In 2017, Perry Power’s alcoholic father died from a sudden heart attack. He was only 48.

Six months later, Perry sat in his car and did something he’d never done before. He recorded a video for his small online fitness following and publicly broke his silence — about being sexually abused as a child by his step-grandfather, and about the grief that had been crushing him since his father’s death.

That single video changed everything.

In that moment, Perry understood the cycle. The silence. The alcoholism. The early death. A pattern passed from father to son, generation to generation. He decided it would end with him.

He left the fitness industry. He parked his acting career. He dedicated himself entirely to raising awareness around intrafamilial abuse and helping survivors break their silence before it was too late.

Off the back of his book Breaking The Silence, he launched a publishing company (Powerful Books) to help other trauma survivors write and publish their stories. And last year, he launched his production company (Powerful Films) to start turning those books into feature films, each one designed to create social impact — with his own story being the first.