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Kristen, Unfiltered
Blog Bio
Welcome to Kristen, Unfiltered—a safe space where faith meets fire, healing meets honesty, and nothing is sugarcoated. I’m Kristen: a Christian wife, fibro warrior, and mental health survivor living with BPD, OCD, and chronic pain.
Here, I write about the unspoken moments—marriage struggles, faith in the dark, flare-ups, trauma, joy, shame, boundaries, and breakthroughs. This isn’t a highlight reel. This is real life: raw, holy, messy, and mine.
Whether I’m clinging to scripture, navigating a splitting episode, or choosing grace in the middle of grief—you’re invited. No masks. No pretending. Just Jesus, journals, and the journey.
If you're healing through hardship, fighting for peace, or learning to love yourself without conditions—you belong here.
This is my heart, unfiltered.
Let’s walk this road together.
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The Energy Shift:
I used to be the warm one. The smiling one. The compliment strangers in line one. The girl who made small talk with anyone. The one who made people feel comfortable immediately. I had girl next door energy. Soft. Warm. Welcoming. Open. And honestly, working in customer service shaped that even more. When you work in sales, when you work in restaurants, when you work directly with people, you learn quickly that part of your job is being warm. Being approachable. Being friendly
Kristen Scott
16 hours ago19 min read
When My Brain Starts Spiraling
My Go To Resets for Anxiety, Panic, and OCD Loops (in case you happen to be an anxious girly too) If your brain spirals into anxiety, panic, or OCD thought loops… you’re not the only one. These are some of the things that personally help me reset my nervous system when my brain starts getting loud. Learning about anxiety and OCD changed a lot for me because it helped me stop believing every thought my brain produces. --- 1. Box Breathing When anxiety or panic hits, your breat
Kristen Scott
5 days ago6 min read
The One Who Stayed
There are characters you love... And then there are characters who feel like they grew up with you. Since I was 10 years old... Xander Harris was one of those characters for me... Buffy's Side kick No powers. No prophecy. No spotlight. Just a boy who stayed. He stayed when it was scary. He stayed when he felt small. He stayed when everyone else had something he didn’t. And somehow, that made him one of the most important people in the entire story. Because when it mattered mo
Kristen Scott
5 days ago3 min read
Cheating Doesn’t Start With a Kiss
It feels like everywhere you look today, entertainment is filled with cheating. Every show... Every storyline... Every plot twist... It feels like you cannot escape it. And I did not want that. I just wanted one show... One safe show. One relationship I could watch without constantly bracing for betrayal... So I decided to watch something a little older, like the rest of my comfort shows from the early 2000's. I thought maybe if I go back a little, it would be different... So
Kristen Scott
6 days ago15 min read
The harsh truths marriage teaches you
Marriage is beautiful. It is sacred. It is companionship, laughter, inside jokes, late night talks, shared dreams, and building a life with someone who chooses you. But marriage also teaches you truths that no one really prepares you for. Not because people are trying to hide them. But because some lessons can only be learned by living them. Marriage is one of the greatest blessings God gives us, but it is also one of the greatest mirrors. It reveals things in us that we neve
Kristen Scott
Mar 144 min read
When Emotions Become Disorders...
What if instead of emotions running Riley’s brain… They were mental illnesses? What if the glowing control panel wasn’t just feelings. What if it was a brain trying to survive? Let’s imagine it... — Joy; ADHD Joy moves fast. Talks fast. Thinks fast. Jumps to the next idea before finishing the first one. She needs stimulation. She panics when things get slow. She struggles when nothing exciting is happening. If Joy represented ADHD, she would be the hyperactive energy that tri
Kristen Scott
Mar 144 min read
What Inside Out Taught Me About My Emotions
If you have seen Inside Out and Inside Out 2, then you already know... The control panel. The glowing buttons. The chaos. The switching. The overwhelm. People watch those movies and think they are cute. I watch them and feel understood. Because my brain looks exactly like that. Let me introduce you to everyone at my control panel. Joy Joy wants forward movement. She wants connection. She wants hope. She wants the bigger picture. Joy is the one who believes things can still be
Kristen Scott
Mar 144 min read
Heat Waves
There’s a song called Heat Waves by Glass Animals. But not the regular one. The one that hits me is Heat Waves slowed version. Something about it stretches the feeling out longer. The notes linger. The emotion sits in the air instead of rushing past you. For years when I listened to that song, I thought about people. A boy once. My dad. My old best friend. And for a season, even my mom. The song always reminded me of someone I missed. Someone who had drifted away or someone I
Kristen Scott
Mar 142 min read
Allow
Tonight I was sitting with my March Silk + Sonder journal, candle lit, when I came across this poem. “Allow” by Danna Faulds: “There is no controlling life. Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado. Dam a stream and it will create a new channel. Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet. Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground. The only safety lies in letting it all in the wild and the weak; fear, fantasies, failures and success. When loss rips o
Kristen Scott
Mar 13 min read
Tonight I Told God He Had Five Minutes
Tonight I was mad... Not the cute kind. Not the dramatic kind. The tired kind. The kind where you are already exhausted and someone says something spiritual and it just hits wrong. My husband and I were in bed listening to an online sermon from a guest speaker. And he said, “God is a speaking God. And if you have not heard from God, how can you follow Him? How can you be strong in your faith?” That was the sentence. That is what triggered me. I’m really upset, because I’m lis
Kristen Scott
Mar 15 min read
Hello, Depression. We meet again.
