How She Survived A Challenging Childhood

Unfiltered Stories

In today's episode of Unfiltered Stories, we have the privilege of hearing from Earlina Gilford, who bravely shares her personal journey marked by unimaginable challenges. Earlina opens up about the profound trauma she faced from a young age, when two family members she should have been able to trust subjected her to deeply distressing acts. Despite the series of heart-wrenching events that followed, Earlina's story is a testament to the incredible resilience of the human spirit.   Through her courageous decision to share her experiences, Earlina sheds light on the importance of speaking out and seeking support in the face of adversity. Her message is one of hope and empowerment, reminding viewers that their past does not define their worth or limit their potential for a brighter future. Earlina's story serves as an inspiration to anyone who has faced traumatic circumstances, emphasizing that healing and growth are possible. Join us as we listen to Earlina's powerful story with empathy and respect, standing in solidarity with survivors everywhere.   #UnfilteredStories #SurvivorStories   Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.   Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.  By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.   🌅 FOLLOW US 🌅  Facebook ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredFB  Tiktok ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredTT  Snapchat ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredSN

Transcript

00:00My name is Erlina Denise Guilford-Shine, and I'm a survivor from child abuse, molest, rape,

00:07domestic violence. I am so honored to be on here. So I was about three years old when my mother

00:13walked away. She was setting the house on fire to get rid of us for some insurance money. We were

00:20living with my grandmother, so it was me and my brother. We had two uncles that lived there as

00:25well, and I can remember this so clearly like it was yesterday. Me and my sister laid in a bed

00:32together, and an uncle came in the room, and he started talking to me very nicely. We gotta listen

00:39to what they tell us to do, because if we didn't listen, then we would be sent away. He pulled

00:45the

00:45cover down. I got scared. He took his hand, and he started rubbing my leg. I started feeling

00:51uncomfortable with him rubbing on my leg, but I'm also scared to say anything because I'll get sent

00:59away. Oh God, I can't wait till he stopped, and as he was rubbing, he was getting higher where my

01:05privacy was at, and he was like, well, I need to see if you really clink down there, and then

01:11all of a

01:11sudden, he started touching me in the private area. It was so uncomfortable, and then all of a sudden,

01:19he stuck his finger, and I started crying, and he said, if I scream, I'll get a whooping, and he

01:25will

01:26whoop me, because they're allowed to spank us. My grandmother was a woman of God. She told us how to

01:33pray. If something I'm scared of, pray about it, and if I pray, God will stop anything bad from happening.

01:42I kept praying, but God wasn't doing anything, so this went on every time grandma left, and it happened

01:50repeatedly. These uncles were like 20, 19. I got 12 years old. That's when the penetration started.

01:59One night, he came in a room, and this time, my little sister was there, and I remember pulling

02:05the cover up. I didn't want him to touch my sister. I just did not want him to touch my

02:11sister. I was

02:12only 12 years old, and I was too young to fight them. He was a well-known football player for

02:19school

02:20and did things in school, so, you know, who was I? I was nobody. I was just a kid that

02:27my grandmother

02:28had to raise. I would hear stories of your mother, nothing but a prostitute. Your mother is a whore.

02:33Your mother is this. She don't love you. She don't want you. I heard that through cousins. I heard that

02:41through family members, and I literally heard this through my mother's own sisters, so after he got

02:49through with me, the other uncle started. It was the worst thing that could ever happen to me. I knew

02:57nothing about sex. My grandmother didn't have that in her house. We barely watched TV. She believed in us

03:05reading the Bible, praying, going to church. All I knew was something bad was happening to me. I can

03:12remember this. At the age of 10, I was told I was damaged goods. I was told that I was

03:19bony, ugly, black.

