There’s a huge amount of bravery that is needed to post one’s secrets or story online. Whatever the reasons may be for doing it, talking openly about something that happened to you and giving others the power to judge takes courage.
One TikTok user came forward with her own story about how she had learned she’d been kidnapped, labeled a missing person for over 40 years, and her strength of character shines through in her retelling.
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Sometimes, a title or caption of a video can grab your attention before the actual contents do.
This happened to many when TikTok user @thebeardedmom posted a video with the caption “how I learned I had been kidnapped.”
The story that ensued was nothing short of wild.
She explained that she discovered this fact at 26 years old, when she was, “[…] in a healthy place in my life for the first time.”
She was preparing to get married and had two children. She had never met her biological mother before and decided she wanted to search for her.
She knew little of her mother but felt compelled to contact the sheriff’s office of her hometown to see if they had any records on her.
She said that once she gave the sheriff the information, he instead became extremely interested in *her.*
Their conversation shifted gears towards her life and her information, and afterwards, the sheriff asked her to sit down as he had something to tell her.
This was when he told her she was a missing person and had been since 1980. The police investigation records were archived, but she had in fact been kidnapped and reported missing.
This one video sparked a sprawling 14-part series where she explains the whole story, including details about her kidnapping and her life up to this point.
She learned that her mother actually sold her to another family when she was very young, and her grandmother knew where she was but reported her missing and participated in the investigation as if she didn’t.
She was raised in her abducted family for years before she was eventually moved into state custody after being given a new name and social security number.
She also answered many questions, seeming very open about the experience and grateful it’d gotten as much attention as it did.
One person in particular commented about how she seemed so well adjusted and asked what helped her cope. She credited, among other things, “Good friends, good times, more good memories than bad memories.”
Her journey is still continuing, with some more recent videos revealing she has met her biological father. Courageously posting this first video changed her world, for which she seems extremely grateful.
