From the girl who kept going… To the woman who refuses to lose one more piece of herself…

I am no longer allowing my personality to be fragmented.

Not by fear. Not by performance. Not by silence.

Because I refuse to keep bypassing the pain that buried itself into my bones.

All the trauma I didn’t deal with…

It didn’t stay in the past.

It became my present.

It settled in my body.

It hardened in my joints.

It lit fires in my nerves.

They call it fibromyalgia...but what they don’t tell you...is that it often begins with emotional pain that had nowhere else to go.

Every day, I live inside a body that remembers what my mind worked so hard to forget.

But this body isn’t broken.

It’s carrying.

Every ungrieved moment.

Every moment I feared who was supposed to protect me.

Every silent cry behind a closed door.

Every fake smile I wore while splintering inside.

Every time I made the bed and went on like nothing happened.

I’ll never forget what my stepmom Kim once said to me...

“I don’t know how you just got up and went to school… you even made your bed after last night? I’d still be in it.”

She didn’t know I had no choice...

I didn’t know I was already disappearing.

Whatever happened that night… I still don’t remember.

My therapist once told me, “Sometimes the mind erases memories to protect you.”

At first, I thought it failed.

But now, I wonder if it was doing the only thing it could.

Maybe the fragmentation didn’t happen all at once.

Maybe it happened slowly… quietly… invisibly.

And maybe that wasn’t weakness.

Maybe that was survival.

Eventually, the survival patterns turned into symptoms.

Those symptoms became diagnoses...Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD): a complex trauma response that impacts emotional regulation, identity, relationships, and self-worth.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): a condition where the mind fixates on distressing thoughts or fears, often soothed through rituals or repetitive behaviors.

These aren’t labels.

They’re names for the ways my brain and body learned to adapt.

They aren’t who I am.

But they are part of the story.

Now....when i feel my nervous system reaching...for structure. For routine. For something safe...I understand why....

It’s the same instinct I had when I was little.

My mom told me I used to line up my Disney princess figurines on my dad’s windowsill when i was at his house...She told me he asked if I did that at her house to she said nope...just with you.

Something my therapist is currently working with me on as I recently got diagnosed with OCD.

Tiny objects in perfect rows....

My therapist said it's because the world around me felt unpredictable....

And in that sill, I found control.

Sometimes… life still feels familiar in its chaos.

But then I remember:

I am not that little girl anymore...

And this time?

I get to choose differently.

So I do.

“Do. Not. Move.”

That’s what my body tells me.

And now… I listen.

No forcing myself to push through.

No pretending I’m fine when I’m not.

No outrunning the aches of relationships and life...

Just presence.

Just rest.

Just stillness.

Because sometimes healing doesn’t look like doing.

It looks like being.

So now...I don't just make the bed.

I stay in it when I need to.

I don't cover what I feel anymore...

I let it speak. I sit in it.

Because I’ve learned:

You have to feel it… to heal it.

This isn’t just about mental health....

It’s about soul health.

About choosing presence over performance.

Rest over resilience.

Feeling over functioning

Me over others.

Today, I honor the girl who survived it all.

And I protect the woman who no longer has to.

I am reclaiming every piece of myself that survival once scattered....And I will keep reclaiming them...

One still moment at a time.

Kristen, Unfiltered Xo 💋

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"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." — Psalm 34:18

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