03:21Nobody would ever love me. Nobody ever would want me, so that's what I remember. That's the only thing

03:29I thought I was, and I would watch other cousins with their parents, with their mothers, with their

03:35fathers, and I was jealous, so every day I would be sexually molested, and this uncle, he started messing

03:45with me. Then he wanted to mess with my sister, and my brother used to always fight them, but he

03:54was

03:54too young, and I remember one time my brother tried to jump on his back because he caught my uncle

04:00on top

04:01of me having sex with me, and at that moment, I just knew my body was damaged. My brother, I

04:08remember

04:08my brother jumping on his back, and he beat my brother up where he choked my brother out. I thought

04:15he

04:15almost killed my brother, but he didn't, and I remember that, and I used to just tell my brother,

04:20don't worry about it. God gonna do something one day. Maybe God gonna get us out of this. Don't,

04:27I don't want you to get hurt, but my brother was my protector. He was my protector. He didn't want

04:33nothing to happen to me. The one uncle was still in the house. At this moment, I call it rape

04:38because

04:39when you say no, I got a little older. I was 14 at the time. Every time he would come

04:44when grandma

04:45leave or when my aunt leave the house, I will say no, but he was stronger than me. It was

04:52other cousins

04:53that was being molested, but they never wanted to talk about it. We would talk among each other,

04:59but they would never want to speak up. They got it to the point where I start believing something was

05:05wrong with me. Maybe I'm making this up, but it's really happening to me, but they will always say

05:12it never happened. They would say I will make up things, so this carried on in the home till I

05:18was

05:19like 14 years old, and I wanted help. My grandma was a good grandma. To me, she was everything to

05:26me.

05:26She never was mean to me. Only when I spoke up about what's happening to me. That's when grandma

05:34say, stop lying. Stop making up stuff. That ain't never happened, and one day, it was a nurse came

05:41in the room, and I liked her when I had an asthma attack and had to go to hospital, and

05:46she said,

05:46why are you so sad? And I said, because I live with my grandmother, and my mother don't want me.

05:54She was telling me she worked with a lot of kids that had been abused sexually. I started looking like,

05:59well, wonder if that's happening to me, and she said, is it happening to you? I said, I don't want

06:06to say because I don't want to get my grandmother in trouble. She was like, well, is somebody touching

06:11you? Is your grandmother touching you? I said, no, my grandmother ain't touching me, but I got a good

06:16grandma, but we got monsters in the house, and she's like, what you mean monsters? And I said, well,

06:22my grandma got sons, and they used to mess with us. She said, how long was this going on? I

06:28said,

06:29ever since I was 10 years old. She said, so it's been happening for four years? I said, yes. She

06:35said, you never said nothing to your grandmother? I froze up. If I say grandma knew, grandma can get

06:41in trouble. So I remember the nurse going out, and she coming back with someone, and that's when I

06:46totally froze up, because I told her I didn't want nobody else to know, so I felt she betrayed me,

06:53and this was, I guess, the hospital social worker. So because I clamped up, they wanted to investigate

07:00because I had already opened up my mouth and said it was uncles. So my grandmother got a visit. I

07:06remember before I even went home, they went to my grandmother's house. They came back to the hospital,

07:12and they talked to me, telling me to tell the story, what really happened, and I'm just saying this

07:18because I'm mad at someone in my home. I'm mad at my mother, and I'm just saying this so I

07:26can go be

07:26with my mother, and at this time, they weren't believing me. They weren't listening. I just said,

07:32forget it. So I said, no, it never happened. I made it up because they were making me feel I

07:37made it up.

07:38They weren't going to believe me. They wasn't believing me. Even when I said it happened,

07:43and they wanted to bring up that I was being a troubled teen. So I remember I had to go

07:48home,

07:48go back to my grandmother's house, and my grandmother sat down and talked to me, and she

07:53said, what goes on in this house stays in this house. Boys will be boys, and right there, I remember

08:00crying, and I remember confessing to my grandmother, telling her it happened. They were messing with me

08:08and I, my sister. They were messing with both of us. I called my sister Nina. I said, it's happening.

08:14They mess with me. They mess with Nina. They mess with our cousins. My cousin didn't want to tell.

08:21So my grandmother told me, next time I say something, she was going to beat me. She was

08:26going to spank me. Boys will be boys. They probably would just playing with me, and they would just,

08:31you know, boys do that. I was made to believe it was okay for family members.

08:38So I remember going to the cousin's house, and I met some friends that lived on the next street.

