I am a child of trauma who grew into an adult shaped by it.
The earliest pieces of my story live in my body more than my memory, embedded in the folds of my brain before I even knew how to speak. Trauma became a language I learned fluently without ever choosing to. As I grew older, it didn’t disappear; it multiplied. A series of events, some loud and undeniable, others quiet and corrosive, shaped who I became, for better and for worse.
For most of my life, I navigated the dark corners of my mind looking for loopholes. Ways out. Ways through. Ways to survive myself. What I learned along the way is that I am deeply creative. Creativity became my refuge. Writing. Art. Making something out of nothing. Those were my safe places, the few spaces where I could breathe without bracing.
At one point, I became someone’s wife. I was young and had no idea what I was doing. Then I became someone’s mother. Again, no idea what I was doing, but I did it anyway, fiercely and imperfectly. Eventually, I was no longer a wife. I was a divorced mom of two, trying to hold the weight of the world with hands that were already tired.
I threw myself into work and built a new identity there. I was good, really good, at what I did. But excellence doesn’t always invite celebration. Sometimes it invites resentment. The jealousy and politics of the corporate world became another unexpected trauma, one I didn’t have language for at the time. Still, I kept going. That’s what I had always done.
Then I married again. This time, to the love of my life. My friend. My protector. My partner in every sense. He was the person I believed I could go through fire with and come out charred but ferociously alive. Together, we built a blended family and a life that looked like everything I had ever wanted.
But the truth is, I brought unresolved pain with me. Those dark corners of my mind, the ones I thought I had outrun, slowly surfaced. They leaked into my marriage and my family in ways I didn’t fully recognize at the time. My behavior became heavy. Reactive. At times, toxic. I lived in a constant state of regret and guilt, trying to be better while still hurting the people I loved most. I asked for forgiveness often, but even forgiveness can wear thin when the wounds keep reopening.
What hurts the most is knowing that I can’t fix their pain. I can’t go back and soften the moments where my trauma spoke louder than my love. I can’t always feel redeemed or fully forgiven, no matter how deeply I wish to be. That realization has been one of the hardest truths to sit with.
Eventually, my husband left.
When he did, the darkness told me a convincing lie: that there was no light without him. That everything I had worked so hard to build was already gone. We tried again, without fully naming what was broken or addressing what needed healing.
Then came the “in sickness” part of the vows.
I became very ill. Twice. My husband stood by my side through it all. What I didn’t see—or didn’t allow myself to see—was how tired he was. How heavy his legs felt. How much it cost him to remain standing. He didn’t tell me. And I didn’t listen the way I should have.
And then he left again.
Within two years, I lost almost everything. Parts of my body. My physical health. Financial security. A stable home life. My marriage. My partner. My closest friend. The person who made me laugh when the world felt unbearable. I lost my sense of authority and steadiness as a mother, and with it, my children’s ability to fully trust me in the ways I wish they still could.
I was stripped down to nothing that felt safe or familiar.
And here I am.
Sitting with the wreckage. Learning who I am without roles, titles, or people to define me. Learning how to show up for myself instead of abandoning myself. Learning that accountability doesn’t mean self-destruction, it means truth.
There is a lot of noise around me now. Encouragement. Reassurance. People are telling me I am strong and resilient. I am learning that strength doesn’t always look like pushing forward. Sometimes it looks like staying still and letting the weight of what you’ve done, and what you can’t undo, exist without running from it.
I am building a spiritual foundation, slowly and imperfectly. Learning to trust that God loves me, even when I struggle to love myself. Even when I feel hard to love.
I have lost so much.
And still, in the quiet rebuilding, I am finding myself. Not as someone absolved of the past, but as someone finally willing to face it. The writer. The artist. The woman beneath the trauma. The woman learning that healing isn’t about erasing pain, it’s about living honestly alongside it.
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Photo credit: Image provided by the storyteller.