Whenever people told her to get help, mostly court-ordered by a judge, Cain would seek treatment, but the difference this time, she said, was that she found something that worked for her.
“The program helped me deal with what happened to me instead of what was wrong with me,” she said. “All the other programs I went to weren’t strength-based. They were always talking about my weaknesses and not my strengths, and we all have strengths.”
In addition, Cain had a new-found relationship with her Saviour, Jesus Christ, and had things set in place to make it possible to keep her daughter and live a better life.
Cain responded well to the trauma program, to the extent that she was asked to represent the program. It was at this point when she began sharing her story. It was difficult at first, but once she did, opportunities began to open up for her.
“I was involved in one film called Behind Closed Doors, a film about four women who were retraumatized in the mental health system. It was hard (to tell my story) in the beginning because as I was speaking it I was living it again,” Cain said. “But when it becomes your purpose, there is something spiritual that happens when you tell it. And it’s not painful anymore, it’s necessary.”
Addiction often severs relationships, and rebuilding those bonds is difficult to do. Cain, who is now happily married, recently released a book called Relationships After Trauma, a follow up to her first book Healing Neen – which gives a detailed account of her life.
“You’re always being triggered. Just because we heal doesn’t mean we forget. So we have to put certain tools in place to help us self-regulate,” she said. “So this book is an account of certain tools that I’ve had to develop to deal with motherhood, dating, marriage, being a child of God, and a friend.”
This July, Cain will be traveling to Nigeria to work with an organization helping women and girls who were kidnapped.
“The response from people in Nigeria to my story has been overwhelming. The number of messages I’ve gotten from people saying, ‘help me, help my sister, my brother, my mother…’ God has a purpose for me there and he is calling me to Africa,” she said. “He is really connecting to me to Africa in an amazing way and I’m so excited. So, I’m willing to go anywhere I can go to do as much as I can do in Africa because I feel it in my spirit.”
When all is said and done, Cain has a burning desire to help people and give them hope. And as the former team leader for the National Center for Trauma-Informed Care with the National Association of State Mental Health Program, she is using her expertise in trauma care to help provide others with the same resources she received 14 years ago.
Vimbai E. is a content marketer, ghostwriter, and the founder of The Weight She Carries. With hundreds of articles and stories publishing online, in print and for broadcast, her love of language and storytelling shines through every piece of writing that bears her name.