MARISSA'S STORY

 

For Marissa's brief biography, please go to our Staff, Board of Directors or Mentors pages. 

 

Marissa Ghavami was born to Debbie and Majid Ghavami, a stay at home mom and restaurateur, respectively, on April 1, 1990, in Louisville, Kentucky. Long before Marissa became an advocate for abuse victims after her own experience with abuse and trauma, she worked as an actor, singer, voice over artist and model. Marissa's passion for performing was evident at an extremely early age, with her mother only being able to get her to fall asleep many nights by rocking her to music videos on VH1 as a baby. By the time she was three, she was regularly watching an reenacting movie musical classics such as The Wizard Of Oz, Bye Bye Birdie, The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady. With Marissa begging to "be in the television," singing and dancing around the house nonstop and only wanting to play barbies with her family members if they "acted," her parents knew they had to find her a bigger outlet. With the encouragement of fellow parents who had seen Marissa in school talent shows and plays and with constant pleading from her daughter, Debbie began to look for opportunities and quickly found many right in their hometown. From the age of six, Marissa performed in countless community, regional and professional plays and musicals as well as modeled in several regional and national advertisements. She also sang at various weddings, charity events and fundraisers and appeared in several educational videos as well as doing voice over and commercial work. She studied acting at Louisville's nationally recognized Walden Theatre from 1997-2005 and studied singing from the age of 7. She worked at Derby Dinner Playhouse, Stage One, Music Theatre Louisville, and with the Fund for the Arts and the Muhammad Ali Center. She quickly became respected locally and was even publicly recognized by Louisville’s Mayor Abramson, being given a day by the city.

 

Her accomplishments at a young age lead her to pursue her career nationally, in Los Angeles and New York. One of her earliest national credits includes appearing on NBC’s legendary It’s Showtime at the Apollo and being named their star of tomorrow at the ripe age of twelve. She has also done regional and national voice over work (Actors Theatre of Louisville, Ford, McDonalds, JC Penney) commercials (Kroger, AMP Energy) and print work (Girl Scout Cookie Campaign, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Vartali Hair Salon in NYC). She has performed as a singer at NYC’s renowned 54 Below and in LA’s Next Great Stage Star vocal competition where, as the youngest member of the competition and the only child allowed to compete, she was named runner up. As an actor she has been on CBS’s Without A Trace, Disney’s The Suite Life On Deck, and in David Chase’s (creator of the HBO hit The Sopranos) film Not Fade Away, which had it’s national theatrical release in early 2013. Any entertainment industry inquiries should be directed to Marissa's representation, not pursued through SHEARED, which can be found along with more information on www.marissaghavami.com.

 

Marissa has also always been academically gifted, skipping the third grade, and legally graduating high school at the age of 15, although electing to stay in school through her senior year, which she completed at a school for professional children in Los Angeles, California. There, she started the small school's Advanced Placement program, became President of the Student Council and graduated as Valedictorian with a 4.2 GPA. She was accepted into New York University and The University of Southern California at the age of 16 but chose to defer her acceptance in order to continue pursuing her professional career. Throughout school, Marissa was well liked by her classmates as well as her colleagues outside of school and enjoyed being a leader and sharing her gifts. Marissa was often referred to as an old soul and as wise beyond her years by those around her. An only child, she was always close with her parents and other family members and was blessed with many incredible friendships growing up.

 

At the age of seventeen, having just finished high school, and with a promising career ahead of her, the darker side of Marissa's story began. From the ages of seventeen to nineteen she was the victim of a cultic relationship, or “one-on-one cult.” Her first roommate, whom she believed to be her new best friend, was what she later learned to be a sociopath who systematically abused and tortured her for nearly two years. He love bombed Marissa (learn more about this abusive tactic and other important terms on our Terms To Know page) and isolated her from friends and family to abuse her emotionally, verbally, psychologically, spiritually, financially, in ways physically and sexually, eventually totally brainwashing her and controlling literally every aspect of her life. In the final stages of the relationship, she was completely stripped of all of her personal freedom - from what she could eat, wear, the music she could listen to, the television and films that she could watch, the people she could talk to, the medical care she could receive, the activities she could participate in, and even if she could leave her room and go outside - all the name of God.

 

With the help of her family, Marissa got out after nearly two years of suffering at his hands but her story was just beginning. She was diagnosed with (Complex) Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) and Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures (PNES). The aftermath was so extreme that she was left nearly unrecognizable; her deep blue eyes were nearly black and sunken in, her hair was falling out, she had cystic acne for the first time in her life and she was ninety-five pounds at 5'5". Her posture, vocal quality, way of dressing and (not) wearing makeup, lack of eye contact and constant shaking were also a complete turn around from how she looked and behaved for the first seventeen years of her life. She was terrified that the overwhelming anxiety, depression, suicidality and extreme trauma reactions would never end. With respect to all survivors, she distinctly remembers watching the news cover a high profile cult case and thinking that the survivors interviewed, decades later, still all seemed profoundly affected and unintegrated due to their experiences. She was left with the same impression after reading books by survivors of similar types of abuses and couldn't find someone who had been through something that she felt was similar - namely pseudo-Christian, cultic, emotional, psychological, spiritual abuse - who seemed to have truly healed. The thought terrified her for about ten minutes until she decided that if she had to, she would be the first. She promised herself that she would find a way to heal fully and then to help others who had been through something similar. Through an unimaginably trying recovery process, with the help of a top trauma specialist, and her unconditionally loving family, Marissa made the transition from victim to survivor to advocate.

