Caged Pride

How long can you live a lie before it breaks you? Jerome Clarkson has spent his life in hiding-hiding from his past, his truth, and himself. Born the eldest of eight to a mother who was only 13 when she had him, Jerome grew up in a home marked by dysfunction, cruelty, and blame. Targeted, beaten, and shamed for being "different," he learned early that survival meant silence. At nineteen, desperate to escape and prove his mother wrong, Jerome married a woman. Choosing denial over authenticity. For more than two decades, he carried the weight of a lie, building a life shaped by heartbreak, scandal, and the unbearable cost of pretending to be someone he wasn't. Now, in this raw and unflinching memoir, Jerome opens the door to everything he kept hidden. From the trauma of childhood to the toll of conformity, Caged Pride is an intimate portrait of pain, endurance, and the search for self-acceptance when love, especially self-love, was never taught at home. Both devastating and inspiring, Jerome's story is not just about survival, it's about breaking the cage, confronting the truth, and finally learning what it means to be free.