Teen shares her hellish story of abuse as a way to fight back | 911

Imagine spending your life running and hiding.

Imagine having to change identities several times just to stay a step ahead of an abuser.

That's what life has been like for a local teen and her mother trying to save themselves from an abuser.

But now this brave young lady says she’s taking her life back, by taking a stand.

“Sometimes you have five minutes and you can’t say goodbye,” says the teen who we have decided to call ‘Melody’ to protect her identity.

Melody, at 14, has what she calls an 'old soul' unfortunately because of traumatic life experiences that began at the hands of her father when she was still in her mother’s womb.

“He ended up going in another room and popping pills and alcohol and he came out and proceeded to choke her and he had her in a headlock and she was dying and he said he was going to rip me out of her,” says Melody.

The cycle of domestic violence raged for years until Melody's mom took off with her and then the kidnappings began. 

Melody says they lived in constant fear of her drug addicted, gang member father. She says it became impossible to be a normal child.  She just couldn't relate to other kids at school, let alone feel safe.

“I couldn’t take it,” says Melody.  “There were just certain things that trigger memories or things I hadn’t thought about or things I had blocked.”

11 of her 14 birthdays have come in domestic violence shelters and still this heroic girl is somehow able to appreciate the joy when it comes.

“My mom on my birthday she always did something.  I never really asked for anything because I knew we needed the money, but she would always make sure maybe I’d get a CD or something and that was a great birthday to me,” says Melody.

Now this battered family has found refuge at the Eastside Domestic Violence Program and a group of teens called Voices has become a place where Melody has found kids her age who've lived similar hells.

“They understand me,” says Melody.  “I mean I can’t relate to kids my own age because of this.  I don’t talk about Justin Bieber you know?”

EDVP Executive Director Barbara Langden says giving kids and other victims of domestic violence a chance to tell their story is a huge part of the healing.

“It is actually the striping down of a person’s soul, the stripping down of who you are and sometimes you can’t see the bruises and the breaking arm and things like that but it is the intensity of a person just disappearing,” says Langden.

Melody's courage and eloquence about her painful life experience hasn't gone unnoticed.  She has been invited to tell her story to hundreds of people this Saturday at the Eastside Domestic Violence Programs auction fundraiser in Bellevue.

“I just don’t want others to go through what I went through, but I know I can’t change that because there are so many cases and there are so many sick people out there.  But I can do something, raise awareness for right now,” says Melody.

Tickets for the auction are still available at EDVP.org.  

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Listen to full KOMO Newsradio story here.