08:44It was a young man. I was 14. He was 14, and I remember meeting him, and I remember trusting

08:51him,

08:52and I remember telling him what I was going through. So he started encouraging me that he'll help me run

08:59away. He will help me. He will protect me. He will make sure nothing happened to me, and I remember

09:06running away because I found a friend that believed me, believed these things was happening in my

09:13grandmother's home. Believe me. So this is someone I really trust because he believed me. Now I feel

09:21he's going to protect me. He's going to make sure everything's okay, but I got to leave grandma house

09:27for him to help me. So I used to run away, and he would hide me in the basement at

09:34his aunt's house.

09:35It was his aunt's house, and he would take me in the basement all the time, bring me food. Just

09:40a real

09:41nice young man. I didn't know running away was going to get the law involved. At this time, I was

09:4915. Me and

09:50him started being boyfriend and girlfriend. I ended up in juvenile, I believe, three times for runaway. I

09:56was 15 years old, and I was still seeing this young man, still staying with my grandma, and I trust

10:03him

10:03to have sex with me. So this was my boyfriend. He used to tell me, when I get out of

10:09school, I'm going

10:11to the military. I'm going to come back, and I'm going to marry you. I'm going to get you away

10:16from all of

10:16this, and I'm going to give you a happy life. And he would tell me that all the time, every

10:22time we

10:22were together. Well, this one time, my uncle said I couldn't see him. I couldn't see him no more. He

10:28found out I was with this boy, and this boy touched me. This boy was having sex with me, so

10:35my uncle was

10:36mad. And I'm thinking to myself, if I'm this, you made me this way. I wasn't thinking about sex. You

10:43took

10:44my innocence. You did this to me. You made me want to lay down with somebody. I ran away because

10:51they

10:52said I couldn't see him. Next thing I know, the police come knocking on his aunt's door. The aunt

10:57did not know I was there because we were going to basement. He was trying to hide me up under

11:04a pile of

11:04clothes. I remember this. And I remember them taking me to juvenile. I remember I was sick. I was so

11:10sick in

11:11that place, throwing up sick, not knowing I was pregnant. And they told me I wasn't going back to my

11:18grandmother's house. And I cried because I couldn't go back to let the young man know that I was pregnant.

11:24And I

11:25never got to see him again. They sent me away at 15. And I got moved to Canton, Ohio to

11:32a foster home. So I had to go to a

11:35foster home and endure more abuse. I was raped while I was pregnant by the foster mother's boyfriend. She

11:44was mean to me. She had three children of her own. I had to always fight. First week, I fought

11:51her

11:52daughter. Her daughter was calling me black, ugly. I got sent to the basement. This wasn't a good basement.

11:59It was one of them basements where spider webs. And when it was wet, it was cement. It was just

12:05awful. I had to sleep in the

12:07basement for a week. They do welfare check. The children's service come, see how you're doing staying at this home.

12:16And I

12:16remember her fixing me up, combing my hair, went out and got me a little outfit to put on to

12:23make me look presentable. When the lady came to

12:26visit and I told her that I didn't like it there, the children's service, I said, I don't like it

12:32here.

12:32I got to fight her kids. I got to fight her children. Her kids jumps on me. They steal all

12:39my stuff. I didn't

12:40know I was pregnant. But the woman knew, the foster mom. And she said, she's lying. She's up here sleeping

12:47with the boys in the neighborhood. And she's pregnant. Because you know why she knew? She had me pee in

12:54a cup.

12:55And I didn't know she tests that I was pregnant. And they asked me who was I pregnant by. And

13:02I told

13:02them, my boyfriend in Ohio. And they told me I had to stay there till they find me a replacement.

13:08And that they did not believe me. She had this drunk boyfriend that would come over. And I remember

13:14her telling me to go in the basement to get the clothes out the dryer. I was six months pregnant.

13:20And it was at nighttime. She wakes me up out of my sleep to go in the basement and get

13:26clothes out the

13:27dryer. As I went in the basement and I went to turn around and he was standing over me. Her

13:33drunk

13:33boyfriend sexually raped me. She knew it from the screams. After he got through raping me, I come

13:42out of my stairs. She's sitting in the kitchen. And she throws a can at me. And she said, get

13:49out my

13:50house. So I left out her house with no clothes, no shoes on my feet. And this car pulls up.

14:00And it

14:00said, what's wrong? And I said, I got put out my home. They knew these people. They knew this lady.

