Colorado woman says she was taught it was ‘just things that a daughter should do to show her love’. Then she reveals how her mom helped cover it up

An 18-year-old TikTok creator who posts under the handle @lovely.ly55a and the name Lyssa has published a long first-person video in which she says she was sexually and physically abused by her father over a period of years. She does not give his full name in the video, referring to him only as Jason, and describes him as a Colorado man with five daughters. She says the account is her own story, ending the video by saying that the daughter she has been describing “is me.”

The video is captioned, “To my sisters, I am sorry. But I couldn’t stay silent any longer.” Her account lists 104.5K followers and 2.7 million likes, and her bio links to an Instagram handle and a GoFundMe page. The video has drawn more than 7 million views. 

She opens the video with a warning, telling viewers who are uncomfortable with sexual assault, child abuse and child neglect to scroll past. She then adds that for those who stay, “your engagement does pay me, and it would really help me out a lot.” Her claims have not been independently verified, and no police or court records confirming her account have been made public.

Her account describes school staff filing reports and two periods when her father was removed from the home

She says the abuse began when she was around five or six years old, when her father showed her pornography and touched her in ways she says he knew were wrong. She says he then told her the behaviour was normal, and that “the things that he would do were just things that a daughter should do to show her love to her father.” Abusive family dynamics can take many forms, such as when a Utah woman without limbs recounts how her father pushed her to cool down. 

According to her account, she was in third grade when a group called Blue Sky Bridge came to her classroom to talk about which parts of the body adults should not touch. She says she realized then that what had been happening was not normal, told the group, and they filed a report with Child Protective Services because they are mandated reporters. She says she did not expect police or social services to become involved and regretted speaking up, saying she did not want anything to happen to her father.

She says she watched her father being taken away in a police vehicle. After that, she says, her mother would only buy food for the house when social services were due to check the fridge. During one visit, she says her mother began packing the children’s clothes into bags and told workers to take them. 

She and her sisters, except one who had not yet been born, went into foster care, where she says she was kicked in the neck and told her mother she had been taken to a doctor when she had not. The children returned to their mother about a year and a half later, she says, and her father came home after leaving jail and working with social services. 

She says the two began therapy together, but that the abuse resumed and at times was worse than before. By middle school, she says, he required her to let him grope her before she was allowed to visit a friend’s house without asking.

She then describes a morning when her father woke her for school and told her to make her bed. She says she fell back asleep, and that he hit her on the thigh and told her to “stop being a little b—h.” She says he later pushed her into a table, hit her on the back of the head while she was washing dishes, and told her, “Go stand in the corner or else I’ll use one of these,” while standing near the knives.

She says she told a friend what had happened, that the friend’s mother overheard and went to police, and that a new case was opened and her father was removed from the home. She says she was then pulled out of school. When the case reached court, she says her mother told her to lie on the stand to help bring her father home, and that she told the court he had done nothing. She says he was placed on a hold for three months and slept in a car.

She says she later persuaded her mother to let her return for high school, where she often went to the nurse’s office to sleep. During one visit she asked for a snack, told the nurse there was no food at home and that she was frightened about her father returning. The nurse, also a mandated reporter, contacted police, and she says another case was opened.

In her sophomore year, she says, her mother pulled her out of school again and the two argued frequently about her father. She says her mother eventually told her to leave because of how she was treating her husband. Mothers don’t always take the father’s side in such disputes, as Charlize Theron’s mother saved her from her father. 

She describes walking down the driveway with a cat in one backpack and clothes in another as her father pulled in. She describes him as “the manipulative, abusive a–hole that he is,” and says she has been homeless and couch surfing for more than two years.

Commenters on the video responded to the ending, in which she identifies herself as the daughter in the story. One wrote, “I had assumed you were the oldest from the start, and I wanna say im so sorry for what you’ve gone thru and wish nothing but the best for you,” and Lyssa replied, “Thank you so much.” Another said, “yes unfortunately the moment you started talking about the oldest daughter’s story I had the very uncomfortable feeling that it was first-person-retelling. I’m so sorry.”

Others focused on her father returning to the home. One comment read, “them letting him back around you is such a failure of the system. im so sorry,” to which another user replied, “Really is.” A further commenter wrote, “I am out of words but I am absolutely disgusted with him. I’m so sorry, love,” and added in a follow-up, “I know the feeling of not wanting your family to hate you must be overbearing, it must’ve been overwhelming, but nonetheless, I’m so SO glad you’ve done the right thing–you’ve spoken up.”