— Dawn Jackson · FICGN Narrative Fellows
But the backpack I actually carried was invisible. At five years old, I was carrying the jagged, corroded tools of sexual abuse, physical violence, and incest. My home was a war zone, and I was being groomed into a silence that no child should ever have to hold. While other girls were using crayons and color pencils to paint the world of their lives pretty, to learn and grow, I was learning survival skills: to endure physical beatings that made me compliant, the violation of my body, and to be quiet about all of it because what happens in this house stays in this house. This silence was the cage built around me, and I bore the weight of suffocating secrets I was never meant to carry.
The system failed me long before I reached adulthood — by misidentifying my forced silence as a lack of ability, and my trauma as a lack of intelligence. When educational institutions mistake the symptoms of trauma for a lack of cognitive ability, they don't just fail a student; they build a direct bridge to the criminal legal system. I blame a system that saw my silence as a deficit rather than a cry for help. It was a trajectory set by those who were supposed to protect me, but instead reinforced the "special ed" trap.
The truth of my potential wasn't revealed by the system. It was revealed by my own resilience. While incarcerated, I gave myself the opportunity to go back to school and educate myself. This was my true reclamation. While society saw only a file, I was doing the heavy lifting of reclaiming my mind and my future. I would later learn through this education that silence has a core designed to protect abusers. If it wasn't for that academic space I carved out for myself, I would have never known that my silence was a structural shield for others. I earned my high school diploma while facing the pain that had followed me since that pink backpack. I proved I was never "slow" — I was simply unsupported.
However, doing that work while behind a wall shouldn't be the requirement for a first chance. When I was finally released, I found that those childhood labels had only grown heavier, manifesting as systemic barriers to reentry. We face the invisible wall of high unemployment and a devastating lack of gender-responsive support systems. Legislators and policymakers make life-altering decisions about us every day, yet they often do so without us in the room. We are told we have a "second chance," but for women who have survived the intersections of sexual abuse, domestic violence, and incarceration, we were never given a first.
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To move toward true justice, we must provide a specific kind of grace for justice-impacted women — and for the youth currently walking the same path I once did. I am advocating with urgency, from the community to the floors of the Assembly, for a mandate that goes beyond simple job placement. We need legislated on-the-job training programs, community-led focus groups, and guaranteed pathways to meaningful employment. More importantly, we need Survivor Grants — dedicated funding for women who are overcomers of sexual abuse and domestic violence to access education and trauma-informed professional development.
Today, I stand as a student at Rutgers University pursuing my Bachelor's in Social Work, and as the Founder and Executive Director of From Darkness to Dawn, LLC. I am a public speaker, a mentor, and a dedicated advocate for survivors and overcomers of sexual abuse and domestic violence. I am no longer the silenced child. I am a Lived Experience Expert.
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The system tried to fail me twice — first in the classroom, and then in the courtroom — but it did not succeed. I am home now, mentoring and advocating for Survivor Grants, focus groups, on-the-job training, and employment, to ensure that every other justice-impacted survivor of sexual abuse and domestic violence is finally afforded the fair chance they deserve. To the assemblymen, the courts, and the educators: respect and inclusion are not optional. We are the architects of our own resilience.
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One national moment.
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