14:07They knew she was mean. She was hateful. They told me to get in the car. And they took me

14:12to

14:13the police station. I told them what happened about her boyfriend raping me in the basement.

14:19You're talking about the system fails you. They took me back to the house. The house where I was

14:25sexually assaulted. And they had me standing there and they asked her, was I her child? She said,

14:32no, that's my foster child. She's a troubled girl. She's been fighting with my children,

14:39stealing from me. She's been lying. And the police had the nerve to ask them,

14:44would y'all like to press charges? She said, no, pregnant 15. And at that age, I went to seven

14:53foster homes. I can't keep the baby. You know, I'm pregnant. Can't keep it. You're still through

14:59children's services. You still can't keep kids while you're pregnant. I never got to

15:04be able to have that child or be with that child or nothing like that. You don't get to be

15:11around

15:11them at all. Trouble damaged goods. That's what I used to call myself. Every foster home I went to,

15:20but two, I was sexually molested, raped. I could say 20 of them. I felt like I had a tattoo

15:27on my skin saying that I was nothing but a piece of meat. And I remember them sending me to

15:34another

15:35foster home. That was the last one, the 22. That was bad. The father and the brother tried to gang

15:42rape me. I didn't even want to dress provocative, have my shirt open, nothing. I wanted to always wear

15:48pants, long shirts, you know, look like a little tomboy. Nothing worked. And I remember when they did,

15:55remember I found that number. My brother gave me a number, got that number. And I called my brother.

16:01And I ran away, went to the phone booth, called my brother, told him what happened. But I didn't know

16:07I was getting my brother in trouble. He was on probation and he came and he fought these people.

16:12And my brother got locked up again. But the good thing about it, I was able to leave that home.

16:17Another foster home came up. That one, I got real sick. I started becoming suicidal because I felt

16:25I'm never going to have a good life. I took some medicine that gave me a severe asthma attack. I

16:32believe this was God at this time. And I ended up in the hospital and I was there a long

16:37time.

16:37And I remember them coming in the room and said, they're going to have to remove my tonsils

16:41and all of this because I damaged my lung. I damaged myself pretty bad. And it was another patient

16:47in another room walking past my hospital room, heard me crying, heard me denying to take the medicine

16:56that the nurse wanted to give me. And the woman said, could I talk to her? And this is why

17:02I say it was

17:02God. And she was telling me I had to take the medicine to get better. She sat next to my

17:08bed.

17:08She said, if I stayed with you, would you take it? And I said, yeah. This woman laid in the

17:15bed

17:16with me. And I told her I was scared. I said, if I take a medicine, fall asleep, one of

17:23the

17:23men in the hospital was going to take advantage of me. I was scared if I closed my eyes, somebody

17:29going

17:30to rape me, somebody going to sexually assault me. This woman took me home from the hospital

17:35and she adopted me. She said I would never go to another home and that she was going to protect

17:41me.

17:41And she had four children. I was scared. Why she want me? She got kids. You know,

17:46is her sons going to try to mess with me? I met her children and we fell in love with

17:52each other.

17:53Best family I ever can ask for. I was her daughter. And that's the way it went to the day

17:59she passed away. Now, did my life in good later? No. Cause when I got older and I moved out

18:06on my

18:07own, I went to school, I went to college. I didn't know how to have a relationship with a man.

18:13I did

18:13not learn a man to love me, but one. And that was the young man that protected me that said

18:20he was going

18:20to marry me that I'd never seen, never seen him. Didn't know where he was at no more. I felt

18:26he went to

18:27the military when he got out of school and maybe got another wife, another family. So I never seen

18:33him. I had three more children after that, that I raised. I had worthless men. I just did not know

18:42how to pick them. My father wasn't in my life. My father was an alcoholic. I ended up being a

18:48single

18:48mother. I ended up getting married later. I got married to the wrong husband. I would confide in him

18:56about things I went through when I was young. And he, when he get mad at me, he would throw

19:02it up in

19:02my face and say, that's why your mama didn't want you. That's why you got raped. The only reason why

19:08I was able to be out of that domestic violence, someone took his life. God bless him. He going to

19:13be a good husband to somebody else, but he wasn't a good husband to me. He tried to sleep with

