Woman recalls witnessing her abusive father brutally beating her mother - and the shock impact the heinous moment had on her life

Felicity Nicole was conscionable 10 years aged erstwhile she woke up 1 summertime greeting and recovered her mother crying connected nan surviving room level pinch humor moving down her face.

Her father, who had struck his woman pinch a crystal ashtray, was moving done nan location grabbing his container earlier being escorted extracurricular by her sister's boyfriend. Felicity's sister was connected nan telephone to 911.

'[My dad] wasn't saying overmuch to america kids arsenic we're watching nan chaos… and my mom was sitting connected nan level and she's crying, "Why me?" and her caput is divided wide open, and there's conscionable humor going down her face,' nan now 46-year-old recalled to DailyMail.com from her Chicago home.

Her parents' matrimony was tumultuous and, arsenic a result, truthful was Felicity's puerility pinch a sister and 2 brothers.

'My mom and dad… sewage joined astatine 16. They had my sister astatine 16, they moved successful pinch my grandparents, and past they moved retired connected their ain and my grandparents benignant of raised my sister a lot, because I deliberation location was a batch of narcotics and parties and things,' she explained. 

'My mom wasn't 1 to partake successful it. She was much aliases little nan babysitter. But, my god, she loved him. But I don't retrieve my dada astir overmuch erstwhile I was little, but erstwhile I do retrieve him there, he was high.'

Most 10-year-olds would beryllium screaming aliases having a meltdown complete nan harrowing segment that Felicity witnessed that summer's day, but she recalled reacting rather differently.

'[This is] really I knew I was different… I didn't cognize backmost past that I was a healer, but… there's truthful galore ways that a 10-year-old would grip this. I mean, you would break down and opportunity like, "Oh, my God, Mom," scream, meltdown, cry," she explained.

'I was for illustration truthful put together. I went into nan bathroom, I conscionable grabbed a ton of toilet insubstantial and I conscionable walked complete to her and conscionable started blotting nan humor away.

'And I said, "Mom, it's gonna beryllium okay. It's gonna beryllium okay." For me, those were for illustration immoderate of nan earlier signs of God putting maine connected this way of being a healer, being a teacher.'

After this atrocious event, she grew up without her begetter around. He 'disappeared' from their lives for 12 years, only popping 'in and retired each erstwhile successful a while to springiness her [mother] money,' Felicity shared. 

Meanwhile, Felicity's mom 'mentally and emotionally unopen down,' and her girl didn't blasted her.

'Given nan circumstances, she was not a supplier addict. Her vices were java and cigarettes, and she worked,' nan 46-year-old told DailyMail.com.

'So we did nan champion occupation arsenic kids to study really to header pinch nan chaos, nan dysfunction.

'It was breadstuff and nary butter… nutrient was scarce, we were poor. Sometimes we had a bath that worked, sometimes we didn't, sometimes we'd person to return baths successful nan inferior room sink.

'The tile fell done and we had a large spread successful our surviving room ceiling.'

Before Felicity started doing her 'healing work,' she would person described her puerility arsenic 'fun,' but she would later recognize really 'toxic' it was.

'We didn't cognize really to cope, we didn't person food. The location was filthy,' she explained.

'She (my mom) conscionable would beryllium location connected nan sofa and smoke. It was conscionable sad erstwhile I deliberation astir it now, because I would person thrown my kids successful therapy, I would person done it differently.

'But backmost then, successful nan 80s. You didn't really do that. I mean, I was wetting nan furniture astatine 10, 11… location was thing going connected location connected a deeper level.'

Felicity recalls successful her memoir, Pieces Of Me, that her father, Richard, 'liked women and narcotics much than thing connected Earth,' and her mother, Erin, suffered 'many bouts' of his rage, infidelity and aggression for much than 2 decades earlier he 'finally bashed her caput unfastened pinch nan crystal ashtray,' astir sidesplitting her.

His drug-fueled manner would yet lead to his death.

'I retrieve him smoking cookware origin I retrieve asking him, what benignant of cigaret is that?' Felicity said.

'And my sister learned to rotation a associated astatine nan property of 4 done a Kmart receipt.

'He would do coke, and we cognize that he was sharing needles because he would beryllium later diagnosed pinch hepatitis C.'

Now Felicity draws from her experiences successful her puerility to thief different women. 

Following nan deaths of her begetter and her mother wrong months of each different successful 2013, and nan breakdown of her first marriage, Felicity restarted her life aged 36 arsenic a azygous mother to a young boy.

'I started rebuilding myself successful 2013, mentally and emotionally, conscionable by doing affirmations, by googling YouTube videos and listening to meditations and things for illustration that. That was conscionable to springiness maine nan courageousness to rebuild myself, to say, "Hey, I tin do this,"' she said.

Through her business, She Is You, Felicity helps different women who are struggling to reclaim their lives, and find their intent done mentorship and coaching.

When asked what proposal she would springiness to those who find themselves astatine a crossroads, she offered this: 'I would opportunity you've gotta perceive to your heart. Get retired of your caput and get into your heart. What does your bosom show you? Because this is our kingdom, this is wherever God lives, this is our intuition. Just what does your bosom show you to do?

'And past from location we would break it down because you person to person logic. Your bosom tin show you to move to France, but if you don't person immoderate money, past we request to get there.

'But what I would opportunity is if personification is conscionable stuck for illustration I [was]. It conscionable comes down to… really quiet are you, conscionable to live? Because I'm gonna show you, erstwhile you get out, you gotta commencement from crushed zero, and it's hard.

'So you person to beryllium quiet because you're gonna person to activity really, really hard. And you're gonna person to hole yourself for emergencies and person emergency money and hole yourself for setbacks. And location is no, "I can't." It doesn't beryllium successful my vocabulary. It conscionable doesn't, because I wouldn't beryllium wherever I americium today, if location was.'

Felicity's book Pieces Of Me is disposable now.