Trauma survivors are often called “challenging” when they’re simply asking curious, thoughtful questions. This Step 2 entry explores how emotional illiteracy leads to mislabeling, and how reclaiming curiosity becomes a powerful step toward identity healing.

Abuse doesn’t always arrive loudly. Sometimes it starts with the water a little too warm, the air a little too heavy, and the slow erosion of who you are. This is how I learned to name the slow creep of abuse—and how I finally learned to believe myself.

Before the pandemic, I thought I was just tired — but I was drowning. When the world went quiet, I finally saw what was draining me and what had been hurting me all along.

A gentle look at addiction patterns and the survival behaviors we cling to, and how recognizing them becomes the first step toward choosing something real.

The version of me who holds both the deepest ache and the wildest magic? She’s twelve. That was the age I felt the most abandoned, not just by people, but by possibility. By safety. By joy. And yet, that was also the age I dreamed the loudest. Dreams so vivid I can still taste them if I stop long enough to listen. So I started honoring her, not just in therapy or writing, but in how I live. In the way I cut my hair. The music I dance to barefoot in the kitchen. The snacks I m

A story about the quiet ways we’re edited by others—through clothes, food, and shame—and the moment I realized I could reclaim autonomy and stop asking for permission to exist.

Somewhere along the way, we started ranking pain. “At least it wasn’t as bad as…” “That’s nothing compared to what I went through.” “Other people have it worse.” We started treating healing like a competition: Who has the most significant trauma? Who’s the most self-aware? Who cries the hardest in the group? But healing doesn’t work like that. It isn’t scored. It isn’t performative. It’s not something you can “win.” It’s yoga. It’s your mat. It’s your breath. Nobody else is i

I used to host the holidays. I cooked enough for an army. I made the house glow with candles, music, and pies in the oven. I set the table like I was preparing for a reunion that would finally feel like family. I did it because I loved it, but also because I hoped they would love it too. That if I created enough warmth, enough beauty, enough comfort, they’d want to stay longer, reach out more, see me differently, remember me better. Then one year…I stopped. I didn’t send the

This is the moment I realized I had been performing a life I didn’t choose — and how noticing the unraveling became the beginning of self-trust.