sexual advances. But here's how I know it wasn't his his mental state talking because dementia patients because they have no filter.

They don't plan it. They don't wait for everyone to leave the room.

This man had a history of inappropriate behavior. He was a sexual predator with other family members.

I still have feelings for my ex-husband. I'm glad we're on good terms currently. But the one thing that I've never forgave him for is putting me in harm's way. Deep down, he knew what his father was and he didn't protect me. And after it happened, he didn't properly stand up for me. And that was one of

other things that destroyed the marriage because I couldn't get past it nor should I have.

So what happened was that we went over to visit and everyone was in the kitchen, like we always greet each other and hug each other in the kitchen. And then everybody but me and my father-in-law left just to go watch TV or go outside or whatever they were gonna do. And he waited till everyone left the room.

Then he hugged me. And then he groped me.

And my body instantly told me that something was wrong. My body instantly stiffened up. Because I knew what he had done was inappropriate. And he had done other things before that. We would go out to dinner or we would be at his house and he would openly stare at my breasts, like in front of people. And it was horrible and it was demeaning and I hated it.

And now, my opinion of that day is that he was seeing what he was gonna get away with, because he was gonna do more. I'll just cross the line a little bit. I'll kind of run my hands up the side of her body, probably a little too close, but not exactly touch her.

but it's still sexual assault because it's inappropriate. And I felt it in my body. This is even before I knew about somatics. And so I sat with that and told my husband the next morning.

And once again, I get the same reaction. Well, I wasn't there. It doesn't matter if you were there. If I'm your wife and I'm telling you this happened, it's your duty to truly and honestly believe me, even if you don't want to. You know, at that point, I was too afraid to confront him. He was a very nasty, angry, bitter man. And it was terrifying. And

At that point, I did ask my ex-husband not to confront him. As time went on and I started to build a little bit more confidence, I started to take baby steps towards holding him accountable. And so it started with I asked my husband to do it. I said, it's your father. I really feel it's your responsibility to say something. And what really bothers me about it is

They had plans to go out fishing that day and they were out to breakfast. And he said something about him openly staring at my breasts and the groping. And he outright denied everything at first. And then the only backtracking he did in that moment was to say about staring at me, his response, which turned my stomach. This is a father figure in my life. ⁓

This is a father-in-law. His response to him staring at me was, well, I only wanted to know if they were real or not. That's a horrible thing to say about your daughter-in-law.

And then my ex-husband's rolling up as he still went out fishing with him that day. My opinion of what a real man does to stand up for his wife, regardless of who it is, it doesn't matter if it's his father, is that is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard. I am going home. I am not spending time with you. What you have done is inexcusable.

but he didn't. I understand his father was dying, he was, but that's still not a reason to invalidate my experience and to not hold him accountable in a proper way. There was a point later on where I did confront him myself. I didn't do it in person because I knew he would blow up, but I did send him an email and I never got a response to it. So I followed up.

with a letter with the exact same text that was in the email. He exploded at the confrontation. He, of course, denied everything, said it never happened. And if I wasn't married to his son, he would sue me for slander.

And once again, my ex husband didn't hold him accountable. In fact, when what I said in a letter is that I am not going to be spending time with you. If there's a family event, I'm not going. I'm not going to be in your presence. But if for some reason we cross paths again, if you ever do this again, I will call you out in a moment and I will embarrass you. And my ex husband's reaction was that I didn't have

the right to embarrass him. He focused on my truth telling instead of the wrongdoing that was done to me. He was more interested in shutting me up than holding his father accountable. And this is also a very common tactic. And it was devastating. It was like my mom all over again.

And the one thing I did that I regret because I was trying to be a quote unquote good wife is when this awful man finally died. I went to the funeral service with my ex-husband. I was trying to be supportive and I stayed quiet. They had a moment where people were getting up on the microphone and saying what a wonderful man he was. He was a preacher.

And that's a whole other topic about how abusive some religious figures are. He was a preacher and they were talking about how wonderful he was and it, I wanted to throw up. I ended up not going to the reception. It was just too much. I had to leave after the service and I went for a walk on the beach. But I regret to be honest, regardless of the effect it would have had, I regret not standing up and telling them the truth publicly.

I don't care if it was a funeral. This is not true. This is not who he was.

But it's okay, because once again, in that moment, I did the best I could with who I was. I did what I thought was right, but it wasn't right for me. I probably just should not have gone at all and refused to support him. I did refuse to go with him to the hospital the night his dad was air flighted out to another hospital. I shouldn't have gone to the funeral either, but that's okay.

I learned from that situation. My whole point of telling these stories is not to play the victim. It's not for you to feel sorry for me. It's for you to hear that if you are also a sexual abuse victim, that you're not alone, that you are not the only one.

that you were invalidated likely, you were likely invalidated.

it's still your truth no matter who says it's not and you have a right to speak of it and I don't want to hear this bullshit that my ex-husband said about Bill Cosby about how he was an old man he shouldn't have been held accountable well of course he didn't want his old man held accountable

It doesn't matter how many years have gone by. If a man has committed a sexual crime, he should be held accountable. I have to live with this the rest of my life. I don't have the privilege of going to jail and getting out in a few years and being done. I get to carry this with me forever. Well, I get to heal from it and I need to move through it. It has forever shifted who I am. There's no get out of jail free card for me. So why should there be one for you?

You did this.

It's like the acquaintance I knew in Arizona, who I called out, who was getting a little bit too free with his hands. And when I finally pulled him aside and said, I'm not, if you continue to do this, I won't dance with you. And then he outright refused it, that he did it. And I turned around and said, you did it and it won't ever happen again. We've got to hold these people accountable. We've got to find the courage to do it in a moment because

They'll keep doing it and doing it. And it preserves our power.

I feel for you. I see you. And I'm doing this series, and I'm going to talk about more things that most people are really uncomfortable with. If you're too uncomfortable, don't listen, because I'm going to keep speaking. And I'm going to keep helping those who have been through what I've been through, because it's important. This series, we're going to hear from some wonderful guests.

We're going to talk about healing from sexual abuse. We're going to talk about support. We're going to talk about forgiving ourselves.

We're going to talk about the importance of honoring our truth. Other people's reactions are not our business.

And if you don't want to hear my truth and you want to try to condemn me for it, I have one message for you. Fuck you.

Fuck you.

because you don't have the right to tell me what I do and don't have a right to talk about when it's happened to me. My experiences.

are free to share with other people.

And if it interferes with your whatever reality you want to have of the people in your life or the beliefs you want to have about people who have also claimed to be sexually abused. Not my problem.

Where were you?

when I was being abused. Where were the people like the self-righteous people like you who think you have the right to tell sexual abuse victims they can't Shift your focus and help them. Put an end to it. Support them through it. Don't condemn them. Don't invalidate them.

speaking our truth is our power.

because you.

Darla Ridilla (31:05)
Thank you for listening to You Have the Power, the road to recovery from trauma and narcissistic abuse. If you're a high achieving woman who's tired of feeling stuck, unseen or unfulfilled in your relationships, this podcast is your wake up call. The road to healing starts with reclaiming your power and you don't have to walk it alone. If this episode hit home, don't keep it to yourself. Subscribe, leave a review and share it with another woman who needs to hear this. You never know whose life you might change. Want to connect directly? Tap the link in the show notes.

and send me a message. I'd love to hear what landed for you. And remember, this show is for education and inspiration. I'm not a licensed therapist, so be sure to seek professional support when you need it. We're here for real transformation. Keep listening, keep rising, because you have the power.