The Journey Behind the Vision

Nevetta’s journey began long before Iridium had a name.

Survival became part of her life at a very early age. Much of her childhood is remembered in fragments. There are missing stretches of time alongside memories that remain remarkably clear: a key tied to a shoelace around her neck, long hours spent outside, hunger, fear, school, and moments when memory simply stops.

She does not attempt to fill in what she cannot remember.

For many years, Nevetta believed she needed every missing piece in order to understand herself. Today, she no longer believes that.

Becoming comfortable with the woman she is becoming has also meant accepting that she may never know every detail of what happened to the little girl she once was.

What she does know is enough to honor her.

When Survival Had No Name

Some of Nevetta’s earliest survival skills involved watching people closely, reading environments, staying agreeable, and learning how to respond to the emotions of the people around her.

What could later appear to be people-pleasing was not simply her personality. It was something she learned when pleasing someone could feel connected to safety.

As an adult, she had to unlearn it.

Nevetta was exposed to circumstances in childhood and adolescence that she would only much later have the language to understand as trafficking, exploitation, violations of boundaries, and loss of personal choice.

Her memories include prolonged periods of sleep and missing time. She later came to understand that she had been drugged. There were times when school personnel remembered her being absent for several days even when, in her own memory, she believed she had been at school only the day before.

There were other memories—some clear, some fragmented—that taught her very early that her boundaries were not always treated as though they belonged to her.

As she grew older, she began recognizing patterns she could not have understood as a child.

At fourteen, Nevetta experienced a pregnancy and an abortion that she did not choose for herself. It became another experience in a much larger story about voice, autonomy, consent, and what can happen when someone learns that their own “no” may not be enough.

This story is not an attempt to reconstruct every missing memory or answer every unanswered question.

It is an honest account of the pieces Nevetta carries.

Becoming Nevetta

At seventeen, another chapter began. Pregnant and deciding to keep her 1st baby boy! She chose YES!

As Nevetta began receiving consistent medical care and accessing support, she also began learning that she did not have to navigate everything alone.

Over time, she learned how to seek help, work with systems, accept support, ask questions, and eventually share parts of her story in places where it was safe to do so.

The survival skills that once helped a little girl navigate uncertainty eventually became something Nevetta could examine rather than simply obey. Now with five wonderful adult children, she truly believes, without a doubt, that each child saved her life.

Observation became intentional.

Questions replaced assumptions.

Boundaries became something she could claim.

And survival slowly became understanding.

The ability to notice subtle changes, read environments, recognize patterns, and question what might exist beneath the surface would eventually become part of the lens Nevetta brings to her work today.

She did not choose the circumstances that first taught her to pay attention.

She did choose what she would eventually do with what she learned.

A Journey Still Being Written

Nevetta does not tell her story to redefine anyone else’s memories.

Her journey is not presented as a straight road from hardship to healing. Like the path through the mountains, there have been turns, difficult climbs, places of rest, unexpected beauty, and stretches where the destination could not yet be seen.

And perhaps that is why the landscape on this page feels so familiar.

As a little girl, Nevetta sometimes wished she could step inside beautiful pictures and stay awhile.

Today, she understands something that little girl could not have known:

She was already walking toward one.

A harder beginning.
A deeper understanding.
A brighter purpose.

Still here.

And somewhere along that journey, what would eventually become Iridium was already taking shape.

Through all of the trauma back then and throughout life, she is happy to be alive!

There was so much happening behind the scenes that the people around her could not fully see or understand.

Looking back, Nevetta does not blame the friends or family who did not know. Some sensed that something was happening, but she did not yet know how to open the door wide enough for others to understand. My cousins were the light in my childhood! My BF’s in my teen years helped me feel more confident. Some people who did not know the full story tried to help me in their own way. Some of the parents of the men I dated either picked up on something awkward and did not care too much for me, or saw deeper beneath the physical and cared for me genuinely; some even offered prayer.

She wishes she could have opened up.

Today, she understands why that was so difficult. Sometimes a person can be surrounded by people who care about them and still not have the words, safety, or understanding to explain what they are carrying.

That understanding is part of the way she sees people now.