Madusa Opens Up About Abuse She Received As A Child

In an interview with Wrestling Inc, Madusa opened up about abuse she received as a child, some of which she recreated for her upcoming docuseries. Here are highlights:

On recreating the abuse she received: “Writing about it is therapy, but when you have to direct and reenact the whole scene with a child…Of course, I held everything in and kept my cool but at the end of the day I went back to my hotel and I let it all out. You realize that I am who I am because of this and I’m here to help others because of this.”

On her mother burning her: “There was a moment, not just one, but several times she erupted and dragged me through the room and burned myself and my records over the stove to teach a child a lesson. That is just a basic scene in there and it’s just one. I’m not gonna go through everything as there’s just a few here and there. This is not about being a victim; I am not a victim. I am a child who overcame the things I was dealt in life. We all have choices and I chose what I needed to do for survival because survival is the best revenge.”

On advice to others who may have dealt with similar situations: “I’m not a doctor and I’m not prescribing anything but I can tell you what has helped me as a person, a human being and as a wife. There are a couple of things I can’t tell you, but you’ll find out in the documentary. I chose to hold everything in as I never saw any doctors. I’m a self healer like a mo-fo. I found my way through other passages and I’m a huge introvert…If I saw somebody struggling or I could see signs of a child who was raped or abused, I have a sense of that because I’ve been through all of that. I can reach out to them and let them feel my side. People that are struggling right now, I was never on one drug. I was the worst ADD child and was never on drugs to take care of that. I found other ways and found my way to be active to keep busy. I did opposite things that were harming me and I would take my aggression out on that.”

On finding someone to trust to talk to: “In my whole life, I never had that trust and love. It was always uncertainty and heartbreak, even through my relationships. It always had to do with proving my love because I was seeking it so hard. We need that one person to always go to for trust. My trust level has been the sh*ts my whole life only because of what I’ve been through. I’ve had to learn to trust and have always done everything on my own so it was hard to ask for help. It’s not you, it’s because they can’t keep up with you. You’re not wrong and you’re normal.”

On wrestlers hiding behind their characters: “We don’t wanna lose anymore people in our business because of it being so convoluted as far as who we are. A lot of people could not separate who they were. I worked with Randy Savage and Randy was Randy 24/7. You didn’t know who was who half the time. But I think it’s important how they’re doing it now with separating the job from the personal life. That’s very important and I struggled with that my whole life. If you were to come to my house, you would never know what I did for the last 30 years. There was not one wrestling photo hung up or hero book or action figure. I separated my life from my business at the door.”

On social media: “On social media today, that’s even crazier because we didn’t have that. We had you guys who wrote magazines and you were our social media. Thank God for Bill Apter, George Napolitano and Dave Meltzer. They were my social media and today, trying to separate your character from your social media and personal life, it looks very confusing out there.”