 

Marissa believes that she is in a unique position to provide hope to the countless others who have similarly suffered at the hands of abusers, whether it be in childhood, dating or marital relationships, the workplace, cults (big and small), human traffickers or toxic religious organizations. Her training as an actor from a young age gave her insight to her body and emotions that many victims do not have. What is natural for our bodies and minds to push away in order to survive, Marissa was able to dive into in order to heal more rapidly and fully. 

 

"...van der Kolk believes strongly that dancers — and musicians and actors — may have something to teach psychiatrists about healing from trauma..." - A Revolutionary Approach to Treating PTSD By Jeneen Interlandi, May 22, 2014, The New York Times

 

She was able to articulate what was going on inside of her body, mind and spirit to her therapist in a way that he had never experienced from a client and that made him want to work with her to help others. Her dreams of tackling one of the toughest professions required all of her faculties and she was determined to not let her abuser steal those dreams away. Her healthy foundation in childhood - being raised in an unconditionally loving home and suffering no previous trauma -  allowed her to see what too many victims can't; the absolute dysfunction, disruption and destructiveness of abuse. Her unique experience - living 17 healthy years before suffering through several hellish ones - created a dichotomy that allowed her to clearly see the problem, as someone who, unstereotypically, was not a part of the cycle of abuse from birth. She firmly believes that every person deserves the same chance to heal that she had because of her family's resources and support and sees it as her responsibility to share those resources and support with others.

 

After Marissa got away from her abuser, she slowly but surely began to understand what had taken place. She had become the victim of something she had never been educated about or exposed to, despite her education, love of learning and cultured upbringing. With the help of her mother, Debbie, therapist, Dr. Bruce Hardy, Ph.D., and cult experts around the country, Marissa began educating herself on emotional, psychological and spiritual abuse as well as on sociopaths, cults, trauma and mental health. She was desperate to find resources that could help her on her journey to healing but she often found that the truly useful information was hard to find and not all in one place. She later learned that the mental health and medical fields are astonishingly not integrated with the trauma field and therefore realized an incredible need for change. 

 

Marissa was immediately open with her story - although constantly petrified that she was wrong due to all of the shaming and brainwashing by her abuser - which made her realize that many of her friends and acquaintances had similar symptoms, whether they be on her end of the trauma spectrum or not, due to childhood and relationship abuse - whether it be emotional, verbal, psychological, physical or sexual. She noticed that many of these survivors had kept their horrific experiences a secret - some for decades - often not acknowleding it fully even to themselves. Some did not even know that the things they had experienced were considered abusive. The symptoms of C-PTSD that Marissa had been diagnosed with, she began to believe, had gone undiagnosed or misdiagnosed in many of her friends and acquaintances who began opening up to her. It seemed like everyone she met had a story and the behaviors she had noticed in others growing up now made sense to her. The fact that this was such a widespread secret was astonishing to Marissa as her two years of abuse and several more years of recovery were beyond anything she could have previously imagined and she could not believe that so many people had lived like this all of their lives with no one telling them that there was another option and showing them that path.

 

She quickly began becoming an informal advocate for abuse victims, sharing what she had learned with people who shared their stories with her and encouraging them that their lives did not have to be like that; that she had lived life differently once and was on her way to doing so again. She could see the visceral reaction and relief in people's eyes and bodies when she assured them that the abuse was not their fault and passed along resources explaining why their bodies and minds were doing what they were doing. After effectively helping several people on a one-on-one basis, and often being introduced to friends of friends with the purpose of helping them through similar situations, she knew that she had discovered another gift and a passion and soon began realizing that she had another calling in addition to the one she knew she had all along. Marissa stayed commited to healing fully herself first, but she knew she wanted to launch a foundation one day to help others and offer what she wished she had had when she was struggling so much and left in such a dark, isolated place. She not only wanted to help victims get out of abusive situations and on the path to healing but she also wanted to educate the public and professionals in hopes of reducing the number of future victims. Her unbelievably loving and supportive mother Debbie, who has stood by her every step of the way, and her incredibly gifted and knowledgable therapist, Dr. Bruce Hardy, Ph.D., enthusiastically agreed to found SHEARED with her. She has since consulted on high profile cult cases, as well as cases of political mob bullying, child abuse and neglect, human trafficking and domestic violence. She lends her personal expertise to professionals who are working to help others like Marissa and to family members of victims, giving them insight into how abuse can affect their loved ones' hearts and minds and encouraging them along the way. She is proud to have taken a horrific experience and turned it around to help others, creating the change that she believes so desperately needs to take place.

 

 "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." Genesis 50:20 (NIV)