I recently had the great joy of connecting with Darlene Lekowski this past February, and I was immediately struck by her warmth, courage, and big-hearted presence. Darlene is an Amazon #1 best-selling author, speaker, and business leader who has transformed decades of silence into a powerful platform for truth, healing, and advocacy.
After more than fifty years of silence surrounding the Sibling S*xual Trauma and Abuse she endured in childhood, she made the life-changing decision to step into her truth and share her story publicly - ultimately prevailing in a civil lawsuit brought against her by her own brother. Her memoir, Shattering Silence: A Story of Survival, Justice and the Power of Telling the Truth, is an Amazon Best Seller in multiple categories and is also available as an audiobook in her own voice.
One of the things I love most from her work is a simple but powerful truth she shares: the secret is now hers to own, and own it she has.
I’m so grateful to introduce her and her story to you here.
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RACHEL: What inspired you to start writing about/exploring this topic?
DARLENE: At 58 years old, I won a defamation civil lawsuit against one of my two oldest brothers who s*xually assaulted me from the ages of 7 to 12 in attempt to silence me again.
I counter-sued him for the same and on February 5, 2024, a unanimous jury in less than one hour decided I was telling the truth, my brother was lying and I won both cases. But I was still angry and bitter and knew I needed to heal more.
So I went fully public on Siblings Day April 2024 and that October is when I started writing Shattering Silence. I did this to not only heal me but create a path so that I may help others along their journey.
RACHEL: What key insights or lessons have you learned through your experiences with this subject?
DARLENE:
When Survival Becomes a Cage
For decades, I measured safety by control. If I could outthink every situation, I could keep the chaos of my childhood from repeating itself. But control is not the same as peace.
When you live your life constantly fighting unseen enemies, everyone starts to look like an opponent - even the people who love you. My silence and fear built a prison that looked, from the outside, like success. I had a career, a family, and a life that most would call enviable. Inside, I was still that little girl begging to be believed.
In court, the weight of half a century of fear met the light of truth. The jury believed me. I won. I thought victory would feel like peace, but it didn't. The anger, shame, and bitterness I'd buried didn't dissolve with the verdict. It began to leak out - especially toward those I loved most. That was when I understood: survival had carried me this far, but it could not take me home.
The Breaking Point
The lowest moment of my life wasn't in that courtroom - it was in a restaurant parking lot in Charleston, SC, when I hit my daughter in the head during a PTSD episode, thinking she was the brother who raped me.
That moment became my mirror. It allowed me to see that trauma doesn't end when the abuse stops - it ends only when we stop running from it.
What triggered it wasn't what was happening in front of me - it was what had happened fifty years earlier. My mind replayed a child's terror of abandonment; I believed, for an instant, that my daughter leaving her brother meant she was abandoning me as well and I'd lose her forever. I saw my brother's face where hers should have been. That day, I hit the person I loved most because I had never truly faced the depth of my pain. It shattered me. My daughter told me that unless I got real help, she couldn't have me in her life. And she was right.
Letting Go: The Second Act
The second act of my life began the day I chose to let go. Letting go meant more than forgiving my abusers or accepting the past. It meant dismantling the strategies that had once kept me alive but were now keeping me stuck: the obsession with control, the need to win at all costs, and the belief that silence equals safety.
Letting go meant surrendering the narrative that being strong meant being unbreakable. It meant learning that vulnerability isn't weakness - it's truth in motion. I started to release the emotional residue that clung to me like black tar: anger, shame, resentment, and bitterness.
All that weight wasn't about me anymore - it was about my brothers, about a history that no longer deserved ownership of my present. It was messy and painful. Healing always is. But once I began purging the darkness, light had somewhere to enter.
What It Means to "Live Forward"
Living Forward isn't just a slogan - it's a daily practice. It means waking up and choosing presence over fear, hope over control, faith over perfection.
It's not erasing the past; it's learning from it and refusing to let it dictate who you are today. To live forward, I had to cultivate seven inner tools that now define my healing mindset: Resilience, Optimism, Courage, Perseverance, Self-awareness, Self-help, and Hope.
These principles became my compass. They guided me away from shame and toward agency. They helped me rebuild relationships, especially with my husband, Tom - my "Viking," whose steadiness has helped me find my own.
Three Lessons in Letting Go
The Charleston Incident taught me that trauma left unhealed becomes transmitted pain. I realized that if I didn't surrender my rage, I would lose the people who mattered most. Finally leaving my first husband after years of trying showed me that I don't have to cling to what makes me small, just because I once believed that's all I deserved. I am worthy of peace, of kindness, and of more. And marrying my second husband, Tom, taught me that real love requires trust. The more I let go, the stronger and more joyful our marriage and my life became.
