Tag: life
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When You Feel Like Too Much (And Still Not Enough)
Childhood trauma often leads individuals to feel “too much” or “not enough,” driving them to please others while neglecting their own needs. This survival mechanism creates disconnection and loss of self. Healing involves accepting one’s true self, recognizing the impact of past trauma, and fostering genuine relationships without the need for performance.
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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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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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I’m Done People-Pleasing: How Trauma Trained Me to Be Everything for Everyone But Myself
For as long as I can remember, I’ve tried to be what everyone else needed me to be. The easygoing friend, the accommodating daughter, the quiet, non-confrontational one who never asked for too much. It wasn’t conscious at first—it was survival. When your nervous system is hardwired by trauma, your body learns to scan for…
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Showing Up, Even When It’s Hard
I had no idea what I was walking into today. The negative self-talk started early, reminding me that I wasn’t really part of this friend group anymore. Another side of me pushed back, remembering that some of these people had been my closest friends since eighth grade. We’ve all come such a long way, especially…
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When The Silence Is Deafening
I’ve been writing on the internet since the Yahoo Geocities days—back when personal blogs were clunky, glittery, and filled with badly formatted text. I’ve poured my heart onto metaphorical paper for as long as I can remember, leaving pieces of myself in the digital ether, hoping my words might land somewhere, with someone. And yet,…
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Healing Out Loud: Why Telling Our Stories Matters
“Healing out loud because I almost died in silence.” Breaking the Silence: The Power of Sharing Our Stories For years, I believed my story was something to be hidden—too heavy, too messy, too much for the world to handle. I convinced myself that silence was safer. That if I didn’t speak about my experiences, they…
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Cinema, Sentiment, and Storytelling: The Films That Speak to My Soul
The Struggle of Choosing Just One Favorite Movie Whenever someone asks me, “What’s your favorite movie?” I freeze. Not because I don’t have one, but because I have too many. How do you choose between the movies that shaped you, the ones that comfort you, and the ones that completely wreck you in the best…
Jessica Woodville | Memoir & Musings 