God Please, Change the Prophecy..

It’s so hard not to feel plagued by anger toward the people who were once closest to me. My entire life, I twisted myself into whatever mom and dad needed, learning early on that having desires only caused conflict in my home. I wasn’t allowed to want in my home: no hopes, dreams, or curiosity. Why? because wanting anything meant being labeled selfish by mom herself. Now, for the first time in 29 years I am broken and actively begging for support, only to be met with total abandonment and more abuse.

Instead of love, the people I trusted to support me throw my deepest childhood fears back in my face. I’ve been called greedy, selfish, evil, and sick. I am reminded constantly that I have no one, and I’m seen as some crazy loser for writing and sharing my life’s experiences on the internet because I don’t even know where else to turn.

My pain is treated like a defect to be checked away in a psychiatric ward. It seems like a cruel punishment for finally asking for what I’ve given them all along- love, presence, and emotional support.

I remain fearful for my physical safety. Saying that out loud only results in more gaslighting: “Maria, no one will actually hurt you.” I’m not sure why so many people are so certain that someone wouldn’t want to hurt me, when I have medical documentation proving how badly I was injured by the people I am scared of..

You see, on July 5th, 2026, I did what anyone in danger is told to do: I called 911 because a man was following me down South Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, where I live. Instead of protecting me, the responding officers took the man’s word, arrested me for public intoxication without administering a single sobriety test, and placed me in custody. There, the nightmare escalated when on-duty correctional guards, paid to maintain order, brutalized and raped me.

My head was slammed into metal, repeatedly. I never spit on anyone, and yet a spit bag was placed over my head as female guards shoved their fingers up my private parts in an effort to prove that I’d smuggled drugs into Travis County Jail. I was cuffed so tight to a straight chair that I lost feeling in my left thumb and wrist. Nerve damage is usually permanent, and often times my arm is still sleepy from the beating I took in the jail that night.

I remember feeling confusion- I was asking when I could make a phone call and I was trying desperately to connect with one person that might’ve been human enough to have mercy on me. Mercy never came that night, but I somehow survived. What I didn’t expect was to feel so let down by my family. My mom, my dad, my cousins, my aunts and uncles that seemingly have no care or concern that this happened to me. That is the toughest part of all of this- dealing with the emotional aftermath, all on my own.

I am so deeply traumatized, and the fear I carry every single day is exhausting. I cope the only ways I know how: through running, humor, leanings on my online support system, and sharing my story right here. But the more openly I write, the angrier my failed support system becomes.

The people who hurt me are now throwing law suits and legal threats at me, desperate to weaponize the system to force my silence. The irony is overwhelming: they acted horribly, yet they are terrified of the truth being named. They call it defamation because the reality of what they did is too monstrous for them to face themselves.

I have proof for everything I say. I have no interest in fabricating a tragedy, and why would anyone want this to be their life? I would give anything for none of this to have happened. But it did. These experiences belong to me, and sharing my story isn't just my right, it's how I choose to reclaim my life.

I am so scared. I am so traumatized, and yet I have this overwhelming gratitude that I get to experience this life. There are so many hard moments in my day. Emails from lawyers telling me I’m making defamatory claims against their clients (I detest all of this and am actively fighting for my right to free speech), calls from Baylor Scott and White and collection agencies trying to collect for medical and student loan debts that I can’t focus on right now, because I’m just trying to focus on my survival, and knocks on my door from police who are (allegedly) using swatting as a way to re-traumatize me in the aftermath of a severe brutalization in Travis County’s Jail on July 5th.

I’m clinging to my faith, to my Milo, and to brighter hope for the future. I’m not sure why or how my life took such a severe turn, but what goes down must always come back up. Today is hard. This season is hard. I am praying for reprieve soon.