For most of my life, I believed survival was the same thing as living.
From the outside, my life often appeared normal. I smiled in photographs. I went to work. I laughed at family gatherings. I carried conversations as if nothing inside me was unraveling. But behind closed doors, I was carrying years of silent pain that began long before I understood what trauma even was.
I was only three years old when my innocence was stolen.
At that age, I did not have the language to explain abuse, fear, or betrayal. I only knew that someone I trusted hurt me in ways no child should ever experience. Like many survivors, my mind buried parts of those memories deep within me, but trauma has a way of surviving in silence. Even when the mind forgets, the body remembers.
As I grew older, the wounds followed me quietly into every stage of my life.
In school, I was bullied constantly for being different. I never fit comfortably into groups. I was sensitive, creative, observant, and deeply emotional in a world that often rewards people for blending in. I was called a nerd, laughed at for being quiet, and made to feel like there was always something “wrong” with me. Every insult slowly chipped away at my confidence. I dreaded walking through school hallways wondering what would be said about me that day. At home, I cried silently more times than anyone ever knew.
As a child, I used to pray to become an adult because I believed adulthood would finally bring peace and acceptance. Instead, the bullying simply evolved.
As an adult, criticism became more subtle but far more damaging. It came through relationships, comparisons, emotional manipulation, unrealistic expectations, and feeling constantly measured against impossible standards. I slowly learned how to shrink myself to keep other people comfortable. I became the woman who over-explained, over-gave, and over-sacrificed because somewhere deep inside, I feared abandonment more than I feared losing myself.
And eventually, I did lose myself.
There was a time when writing came naturally to me. Writing was where I felt most alive. I wrote lyrics, reflections, and stories filled with emotion and imagination. Creativity was the purest part of who I was. But over the years, trauma, toxic relationships, emotional abuse, and untreated mental illness slowly disconnected me from that part of myself.
I stopped trusting my voice.
I stopped believing my words mattered.
And eventually, I stopped writing altogether.
What I did not understand at the time was how deeply my environment was affecting my mental health. Years of unresolved trauma, emotional stress, childhood abuse, bullying, and domestic violence slowly accumulated inside me until my mind and body could no longer carry the weight.
One morning, while walking to work, I experienced a complete mental breakdown. My mind froze. I stood outside a building unable to recognize where I was or how I got there. Panic consumed me. I felt trapped inside my own body.
At that exact moment, my sister texted me asking if I was okay.
To this day, I believe God used her to reach me.
Eventually, after much fear and denial, I sought professional help and was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, ADHD, chronic anxiety, and PTSD connected to unresolved trauma. At first, I felt ashamed. Coming from a Hispanic family where mental health was rarely discussed openly, I carried the belief that struggling mentally somehow made me weak. The mindset was always to “push through” pain, no matter how heavy it became.
But therapy changed my life.
For the first time, I began understanding myself with compassion instead of judgment. I learned that trauma affects the nervous system, memory, emotional regulation, and even the way the brain processes stress. I learned that surviving trauma often looks invisible to the outside world.
Some days I function well. Other days my mind feels heavy, overstimulated, or emotionally exhausted. Crowded places, loud environments, conflict, and negativity overwhelm me more than people realize. I absorb emotions deeply. For years, I judged myself for not always being “strong enough” or “productive enough,” until I finally learned that healing requires grace, not punishment.
The deeper truth, however, was that my mental health struggles were intensified by the environment I was living in.
I spent nineteen years in a relationship that slowly stripped away my confidence, identity, and emotional stability. There was no dramatic ending. No singular explosion. Just years of slowly disappearing inside myself while trying to save a relationship that was breaking me apart.
I kept believing that if I loved harder, explained myself better, or stayed longer, things would change.
But some wounds only deepen in silence.
The day I finally chose to leave was not empowering at first. It was terrifying. I was grieving the life I thought I would have while simultaneously trying to save the person I was becoming. I questioned whether I could survive on my own. I questioned whether I was making the right decision. I questioned everything except the quiet voice inside me telling me I could not stay any longer.
Walking away felt like stepping into complete darkness.
But somewhere underneath the fear was a quiet knowing that if I did not leave, I might lose myself completely.
So I chose myself.
And that decision changed everything.