19:19my

19:19daughter. My daughter got of age. He tried to sleep with my daughter. So I'm feeling that, um,

19:25the enemy tried, the devil tried to bring that back in my life. Like what happened in to me,

19:32I felt that I still wasn't worthy of the things I needed to go through. I felt the things that

19:37happened to me is supposed to happen to me because I was not a favor of God. When I was

19:44going through this

19:45bad place, I remember this as plain as day, I was ready to give up. I felt bad that the

19:50situation

19:51happened, that my husband came on to my daughter to try to sleep with her. And I felt like I

19:57couldn't

19:58protect that from happening. And I started drinking and I said, I'm going to take all these pills

20:04and drink these drinks. You know, I get on social media, ready to end my life, writing letters to my

20:10kids and my thing thing. And I looked and I said, let me see what this is. And it was

20:16the young man

20:17that saved me when I was 15 years old. He said, is this Niecy Guilford? And I said, yes, is

20:25this

20:25Shug? Because his name was Shug and my name was Niecy nicknames. And I said, is this Shug? He said,

20:33yeah.

20:33And I said, oh my God. I, that's the only time I knew that was, I knew it was God.

20:40He found me 40

20:41something years later. He never was married. He had children though, but never was married. And he,

20:48we started talking on social media and we started writing each other. And I went to visit him and we

20:54started talking. And I finally broke down and told him when I was 15, I ended up, when I left

21:01him,

21:01I was pregnant, never knew I was pregnant. And what happened to that child? It was a girl,

21:06she passed away. She had severe asthma like me as a child. So she didn't make it. And I found

21:14that

21:15out years later. And we talked, we dated for two years and he made me his wife. He kept that

21:22promise.

21:23And we married the best husband ever. Being with him, it raised all the pain that I went through,

21:30all the bad relationships I went through. It was like he was there just to, to be that angel on

21:36earth. And now he's my angel in heaven. I lost him March the 14th of this year to cancer. And

21:44I never

21:45knew he had cancer. He didn't want me to know he had it. He did the best he could. He,

21:51he gave me the

21:52world. He took good care of me, provided for me. And I was sick at the time. I was on

21:58oxygen. I wanted to

22:00tell you how good God is. I was in a three month coma. The doctors had told my children to

22:06go bury me

22:07because I was brain dead. If I woke up out of the coma, I would be a vegetable. I would

22:12not be able

22:13to function. And how I had that coma, I had a severe asthma attack. No one was home. No one

22:20found me till

22:21the next day. So I was in a coma, New Year's Eve. And I woke up March the 21st, three

22:28months later.

22:29And I walked, I taught, I did everything. The doctor said I wouldn't remember my children. All of this,

22:37I wouldn't be able to eat, walk, do anything. And I'm here today to say, I had to ask God

22:43to forgive me

22:44for ever doubting him because he gave me that story to share. All the things I went through,

22:50all the tests and trials, all the pain was for his glory. Because if I did not walk in them

22:57shoes,

22:57whoever walking in my shoes today would not know that God is a healer. He's a deliverer. He loves

23:04you. He will bring you out of the darkness. He will release you from the bondage. He will release

23:11them change if you don't give up on God. Today, I am an author. I am an award winner. I'm

23:18a producer.

23:19I write. I make movies that's on Tubi, that's on Amazon, that's on Peacock. I got movies still

23:27coming out. I done did seven movies. I wrote a movie of my life story called Angry Tears. I wrote

23:34a movie

23:35that's coming out this year of my love story with my husband that I just lost,

23:40how we found each other 40-something years later. God is able. Never give up. I'm walking with oxygen

23:47and a walker now, but let me tell you, God's been doing some things. I'm loving myself now because

23:54if I can't love me, I can't love no one else. I was able to forgive my biological mother before

24:00she

24:00passed. I took care of her before she passed. I went and got my mother and brought her and took

24:07care

24:07forever till God called her home. So I forgave all my uncles. I forgave every man that touched me,

24:14and I was able to love a man, love a man dearly before God called him home two months ago.

24:22Never

24:22give up on love. Never give up on love. Never give up on you. You have a story to tell

24:26because I'm here to tell mine.

24:29Never give up on you guys.

24:30You

24:32You

24:34You

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