If you have never experienced depression...who am I kidding...you live on this planet so you probably have in some form. Some people probably think it looks like constant crying. I think that's where it starts... But depression is not just sadness... Sometimes it looks like sleeping until 3 PM because being unconscious is easier than being aware. Sometimes it looks like staring at your phone but not answering anyone. Or not touching it at all. Sometimes it looks like taking y
Kristen Scott
Feb 258 min read
Fibromyalgia Is Not My Enemy
If you have been reading my blogs for a while now, then you know how many negative posts I have written about my chronic illness. You have seen the frustration. The exhaustion. The anger. The grief. Up until tonight...I believed it was my enemy. Simple as that. The thing that ruined my normal life. The diagnosis that took my energy. That changed me. That aged me. The label that made everything feel permanent, the kind with no relief. No end date. I carried it like a sentence.
Kristen Scott
Feb 2510 min read
Regina
I need you to just read this before reacting. I have not said anything because I did not want to look crazy. I did not want to accuse someone of something without being sure. But I cannot keep pretending I am not noticing it. Her name is Regina. I did not plan on giving her a name. It just came out one day. I started noticing little things. The way his hand goes to her when he thinks I am not looking. The way he touches her absentmindedly. Like it is habit. Like it is familia
Kristen Scott
Feb 195 min read
Your Nervous System Lives in Seasons
We were never meant to operate at the same speed all year. And yet every January, we try. We wake up after weeks of holidays, emotional labor, disrupted routines, overstimulation, travel, spending, family dynamics, and social energy… and then we expect ourselves to transform. New year. New habits. New discipline. New routine. New version of ourselves. But biologically, January is not a beginning. It is aftermath. Winter is not a productivity season. For most of human history,
Kristen Scott
Feb 162 min read
Sandalwood Smoke and Strawberry Cheesecake After Midnight
This Valentine’s Day looked different... This season has stretched us. Between physical therapy appointments, neurologist visits, chronic pain, and learning how to move through injury together, love has looked less like grand gestures and more like steady presence and little moments. Adrian cannot drive right now, so instead of shopping separately like we usually do for Valentine’s Day and surprising each other the morning of, we shopped side by side. We used gift cards from
Kristen Scott
Feb 144 min read
When Neuroplasticity Meets Reality:
I was pulled into a different evaluation room today at my physical therapist’s office. Not a normal evaluation space, but more like their back office. It has been a couple of months since I have been able to go myself, especially with everything going on after my husband’s accident. Between his appointments, my appointments, legal paperwork, and just surviving this season, consistency has been harder than usual. And if you live with a chronic illness as well, then you already
Kristen Scott
Feb 147 min read
My Mental Health, Framed
I asked ChatGPT, as this trend on TikTok suggested, to interpret what my mental health would look like if it were a portrait hanging in a museum... Then I asked it to explain the portrait to me. What came back was uncomfortably accurate... And unexpectedly tender. _______________________ 🎨 Title on the plaque: The Woman Who Feels Too Much (And Still Stays Oil on Canvas 🖼️ What the portrait shows: In the painting, you sit at the center, lit like you are the main exhibit. You
Kristen Scott
Feb 83 min read
Chronic Illness Is a Life Sentence
There is no gentle beginning to my days... Sometimes the medication comes before I even open my eyes. Sometimes it comes in the middle of the night, when pain drags me out of sleep and I take more just to make it through the dark hours... Sleep is never whole. It is broken and shallow... Interrupted by pain, bathroom trips, and trips to the freezer. Ice caps for my head. Ice packs for my back. Over and over again. Get up. Pee. Replace the ice. Go back to bed. Repeat. When m
Kristen Scott
Feb 84 min read
New Year Without Resolutions
New Year’s resolutions look different when you are chronically ill. I saw a tiktok today that stopped me in my tracks... It said that while others hope to level up, chase dreams, and make big moves, people like us hope for fewer flare ups, more energy, less pain, and the strength to keep going. Someone commented that they forgot what it even feels like to feel normal... I hearted it. That comment hit harder than anything else. Because that is the part no one wants to talk ab
Kristen Scott
Feb 83 min read
Subtle Changes, Big Impact
When I was little, I used to look at those motorized carts in stores and just assume they were for the elderly. For the disabled. For the handicapped. I knew they existed, but in my head they belonged to a category I never imagined I’d understand this early in life... Not because I thought I was better than anyone. Just because… you don’t grow up expecting your body to become something you have to manage. You don’t grow up imagining that a simple trip to Walmart could feel li
Kristen Scott
Jan 2010 min read
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