She was seven,
when the world first felt too big.
Too heavy,
like it was asking her to carry more than her small shoulders could bear.

She learned early
that sometimes silence is louder than screams,
that sometimes the people who are supposed to protect you
are the ones who leave you bruised,
and not just on the skin,
but in the places that are supposed to be soft.
Home was supposed to be safe,
but home was where the cracks started,
where the whispers of nothingness began to creep in.

By thirteen,
she’d learned to hide behind smiles,
perfectly placed,
like masks she wore so no one would ask.
She had learned to become what everyone needed—
a good daughter,
a quiet student,
a girl who kept her hands folded and her head down.
But inside,
the questions grew louder,
the doubt took root,
and she wondered if anyone would even notice
if she disappeared.

At sixteen,
the darkness found a voice.
It whispered in the quiet moments,
late at night,
when the world was still,
and all she had was the weight of her thoughts pressing against her chest.
"You’re not enough," it said.
"You never will be."
And she started to believe it.
Started to think that maybe the world would be better off
if she wasn’t in it.
The pills,
they sat on her nightstand like a promise,
a way out,
a silence that felt almost peaceful.

But she didn’t do it,
not that night.
Not because she didn’t want to—
but because something deep inside,
something small and fragile,
whispered back,
"What if there’s more? What if you survive?"

At twenty,
she thought she’d outrun it,
the darkness,
the questions,
the weight of never being enough.
She thought she’d escaped,
but healing isn’t a straight line.
It’s a spiral,
and sometimes it pulls you back into the very place
you thought you’d left behind.
The voices,
they came back,
not as loud as before,
but enough to make her question her worth,
her place,
her right to be here.

She tried to fill the emptiness
with distractions,
with people,
with love that never quite fit,
with things that numbed the pain but never healed it.
She thought maybe if she was good enough,
smart enough,
pretty enough,
someone would fill the spaces she couldn’t reach.
But that’s the thing about healing—
no one can do it for you.

By twenty-five,
she learned that the only way out was through.
That healing isn’t something you can rush,
it’s not a destination,
but a process—
a slow, painful unraveling
of all the things you thought were true
about yourself,
about the world,
about love.

She had to face the wounds,
the ones she’d buried so deep,
she almost forgot they were there.
Had to sit with the pain,
had to let herself feel it—
the heartbreak,
the betrayal,
the nights she didn’t want to live,
the days she pretended to be okay.
She had to unlearn the lies
she’d been told since she was a child,
had to remind herself that being broken
wasn’t the end of the story.

And it wasn’t pretty,
this healing.
It wasn’t clean or easy or quick.
It was messy,
and there were days she wanted to give up,
days when the darkness seemed closer than the light.
But healing doesn’t happen in a straight line.
It happens in fits and starts,
in the moments when you least expect it—
like the first time she looked in the mirror
and didn’t hate what she saw,
or the day she laughed and realized
she hadn’t thought about the pain for hours.

It happened in the quiet,
in the stillness,
in the space she gave herself
to just be.
To be enough,
even when the world said she wasn’t.
To be worthy,
even when she doubted it herself.

At thirty,
she’s still healing.
Because healing is not something that ends.
It’s something you carry with you,
like scars that fade but never completely disappear.
But she’s learned to see those scars as proof—
proof that she survived,
proof that she is stronger than the darkness,
proof that she is still here.

She’s learned that healing isn’t about erasing the pain,
but about learning to live with it,
to move through it,
to find beauty in the brokenness.
She’s learned that her story is not defined by the wounds,
but by the way she chooses to rise from them.

She was seven when the world first felt too big.
But now,
she knows that she is bigger,
that she is more than the pain,
more than the darkness,
more than the moments when she wanted to give up.
She is a survivor,
and her story is just beginning.

Because healing—
it’s not a destination reached,
but the opening of a door
to the woman she’s always been,
the strength she never knew she had,
and the light that will guide her forward.