RACHEL: What challenges do you think people face when dealing with this topic and how can they overcome them?
DARLENE:
The Power of Speaking the Truth
There is no easy way to expose a terrible truth. To say I was s*xually abused by my brothers still makes my body tremble. Even the word incest still triggers me. But I learned something miraculous happens when you name your pain: it begins to lose its power. Every time I told someone, they believed me. That truth shattered fifty years of silence. It also connected me to an extraordinary community of survivors - through organizations like 5WAVES, A Brave Step, Thriving Survivors, SSTA Aware, Blue Borage, and AILA. These communities reminded me that I was truly never alone. They offered what trauma steals first - belonging.
RACHEL: Are there any common myths or misunderstandings about this topic that you'd like to address?
DARLENE:
The Myth of Closure
People often ask if I feel healed. My answer is always the same: healing is not a destination; it's a direction. There's no finish line where all the pain disappears. There's only the daily practice of choosing peace over bitterness, empathy over anger, forgiveness over control. Some days, I still stumble. I still get triggered. I still have weekly nightmares. But I no longer let those moments define me. They're reminders of how far I've come - and how committed I am to living forward. Silence and healing are intertwined = one imprisons you, the other sets you free.
Why Silence Hurts Us All
Silence doesn't protect families - it fractures them. It doesn't spare reputations - it destroys souls. For generations, families like mine believed that keeping secrets maintained dignity. What it actually maintained was pain. Every time a survivor breaks their silence, they don't just reclaim their own story - they create a ripple that invites others to do the same. That's how cultures change.
That Sibling Sexual Trauma and Abuse (SSTA) or Incest is Not Very Common and Only Happens in Poor Families
This notion couldn't be further from the truth. Childhood sexual abuse does not discriminate - it crosses every line of race, gender, income, education, and status, existing in every kind of family, including the ones that look the most "perfect" from the outside.
In fact, research indicates that 1 in 25 children are currently getting sexually abused by an older sibling. That's as common as a child in a classroom with a food allergy. Research also shows that SSTA is believed to be the most common form of intrafamilial child abuse in the world, yet it's the least talked about because survivors are so afraid. "If I tell, I will destroy my family. If I don't tell, I will destroy myself". And that's exactly what was happening to me until I went fully public. It's an incredibly difficult dynamic in addition to surviving the abuse.
RACHEL: What resources, tools, or next steps would you recommend for readers who want to dive deeper into this topic?
DARLENE: Remember, you are Not Alone. In my journey, I've encountered many SSTA and sexual abuse assistance organizations, many of which I currently volunteer for.
They are listed in the Resources section of my website: https://darlene-lekowski.com/resources/
Perhaps some of these Resources can help you in your journey as well.
Final Thought: Letting go doesn't mean forgetting. It means releasing the power that pain and that person once held over you. Each time I tell my story, I let go a little more. Each time another survivor tells theirs, the world becomes a little safer - and the silence shatters a little more. That's what it means to let go to live forward!!
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What stands out most for me in her story is the courage it takes to tell the truth not just once, but over and over again, especially when silence has been the survival strategy for so long. There is something profoundly powerful in the way she names both the devastation of what happened and the complexity of what healing actually requires afterward.
I am especially moved by her honesty that winning in court did not automatically create peace. That truth matters, because so many people assume healing should be linear or immediate once validation arrives. Her story gently disrupts that myth and reminds us that the deeper work is what comes after truth is spoken - learning to release control, soften survival strategies, and choose “living forward” one moment at a time.
I also deeply respect Darlene's clarity that silence does not protect families - it fractures them. Her voice is part of that larger breaking open that helps others feel less alone and more able to speak.
To healing,
Rachel
P.S. If you're ready to take the next step in healing from abuse and would like to explore enrolling in the Beyond Surviving program, start by applying for a Discover Your Genuine Self Session.
UPCOMING EVENTS
brought to you in partnership with CPTSD Foundation
As survivors of childhood sexual abuse, we bring certain issues to our intimate relationships. Some of the issues that complicate intimate relationships for us are power, control, trust, and self-esteem. This month, we will explore patterns in our intimate relationships that have a lot to do with our childhood abuse.
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changed my life. Once I began forgiving myself, I no longer needed to stay chained to bitterness toward the men who hurt me. Forgiveness became less about excusing them and more about freeing myself. I realized I could remember what happened without allowing it to own me. That freedom became a major part of my healing journey and my relationship with God.
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