Stolen Innocence: Reclaiming My First Decade

I didn't know I could ask for help.
Not because I didn't want it but because the idea didn't exist.

There was no word for "help" in my head.
No understanding that someone else could step in and change something.
Things just... were.

I didn't know what a friend was,
but I had stuffed animals that sat with me like they were something close to it.
I gave them roles I couldn't name.
I wasn't lonely in a way I could recognize
I just existed in my own world because I didn't know there was another option.

Sometimes I remember thinking I didn't want to wake up.
But even that wasn't what it sounds like now.
I didn't understand what "not waking up" meant.
I just knew I wanted something to stop,
or change,
or be different
and I didn't know how to ask for that either.

It wasn't until later I realized
there were things I was supposed to know.
That other people had words, systems, ways out.

I didn't feel behind then
because I didn't know there was anything to be behind in.

I just was.

In Stolen Innocence: Reclaiming My First Decade, Paige opens the door to the hidden chapters of a life that began with silence, survival, and stolen trust. From being abandoned and passed between dangerous hands to sleeping under motel mattresses and fleeing Child Protective Services, Paige's early years were shaped by chaos, secrecy, and fear.

But this is not just a story of what was taken-it's a testimony of what was reclaimed.

Told through poetic prose and raw recollections, Paige shares her journey from a girl who didn't know the alphabet at age ten to a student who wept every summer when school ended. With courage and vulnerability, she revisits the courts, classrooms, and quiet victories that helped her fight for safety, education, and a voice of her own.

This memoir is a tribute to every child who had to grow up too fast-and a reminder that even in the darkest places, hope quietly waits to be found.