Delivered From False Identities by Mandy Leigh

Hello my name is Mandy Leigh and I am the “Arise and Shine” Transformation Coach but I was not always this way … I was broken, lost, helpless, and desperate for the better part of my life.

During my childhood years, I suffered so much trauma and I was exploited sexually as a young girl, which groomed me for the nightmare I ended up living through in my young adult life.

At 16, I was trafficked and brutally raped. This changed me on a fundamental level. At 19, I ended up in the commercial sex industry, where I stayed trapped for ten years. This kind of trauma changes you. Deeply, inherently, foundationally – and many times forever.

The first attack of the enemy is always on our identity. He does this through the tool of trauma. The traumatic events of life are tools of the enemy to keep the sons and daughters of God in bondage and believing the lie that they are broken and damaged.

Trauma is not just what happened to you. It is passed through the bloodline and is an inherited identity that is a collective compilation of what happened to you and your entire family line since the garden of Eden. And this is what makes up our false identity. The lies that these traumas cause us to believe about ourselves have also been passed down from generation to generation.

During all of this trauma and the resulting disturbance in my identity, multiple false identities were formed. I learned how to be a different version of myself at home to avoid abuse, a different version at school to avoid punishment, a different version of myself for guys to get their attention, and an even different version of myself with friends.

Identity Disturbance leads to a lifetime of habitual patterns that lead to abusive and toxic situations. This is how I ended up being trafficked at 16 and then coerced into the commercial sex industry at 19. This life led me into a series of traumatic events, an endless cycle of toxic and broken relationships, addiction, and mental illness.

I was misdiagnosed bipolar in 2012 and placed on the medication merry-go-round but it just made me worse. In 2013, I met a Christian therapist and she discovered I was not bipolar at all but that I was suffering from the effects of unresolved trauma. She diagnosed me with PTSD and DID, which is a form of multiple personality disorder. We worked through my traumas, one by one, through clinical modalities such as EMDR, but I was not getting any better. I was getting worse.

In 2017, I had to have life-altering surgery, my second marriage imploded and I lost my brother in a horrifically tragic way. My psyche split and my alter ego took the primary position of control in my life. It was a very dark time in my life. In 2018, I fell and injured my neck. It was during this time that God got ahold of me and I began to cry out to Him. He orchestrated a healing journey of epic proportions for me that was nothing short of miraculous.

A part of this journey was an inner healing retreat I attended in 2019. It was during the second session, The Perfect Sacrifice, that God shook the foundations of my soul that allowed the prison doors to shake free. During this session, a video was aired of the Passion of Christ. As I watched my Savior, beaten and battered, shamed, slandered, SLAUGHTERED, my heart broke. The amount of love pouring out of this sacrifice for me hit me like thousand tons of bricks. I sobbed uncontrollably as the scope of what Jesus did for me truly hit me into the very core of my soul. It was during this time that the single most empowering truth of my entire life was revealed. Jesus endured the most horrendous traumas any human being could ever endure on a mental, emotional, psychological, and physical level during his time on earth. No other human being has ever in the history of mankind suffered anything close to the atrocities that Jesus suffered. Yet, He sits on the Right Hand of God the Father, completely whole, not broken by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. While his torment would easily target him for such a disorder, He stands free with God the Father. Sin and shame do not plague him although he bore all the sin and all the pain and shame in his death on the cross for all of humanity. But the truth is that Jesus did not stay dead, he rose again. Sin did not overcome Him, He is alive and resurrected and sits, on the Right Hand of His Father in Heaven. And God gave me these words: He said, THE SAME POWER LIVES IN YOU. THE SAME POWER!!!!!!!!! And this is where the game changed. In this single moment, the magnitude of what God gives to all of us as His children became real to me and I took my life back.

Today, I am an international trauma healing coach, a sought-after retreat and conference speaker, and an author. I am in the process of releasing my first book, called “The Same Power: A Personal Journey of Inner Healing and Deliverance” which is my full disclosure testimony of my journey through inner healing and deliverance. I am a certified deliverance minister and I serve on the inner healing team with the ministry Deeper Still. I also serve with a ministry called F.R.E.E., which stands for Freedom and Restoration for Everyone Enslaved. This ministry serves women that are coming out of commercial sexual exploitation and also raises awareness in the community on Human Trafficking.

My testimony is a full circle, powerful story of how God can turn even our darkest hours into something for His Glory. It indeed showcases how we all can certainly believe in the impossible.

About the Author…

Mandy Leigh is a certified Transformation Coach, with a focus on trauma recovery, based in northeastern Pennsylvania. She is a sought-after conference and retreat speaker and an author. She brings a unique approach to healing by combining the power of the supernatural with holistic healing methods and techniques to bring lasting relief and freedom. Visit Mandy’s website here.  Connect with Mandy on Facebook and Instagram.

The Christian Authors Network Speak Up Competition

The Speak Up Competition, sponsored by the Christian Authors Network, is a powerful source of hope and light for people all over the world. This year’s theme, “Expect the Impossible,” is a reminder that no matter how dark our situations may look, we always have hope because we know that all things are possible with God! The inspirational messages featured in this series are from the round one finalists. Stay tuned for updates as the competition progresses, and please pray with us that God will use this competition to bless and encourage His people. We know that the speak up community has the power to make a difference in this world, and we can’t wait to see what God does through us!