WARNING: This post contains details of child abuse.
A girl who was found imprisoned in a closet when she was eight years old has told of how, 15 years on, she struggles with memories of the horrific abuse she suffered.
Lauren Kavanaugh, now aged 23, slept, urinated and lived in a tiny closet for most of the first eight years of her life and was only set free when authorities discovered the starving girl in the mobile home in Hutchins, Texas in 2001.
Lauren suffered sickening sexual and physical abuse at the hands of her stepfather and mother – who had initially given her up as an infant, but was returned custody when she was two years old.
They both were given life sentences and Lauren was given a new home back with her original adoptive parents Bill and Sabrina Kavanaugh, but that didn’t mean the trauma ended there.
Lauren appeared on TV program Dr Phil this week, telling the host that she has flashbacks from her childhood and has often struggled to cope.
“My life’s been pretty hard,” she said during episode one of the two-part special.
“I’ve been struggling a lot. I hardly sleep anymore. My anxiety is terrible.
“Sometimes I have flashbacks about my past, my childhood.
“I can’t listen to country music because that’s all they ever played to drown out my screaming. When I hear it, it just all comes back.”