My name is Lori Evangeline Bell. I was born Loreanne (Loreanna) Ayleen Rojas. I was born in Newport News Virginia, but recall most of my earliest childhood memories being in New York City. My first 11 years of life were extraordinary, to say the least.

 

My early childhood memories are tainted with the stench of blood, bodies decaying on the side of roads and my siblings and I sleeping on the floors of abandoned homes with blood sprayed on the walls. I recall ducking down during drive by shootings & hearing gunshots near our house. 

I had lived in two countries before the age of 10. I lived and worked on a ranch in the middle of nowhere in Mexico and would wake up at 5 in the morning, get in the back of someone's old, broken down truck with a group of kids and go pick cotton for money before school. 

I was in and out of Foster Care from the age of 4 until I was 12 years old. My childhood consisted of heavy drug abuse, long-term sexual abuse, neglect, physical abuse and copious amounts of heartbreak and devastation.

​

The cloud of my childhood trauma follows me everyday and lives within me. Although dark & heavy, I am blessed to be on my healing journey finding light within and all around me. I share my story in hopes of helping and inspiring others to heal and live life fully, embracing our stories.

The human experience is both light and dark, it is our duty during this experience to find balance within, share our light and pass the torch of life on to the next. 

​

 So many of us live in silence and never get to share who we really are.

We deserve to be heard.

No one will ever tell my story and share my experience if I don't do it first, so here I am. 

​ The truth, the pain, the loss, the light and redemption. 

Here are my stories.