Rosanne Reid – From pain to purpose

SHE’S self-motivated, outgoing, dedicated, adventurous and committed to using her experiences to empower people to discover themselves.

Born and raised in Constant Spring, St Andrew, Rosanne Reid, 31, did not have the best experiences as a child, but one thing she learnt was to manoeuvre her situation in order to be successful.

“I grew up in a closed-sect church where we had no interaction with the outside world and the only people we could interact with were members of the church,” she told

All Woman. “We were supposedly Christians, but there were a lot of issues with negativity as my father was very negative both verbally and physically. There was usually a lot of shouting, a lot of conflict, and it would be in front of us children.”

Reid, who is the first of five children for her parents, subsequently had to learn to fend for herself from early and assumed many household responsibilities as a child.

“My mother was sick with the pregnancies and often couldn’t manage the housework, so a lot of the responsibilities fell on me as the oldest one from I was probably six or seven. My mother told me when I was 20 years old that at one year and six months I was struggling to tie my shoelaces and she left me there and told me to do it myself because she was pregnant with my brother. And I thought to myself, ‘How do you tell an 18-month-old that?”

She recalls having a sweet tooth as a child and being punished bitterly for crying if she never got sweets.

“My father used to punish me for that. He would put me in a cupboard where I’d have to fold myself in a foetal position and he would lock the door with a key. I’d be left in there, would fall asleep crying, and I couldn’t stand straight when I was let out. There would be a pain in my neck and when I got up the next morning that’s when pain would go,” she said.

“The punishment stopped when I could no longer fit in the cupboard. I had run up the phone bill and he came and tried to put me in the cupboard and realised I couldn’t fit and he shook me so hard that my neck snapped — you heard a snap — and I screamed. That’s when the neighbour came over, knocked the window, and told him he can’t be doing the child like that, and he threw me down on the bed.”

For Reid, life then was total turmoil, with pain that would last for years as she lived in fear from telling others of the situation.

“At the time I didn’t know it was child abuse. Becoming an adult and coming out of that sect, I now know those things were not normal. I couldn’t speak about it and if I told my friends, their parents would go back to my parents and my father would get angrier,” she said.

To make matters worse, when the church she attended opened its own school, Reid was pulled from the public school system and sent there, as the children were to have no interaction with the world. They were also not allowed to go to university.

This led Reid into a state of depression, which led to a mild nervous breakdown at 17 and low self-esteem.

“I suffered from low self-esteem and unworthiness. My father would tell me all the time that I’m worthless and would come to nothing. There was a time he was a priestly member and those who didn’t abide by the rules of the church didn’t like him and treated me badly. I was even locked out of my friend’s house because of it,” she said.

But at the age of 23 Reid finally made up her mind and decided to break free from the society and live her life in the most meaningful way.

“I wanted better for myself. I saw better conditions in some friends’ homes. The love between them, open shows of affection, which we didn’t have. Whenever I’d travel to Barbados — because my mom was from there — I’d notice love in my extended family,” she said.

She added: “I tried to get help in my adult years from the church and was told there was nothing they could do. I knew I couldn’t stay as I didn’t fit in, and when I started to have manifestations of spiritual gifts and dreams my father would say I’m mentally unstable as they were of the belief that God only spoke to one man — the head of the church. I remember the doctor said whether or not I had the breakdown something else would happen — cancer or some other sickness — because of the stress that was built in. If I shouted they’d say I had gone mad and any emotion I expressed was as a sign of madness. Even my younger siblings mocked me.”

Help for her came in 2005.

“After reading a story in

All Woman in 2005 on Iyanla Vanzant, and after a very loud and painful quarrel over me seeing my aunt in Mandeville, I came home and packed my bags because I knew my time and mission in that church was finished.”

Now an author, speaker, lifestyle coach and business consultant who goes by the brand ‘The Dream Inspirationalist’, Reid has penned a book —

From Pain to Purpose, The Exodus: The Importance of Pain in Discovering our Purpose — aimed at helping people overcome their hardships.

“I’ve written this story to let persons know I’ve survived this and if I have survived this and I’m living successfully, you can also survive any painful experience you’re going through,” she said.

Also a mother of two children, Reid enjoys reading, playing the piano and travelling. She is also actively involved in her new church’s ( Church of God Seventh-Day) youth ministry.

She intends to start a ministry to empower women and teach them business and life skills and believes that whatever the mind of man can perceive he can achieve.

“Pain is not meant for our demise, but really to make us stronger for our destiny and fulfilling of our purpose. Every circumstance, good or bad, is for our purpose,” she shared.