Starting over was not beautiful in the way people imagine. It was lonely. Painful. Confusing. I lived alone for the first time in complete silence, and that silence forced me to confront parts of myself I had spent years avoiding.
Without distractions, memories resurfaced.
One evening while sitting in my apartment watching the sunset, the fragmented memories of my childhood abuse suddenly became vivid and undeniable. I finally remembered the face of the man who abused me. The truth shattered me completely.
Everything began making sense — my anxiety, my depression, my toxic relationships, my self-destructive patterns, my desperate search for validation, and the deep emptiness I spent years trying to escape.
For years, I had unknowingly tried to fill wounds that began in childhood.
I numbed myself in different ways throughout my twenties and thirties. Sometimes through alcohol. Sometimes through unhealthy relationships. Sometimes through seeking validation online because I wanted to feel seen, wanted, and enough. But temporary attention can never heal permanent wounds. No compliment, relationship, or outside approval could fix what was broken internally.
There were moments after that realization when the pain became unbearable.
One morning, emotionally exhausted from carrying years of trauma, I wrote goodbye letters to my mother and sister. I remember sitting there crying as I wrote every word. I felt tired and defeated. I walked into my bathroom, stared at prescription bottles lined up in the medicine cabinet, and whispered to myself:
“I just want to sleep and never wake up again.”
Then I heard a quiet voice inside me say:
“Close it.”
And I did.
I walked to my small altar, held my Bible against my chest, and cried harder than I ever had before. I had no perfect prayer. No eloquent words. Only surrender.
And somehow, in the middle of my darkness, God interrupted my pain with peace.
Not instant healing.
Just enough peace to survive that moment.
Looking back now, I realize God had been saving me my entire life.
He protected me as a child when my life could have turned out far worse. He carried me through mental breakdowns, depression, emotional abuse, addiction to unhealthy coping mechanisms, toxic relationships, and domestic violence. Even after my divorce, when I briefly entered another dangerous relationship, God warned me again.
I remember whispering, “God, help me,” moments before things could have turned deadly.
And once again, He answered.
I truly believe God speaks in whispers, through discernment, through people, and through moments we often dismiss as coincidence. One of the most beautiful examples happened after I prayed one morning asking God to heal my heart and somehow allow me to feel His hug.
Weeks later, during a simple hair appointment, my hairdresser began speaking directly to wounds I had never shared aloud. He told me to release guilt, forgive myself, and stop carrying shame that never belonged to me. Before I left, he hugged me.
And instantly I knew.
That was God answering my prayer.
Over time, my faith stopped becoming something religious and became deeply personal. I began understanding that God does not promise a life free from suffering. But He does promise we are never alone within it.
Healing did not happen overnight.
It came slowly through therapy, prayer, self-reflection, boundaries, solitude, honesty, and learning how to stop abandoning myself for the approval of others. I had to let go of the version of me who believed love had to be earned through sacrifice. The woman who believed shrinking herself would finally make her acceptable.
I outgrew her.
Today, I no longer seek validation the way I once did. I no longer use relationships, attention, or external approval to define my worth. I finally understand that real confidence is built quietly through healing, self-respect, faith, and authenticity.
And somewhere along this journey, something unexpected happened.
I found my voice again.
Not the same voice I had before.
A stronger one.
A wiser one.
A voice shaped by survival, grief, faith, truth, and resilience.
For years, I thought writing had disappeared from my life forever. But now I understand something differently: my voice was never gone. It was waiting for me to heal enough to use it honestly.
So this is my comeback.
Not just to writing, but to myself.
I am no longer writing from fantasy, performance, or the need to impress anyone. I am writing from truth. From experience. From survival.
I write for the little girl who once felt invisible.
For the woman who almost gave up.
For the survivors carrying shame that never belonged to them.
For the people silently battling depression, anxiety, trauma, or loneliness while pretending to be okay.
And for anyone who feels like they have lost themselves somewhere along the way.
Because I understand now that healing is not about becoming who you were before the pain. Healing is becoming someone stronger, wiser, and more honest because of it.
And if my story teaches anything, I hope it reminds people that mental illness is not weakness, trauma is not identity, and healing is possible even after years of darkness.
Some people survive quietly.
Some people survive loudly.
And some of us survive by finally telling the truth.
This is mine.
*Full Memoir Coming Soon
“No weapon that is formed against you will succeed…” Isaiah 54:17