By March 2018, three years later, the storm had passed but the aftershocks hadn’t. I was trying to rebuild a sense of safety, to understand what survival meant after someone had tried to take your life, and to redefine motherhood and belonging in a fractured family system. The following months capture the uneasy peace that comes after trauma: the attempt to return to “normal,” the grief of disconnection, and the discovery that writing was your lifeline back to yourself.
March 5, 2018
On the plane to Costa Rica. I hate leaving my daughter. There is a feeling I get, a worry that being away from my daughter puts her in danger. The the person that tried to kill me will get to her, my little love, my everything. I know this is not rational but I think it’s normal. I mean when someone does this to you never again do I believe that you feel you are truly safe. Evil has been exposed to me, a side of a human being I will never forgive or forget. I will however let it go.
So we are on the plane to Costa Rica. Just my husband and I. I booked the trip last November on my birthday.
This is trauma vigilance, the brain equating separation with danger. Even on a plane to paradise, my body still believed a threat was near. Trauma changes geography; it teaches the nervous system that nowhere is entirely safe.
March 13,2018
Last day of our trip, filled with 5:55 every day the sun set at 5:55
March 17, 2018
We are finally speaking our truth with my stepdaughter. Her Dad had to tell her that he isn’t going anywhere. That he has been here for her through all the traumas she has had. That we have loved her and supported her and she is hurting us now and we don’t know why. He laid it down as you are focusing on the wrong things once you start passing your classes and stop ditching school getting there on time then we can have a productive conversation about him being in her “personal life” Until then she has no room to speak.
A little while after that she said she missed her little sister and wanted to see her. They Face Timed from the party we were at for an hour.
I have been telling my daughter that her sister is going through some stuff and wants to live at her Mom’s house. That even big girls have tantrums sometimes but they last longer. That day I told her you know her sister isn’t being a very good sister to you today and she is being rude to all of us. I didn’t mean to lose my cool but I did. I was told later that she told the therapist that her isn’t being a very good sister to her right now on her own. Sad. Her mom only values her family to her daughter, not anyone else.
I know my withdrawal injured my stepdaughter. None of us really knew what was going with me as it was going on. But my leaving the trauma felt like I was abandoning them. My husband and my stepdaughter both felt it.
I felt like my standing in as a mother figure for her was preventing her from being able to see her mom clearly and it was obviously making it a very dangerous situation for me. So I had to take myself out of the equation.
This is differentiation and boundary repair. I was stepping out of a parentified role that cost me my safety and sanity. I was realizing that protecting yourself isn’t abandonment—it’s survival.
05/31/18
Wow since March since i have written, we are not speaking to my stepdaughter at this time. She will not talk to us.
Here grief settles in. The numbness of earlier months gives way to ache. I am naming emotional pain as the main obstacle to self-nourishment—a sign of emotional literacy returning.
06/03/18
The one single thing that will get in your way of taking care of yourself is pain. Physical pain yes of course number one but emotional pain is the worst!!!
07/08/18
I’ve been completely stuck in my head, this is what happens when I do not write. I must continue to right and get this out of me. I think of my step daughter constantly, and now I think of this situation of my friends oversteppping. Never in my life have I noticed the distinction of money as I did after speaking with my friend today. I need to remember what happened yesterday when I was in my head saying some negative things and suddenly I looked at myself and said no I am not. I am Divine. I am a Goddess. I am not that those words I just said who is that. I didn’t recognize. I am also on my period so maybe that has a lot to do with it. I read a lot about your passion and following it and when you do suddenly something like a miracle shows up in your life. I am tired of not stepping forward into each day with me 100%. I now get to do that at work.
So step daughter is still not in our lives and my stepson is barely the load of hospitalizing his girlfriend with a severe mental disorder. 100% of the burden is on him. His passiveness and unwillingness to confront has gotten him pulled into a serious situation. I really fear for him and his emotional world. I see him trying I hope it is enough. I feel that since all this has happened I have had to remove myself from these kids lives and it is heartbreaking. I have completely disconnected from how it was but how could I not?! This is not my doing, their mother did this. She literally almost disconnected my light from the world because I loved her kids and her kids loved what I brought to their day. My husband’s son now has to be at a hospital because what his mom did unraveled his girlfriend. My husband needs to call him this morning and ask him questions about how he is doing. Now I am crying see what writing does?! it gets it out of me so I am sorry I have to put some of these words out there as it makes them more real but they do not belong to me they are just passing through and i feel it is my job to release them as my cavern is not large enough to contain them.
This is my nervous system using narrative to discharge trapped energy. Writing becomes somatic release—what can’t be spoken is transmuted on the page.
8/26/18
I think it’s time to start being intentional about my writing.
This is post-traumatic growth in motion: transforming meaninglessness into mission. I am moving from self-preservation to service. The list at the end reads like a map of your calling.
9/9/18
Saturday. My daughter is with her friend watching a movie.
I just exist in my head and until I write this story I will only exist in my head. I have discovered that some people don’t like to write. I figured everyone needed this form of therapy. My friend Grace’s words vibrate through my head that I am the chosen one for this path, a warrior I am doing my work and I need to share it. Because that is what we are supposed to be doing.
Reading a book called 4 minutes can change you life by Rebekah Borucki and something I read really stuck with me:
“ This is what happens when you share your wonderful, life-changing discoveries with the world. You give back in service, and the Universe blesses you with more good fortune to spread around.”
Her book is about how meditation lights up her life. I feel the same as it has healed my brain and nervous system. She speaks to how she is so removed from the person she was when she was younger and when she talks about her it almost feels like she is talking about someone else. That’s how much you can grow and change if you commit to just those minutes daily.
But again I find myself benefiting from the strategies of all these guru’s (yes lovely people own you are the gurus of modern day and I honor you all) but still having things unresolved. I can relate but there is always a wicked twist to my reasons or needing these examples of work to follow.
I can relate to Rebekah about not recognizing your former self. But she got there differently than I did. But I feel we are somewhat the same in many ways. I got catapulted into another world. I joined many when this happened to me so I feel an even greater weight of responsibility to because I am multi-dimensional, I apply to many.
I have things I want to talk about.
Domestic Violence
Unprotected Minorities
PTSD
Traumatic Brain Injury
Spinal injuries/whiplash/soft tissue injury
Learning Disabilities: ADHD, Dyslexia and School
Trauma
Bullying
Dealing with work when your life blows up
Children and divorce and how all the above effects them
Feeling like you can’t talk about what happened to you feeling shameful
Summary & Trauma-Informed Reflection
Between March and September 2018, my nervous system was learning to live without constant crisis. The hypervigilance (“what if something happens to my daughter?”) gradually gave way to grief, then creative activation. I was beginning to integrate what had happened—naming it, contextualizing it, and recognizing that writing could alchemize pain into purpose.
From a trauma-therapy perspective:
- Hyperarousal → Integration: I moved from fear to self-trust through awareness.
- Loss → Meaning: The estrangement from my stepdaughter became the catalyst for understanding boundaries.
- Isolation → Expression: Writing became my polyvagal regulation tool—turning dissociation into creation.
This phase marks the transition from survivor to storyteller—where trauma stops defining you and starts informing your work.
Conclusion:
This journal cycle is the seed of my current mission: to help others heal by sharing my truth. I didn’t just survive; I began documenting the roadmap for those still in the dark. The moment I stopped hiding my story, I became a mirror for others to see that theirs isn’t over either.
Strangled In La Jolla 