Category: Survival and Healing
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Finding Healing After Family Turmoil: A Journey to Self-Recovery
It’s a strange thing, being on the “other side” of survival (other side in quotes because honestly, I am still mostly surviving, not quite thriving) Life often gives you a brief moment of quiet, only to hand you the daunting task of healing. Recently, I received a comment from a reader that resonated deeply with…
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We’re Not Broken – The System Is
“Healing isn’t just about surviving the past—it’s about building the future. And I refuse to let my past be the thing that steals my future away.” I am a trauma survivor, a mother, and an advocate. And like so many others carrying the weight of early adversity, I have spent years trying to heal in…
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What I Wish Health Professionals Knew About Trauma
They called it anxiety. They called it depression. But no one asked what happened to me. Here’s what I wish every doctor, therapist, and provider understood about trauma—and what real healing actually takes.
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This Is What It Cost Me: Five Years, One Body, and a System That Still Won’t Listen
I’ve written about this before—maybe two, three times now. Chronic illness. Storms. Parenting through it. The trauma it leaves behind. But the truth is, every time I write, I hold a piece back. Because reliving it costs energy I barely have. Because writing about being dismissed starts to feel like shouting into a void. But…
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The Things I Wish I Could Tell Little Me
You won’t believe me, but you survive. Not just the day-to-day battles, but the long war. The years of being invisible. The times you wished you could disappear entirely. You survive it all. And one day, you write it down. You speak it out loud. You turn it into something more than pain. You turn…
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Too Sick to Be Ignored, Too Complicated to Be Helped
After years of mysterious symptoms, trauma-informed insight, and medical dismissal — including at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country — I’m left wondering if there’s a place for people like me in modern medicine. This is what it’s like to be chronically ill, gaslit, and out of strength.
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The Things I Carry, Still
There are things I carry that no one can see. Not in the lines on my face or the curve of my spine—though they’ve left their marks there, too. Not in a diagnosis code or a medical chart, though my body has often tried to speak the truth before I had the language for it.…
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Three Last Names, One Me: Finding My Identity After Divorce(s) and Trauma
“I’m a free spirit who never had the balls to be free.”― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail Names. They shape us, define us, and sometimes, they break us. I’ve carried three last names over the course of my life, each one representing a different chapter of who I was—or perhaps…
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The Storm They Don’t See: Parenting with Invisible Illness
This morning my kids were arguing, my heart was racing, and my body was glitching like a laptop running too many tabs. I’ve been fighting this flare up for three days now… Welcome to what I call a dysautonomic storm—when your nervous system forgets how to human. You can’t see it from the outside. There’s…
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The Price of Persistence: How I Spent My Savings Searching for Answers
After my separation, I had a modest savings account—something I hoped would give me a sense of security as I rebuilt my life. Instead, it became my lifeline…in a way. I spent nearly $20,000 trying to figure out why my health kept failing. Twenty. Thousand. Dollars. Every penny of it was spent chasing the hope…
Jessica Woodville | Memoir & Musings 