For most of my life, I was closed off, keeping people at arm’s length, and I had no idea why I sabotaged real connections when they came my way. I spent years feeling numb, locked in a cycle of emotional breakdowns. Expressing myself or even talking about my feelings felt impossible. It was like I […]
One Year On, Without My Aunt
It’s been a year since we lost my aunt, and honestly, it feels different than any other loss I’ve experienced. My aunt was the last of my maternal relatives, my mom’s youngest sister, and after my mom passed in 2007, she took on the role of a second mom to me. She was my guide, […]
The Year Everything Changed (For Real This Time)
If you had told me a year ago that I’d be writing a post like this, clear-headed, grounded, and dare I say… hopeful? I probably would’ve laughed. Or more likely, shut down completely and changed the subject. But here I am, at the start of 2025, taking a deep breath and recognizing just how far […]
My Journey Of Introspection
I have been doing a lot of soul-searching lately. Looking at my life over the years and where I am today. I’ve really tried not to play victim or look at my life as if I was dealt a bad hand. I do, however, see what trauma has cost me, what it has done to […]
How CPTSD Changed How I See Myself
Healing from CPTSD: What I’ve Learned About Myself Healing from CPTSD isn’t a straight line. There are setbacks, breakthroughs, and moments when you suddenly realize you’ve been carrying beliefs that were never yours to begin with. Looking back over the past few years, there are several lessons that have fundamentally changed how I relate to […]
Life Isn’t All Black And White
Having cPTSD often makes you look at life through a black-and-white lens, and that your trauma response to life is not just constantly assessing whether or not people are safe but also whether our environments are safe too. For a really long time, my thinking was on a black-and-white level. You either liked/loved me or […]