Mikayla Matthews Says She Was Sexually Abused by 3 Different People from the Time She Was 6 to 15
After talking about the abuse in an episode of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Mikayla shared more of her story on The Squeeze podcast
During the episode, Mikayla explained how the sexual abuse affected her through adulthoodMikayla Matthews is sharing more about enduring sexual abuse as a child.
Appearing on The Squeeze podcast, Mikayla candidly opened up to host Tay Lautner about disclosing her past in the second season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Sharing her story, Mikayla explained that she'd grown up as the second youngest of seven kids in Granada Hills, Calif.
"I actually blocked out a lot of my childhood. I remember a lot of the trauma from growing up and like a lot of the bad things that I took from it. But I don't remember a lot of like happy memories... I remember just like a lot of yelling," Mikayla shared.
"I remember a lot of like fighting," she recalled. "I remember holidays because those were like the times that we were happy... which I feel like I've taken into my adult years now where I'm like, 'These are like my favorite.' It's like such a special time for me because growing up I was like, that was like the only happy memories I can remember. But yeah, it was a lot."
Ultimately, Mikayla's parents divorced. Her mom moved with the children to Utah, where her family was based. Having to work to support the family as a single mom, Mikayla says her mom "never really saw" the rest of them during the day.
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"We did a lot of growing up on our own basically... I feel like she wasn't around a lot growing up," Mikayla said.
Mikayla then recalled the sexual abuse she endured at a young age. "I feel like it's hard to... I wanna like be able to like pinpoint an age of where it all started," she began. "Because I did open up about being sexually abused, and that happened before we moved to Utah."
Later in the podcast, Mikayla claimed that there were "three different people," who abused her at different times between the time she was six until she was 15. She noted that in a household where sex wasn't a subject, it was hard to understand, let alone process.
"I went to a sexual trauma therapist that was telling me about like the shame you get growing up around sex in general. I think it's very common just in a lot of households, but also just in like Mormon culture," she said. "You don't talk about sex. I feel like our parents' generation doesn't talk about sex. It's kind of, you don't talk about this — out of sight, out of mind."
Mikayla recalled engaging in sexual exploration with herself as a child trying to understand what was happening, only to be reprimanded by her mom.
"I would think back to times where, when I did live in California and I was doing things like — when you're younger, you start doing things, you notice things feel good — And ... my mom would always yell at me for doing things," she says.
"But also at that time, I was like, I was being sexually abused and I was confused. And I think that's why I started doing those things," she continued. "And I just associated it with the shame because it was like, 'This isn't okay. Don't do this.' And that's something I feel like really carried over into my marriage, which is what I've noticed recently."
"It's been like one of the hardest parts of our marriage," she said, referring to her husband Jace Terry, whom she met when she was 16. "Because you don't realize it's happening because again, you're so young, you're not processing it. And then you kind of are raised up with this, or at least I was raised up with my circumstance of, 'This isn't for me. It's for somebody else's pleasure.'"
Related: Mikayla Matthews Opens Up About 'Traumatic' Pregnancy at Age 16, Just Weeks After Meeting Now-Husband Jace
During season 2, Mikayla talks to her sisters about her past abuse and coming forward to tell her mom about it.
"I never had that safe place to tell my mom anything. She just wasn't that person for me," Mikayla noted. "For my whole life, basically, I never had that safe place or felt comfortable telling her things. So when all these things were happening, it was, 'Okay, well, I don't have someone to tell that I feel comfortable telling that would take that information and do something good with it.'"
Mikayla claimed that she was being "manipulated and groomed by people that say, 'Oh, this is a fun game,' or 'We're doing this to practice for boys in the future,' or 'Don't tell your mom.'"
She added that sharing her truth with others is still a difficult situation to tackle. "I still haven't fully opened up to all the details of my sexual abuse even to like my husband, which he's very patient with me about," she explained. "But again, it's just this thing that's ingrained to me of, 'Well, no one's gonna believe me or I don't know.'"
While the conversation with her siblings on the show was difficult — with Mikayla noting it was the first time they spoke openly about her abuse — she added it was "a literal full-circle moment, 10 years later."
She credits her chronic illness for helping her tackle her mental health rather than shoving it further into the recesses of her mind.
"I think it was really my chronic illness, in the last three years, that really shifted my mindset on all of that and opening up," she said. "Because again, I think my body was truly screaming at me internally and then it just started coming to the surface."
If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
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