Victory! How one Jamaican woman overcomes trauma of rape, depression and suicide

McGawn-Francis grew up in a single parent home, with four siblings and experienced very challenging times. At 16 years old, she was raped, and the trauma and after effects of her ordeal, plunged her into deep depression to the point where on several occasions she attempted to end her life.

“Up until my early adult years and even after I got married, I was haunted by this experience. At the time I didn’t get the help I needed. It was difficult because I continued to have flashbacks of the ordeal,” McGawn-Francis said in an interview with Old Harbour News.

While attending college and university she was constantly taunted by her past. As the constant reminder began to interfere with her quality of life, McGawn-Francis reached out for help. “I started receiving counselling and initially that helped. However, during the sessions I held some things back and after a while I rescinded and went right back to where I had started,” she said.

McGawn-Francis got married at the age of 22, and her husband, aware of the difficulties she faced, encouraged her to seek help from the church. She began attending the Worship and Faith International Fellowship, located on Old Harbour Road, St. Catherine.

“The counselling did what it could but I needed spiritual guidance. Year after year I started to experience a transformation through the word of God,” she said.

She was led to start writing her experiences, in an effort to help others with similar experiences. In 2017, she released her first children’s book, titled Hope and in February 2020, she launched another titled A Girl Scarred: A Journey To Overcoming.

These books and others have been published under her own publishing company, Yahweh’s Anointed Publishing, where she says writing comes to life one page at a time. The company also gives persons who want to write the opportunity to do so, providing lessons from start to finish on how to accomplish this goal.

“God did it for me, he can do it for others as well. God is saying you are no longer in the past and He can help to heal their hearts,” McGawn-Francis said.

In the summer of 2019, she was prompted to organise the Victory Over Past Women’s Conference, that was scheduled for March 14, 2020. With the onset of the restrictions placed on public gatherings by the government with the current global COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the event was postponed.

With several notable sponsors and over 300 people anticipated, McGawn-Francis is confident that when the event is hosted, it will be a success.

“It was reasonably priced at $1000 per person, and as such more persons could afford to attend. Although it was dubbed as a women’s conference, there were men who contacted us expressing an interest in attending,” McGawn-Francis said.

“The proceeds from the event will be placed in a revolving fund that will help persons who need intervention and counselling,” she added. 
According to McGawn-Francis, we can help each other. “It’s about healing the world and us by taking tiny steps to make the planet a better, more compassionate place,” she said.