My name is Rachael Hinkley and I am a Dental/Oral Surgery Assistant by trade. I have been practicing dentistry for a little over 16 years. I sort of fell into dentistry. I was attending college for something completely different and was struggling to raise three young boys alone on minimum wage. I saw an advertisement for a medical trade school in my area and thought why not? This could get me out of the situation I was in both financially and mentally. So, I applied, graduated top of my class and here I am. Dentistry was not in any way, shape or form, in my plan of life, but I have learned that you can’t ever plan life.
I sometimes feel challenges and obstacles are embedded in my DNA. Being a single mother of three boys was a huge challenge in and of itself. I was in a relationship during that time that was not what a relationship should be. It was one of trauma and turmoil and hard to navigate a way of life around. The day I found the advertisement for the trade school, I remember thinking, ‘this could be my way out.’ In a way, it was. It provided the resources I needed to obtain the tools to leave and begin to heal. It was not as easy as I say, and it definitely did not happen overnight. Part of my escape to healing and growth was writing. I found solace and therapy in the written word. I found myself pouring myself into the pages and I watched the broken Rachael be put back together with gold with each stroke of the keys.
Confidence and being heard were two of my next biggest challenges. I often felt that if I weren’t screaming, no one would hear me. I learned that screaming only made people tune me out and not want to pay attention. I struggled with letting people in and the hard persona I put on trapped them on the other side of the screams. It wasn’t until I started listening more, reacting less, that I was able to quiet the screams in my own head and allow what I needed to hear in order to heal come through. Like a leaking faucet in the next room, you must silence everything around you to hear where it is coming from in order to fix it.
My biggest accomplishment I would say would be being here, right now, above ground. I was not destined for anything but hard times and a hard life. I did have those things and there were moments I thought I would not make it through to the next day, but I did. And each day I became stronger and better than the day before. I look back and often shake my head in awe and audacity at the hell I endured and the flames that I thought consumed me. I often shed a tear for that girl, that mom, that woman, I was then. She did not deserve what she endured, but she did rise above it all.
In all that I have done, in all that I have witnessed and endured, I have learned that the phrase ‘what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’’, was false. Because I did die amid it all. The woman who can’t remember a little girl’s childhood, the mom who hardened herself and thought she was doing a good job, the wife my husband didn’t expect, all that struggle, trauma, turmoil, grief, killed who I was supposed to be. The thing is, it had to. I couldn’t heal and grow and be who I am today if I continued to breathe life into all that darkness. So, my greatest accomplishment is me.
Moving forward I hope to continue the forward and upward momentum I have and create a life I want to leave behind. I want to take what I have overcome and create a foundation for other little girls lost. I want to be a steppingstone for others to stand upon and have the confidence to say’ I can do this,’ and do it. I am currently working on a program for trauma overcomers called R.I.O.T (Recovery, Identity, Overcoming, Transformation) . It is in its infancy, but my hope is to be able to bring an added voice to the pandemic of trauma and abuse. I want to do more than just bring awareness, I want to start a RIOT.
I am currently on Facebook you can find me under my name Rachael Hinkley (Mrs. Virginia Prime), Instagram @raehinkley2022, twitter @ raesbest, email @ raehinkley2022@gmail.com. I am responsive to messages.
I am also currently working on a trauma journal for young girls in hopes to have it out by the end of the year. It will be a coloring journal. I am partnering with my publisher/editor Vanessa Hogle and our hope is to be able to get these into schools, children’s shelters, child advocacy groups in hopes of creating a safe outlet for young girls who have experienced trauma.
You can also find my first two books on Amazon titles are The Book of Rae, a compilation of poems and short stories and Rantings/Blue Light Night a true account.
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