CHARLOTTE, N.C. — For more than 20 years, Sheri Lynch has been a star on the radio. Listeners all over the country tune in for the "Bob and Sheri Show."
But only a handful of people have ever heard the shocking details of a secret Lynch kept for most of her life.
"That's why I’ve agreed to tell it all, because it is harrowing stuff," Lynch said.
In an effort to help others, she is sharing her journey as a child growing up in a home filled with domestic violence.
Lynch said her parents were very young and uneducated when they got married. The family lived in poverty.
"We lived in a rural area with no access to family support,” she said. "Also, my father had mental illness, and when you put all that together in our case, it was a toxic cocktail."
Lynch described how the family lived in constant fear of her father.
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"My father's MO was psychological stuff coupled with the presence of the weapon," she said. "There was extreme emotional and psychological abuse along with gunplay in the house, and the constant looming threat of violence."
Early on, the rage directed at her mother left Lynch always worried that at any moment her mother would be murdered.
Then the abuse turned to Lynch and her brothers.
“It is kind of a sick thing, because you're kind of glad when someone else is getting beat up because you're catching a break for a change,” Lynch said.
Lynch said that by the time she turned 12, she and her siblings saw no way out, and knew that they could never tell.
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“If I had told a teacher and that teacher contacted the authorities and the law had come to my door, if they didn't arrest him and take him away forever? The minute those cops left, there would be hell to pay,” Lynch said.
Then in an abrupt twist, Lynch said her father suddenly kidnapped the children and fled with them cross country.
She said she didn't see her mother again for another 16 years, and wasn't allowed to grieve.
As a teenager, Lynch said, she became the new target.
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She said her father would wake her in the middle of the night with his handgun.
“He'd sit at the edge of my bed and we'd have these folksy talks about whether he'd be doing me a favor by blowing my brains out since my mother was trash and I was going to grow up just like her,” she said.
While some might have turned to despair or drugs, Lynch developed a different strategy to survive.
“(I thought), 'Maybe if I do everything right and I’m perfect and amazing that will be a distraction that will make everything happy and good. Maybe the problem here is that I’m not trying hard enough,'” Lynch said.
She latched on to education as her way out and began excelling in the classroom and remembering words from her mother.
“From when I was little, my mom was like, ‘Sheri, you're not going to live like this. It’s going to be better than this for you. Go to school.’ I think my mom planted those first seeds,” Lynch said.
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After years of therapy, Lynch is in a much better place now and speaking out to challenge the stereotypes of domestic violence.
She said she knows many women, including business and medical professionals in high-profile positions, who were victims and can’t speak out.
“I thought, ‘Well, I can come forward,’ and I’m not going to be at risk of losing my job if I come forward and say this happened to me,” Lynch said. “So that before you judge someone, and think it can't happen to you, know that it can.”
Lynch went back to school and earned her master’s degree in social work in 2012.
She wanted the training to support others in crisis.
“So that if someone is ever brave enough to come to me for help, then hopefully I will know how to hear and know how help in a way that helps them feel safe,” Lynch said.
These days, when she’s not on the radio, Lynch spends time at an area shelter supporting other survivors and inspiring others by her example.
“I sort of made this deal with God that if I got out alive, I would never pretend it didn't happen and I would stand up and say this happened to me,” Lynch said. “I got out, and you can get out too. It is messy and hard some days, but it was worth it.”
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Lynch wrote her mother a letter and found her again after 16 to 17 years of being away from her.
“My mom flew to Charlotte to see me and when she got off the plane I was crushed because I realized and didn't know until that moment that I wanted my mommy to get off the plane,” she said. “Not this woman who was now 17 years older and not my mommy anymore. And to be fair to my mom, I think she was crushed too, looking for a 12 year old not this grown woman who was a stranger.”
Lynch's father is deceased.
WSOC
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