My Testimony: Kristen; Forged by Fire 🔥

"There are some girls who are lost in the fire and there are others who are built from it"

The Breaking:

The cracks didn’t start at seventeen.

They started long before...

in the quiet spaces where fear and love grew side by side,

where survival became instinct,

where silence sometimes became safety.

where absence was visible.

I grew up knowing both:

love and loss,

laughter and heartbreak,

comfort and fear,

unconditional love and abandonment.

My childhood wasn’t all darkness....but it wasn’t all light either.

I was a mosaic of cracks by the time I even understood what breaking was.

---

The darkness that came for me at 18:

In October 2012 At seventeen years old, I met my first love.

My Edward.

In 2014 At eighteen, he spun off into the military a year after we graduated high school during a time his own world was spiraling...pulling a piece of me with him.

He made the decision without me,

then expected me to drop everything and follow him into the unknown.

When he left... just like Edward left Bella in New Moon... the darkness came.

The kind of darkness you don’t fall into.

The kind that swallows you whole.

Losing my first love felt like losing the air i breathe.

You know the kind... where you can't sleep, can't breathe because it hurts so much, and every place you two once walked haunts you with memories...

Hearing your songs

Watching the sunset.

That wiff of his cologne? That's a different kind of pain.

Every tiny thing becomes a knife twisting somewhere deep inside you.

It was the kind of loss that didn't just break my heart... it consumed me.

Even brokenhearted, I stayed.

I chose me.

Not because it was easy..Not because i didn't still love him...

but because some small ember inside me whispered:

"You were not born to disappear into someone else’s life."

I stayed even when staying felt like breaking.

When staying felt like being torn in two.

Somewhere in that ache, I made a vow:

I will never again chase a love that devours me.

I would wait ... for a love that steadied me.

A love that stayed.

---

Then Came- My Jacob-

He made me laugh again.

He made me feel alive.

He gave me back pieces of myself I thought were lost forever.

For a while, I believed he was the answer...

The safety.

The comfort.

But he wasn't.

Not then.

Not yet.

---

The Tidal Wave That Followed:

The cracks didn’t stop there.

They had been forming for years...small at first, the kind you almost believe you can fix with enough hope.

Until life hits the cracks with enough force to split them wide open....

Until you're almost swallowed whole.

The losses came like tidal waves until I found myself drowning....

The Tidal Wave:

I lost the car my Papa had gifted me for my 18th birthday...

a symbol of freedom and coming of age... caught in the crossfire of a divorce that wasn’t even mine.

I lost the job I absolutely loved at Frederick’s of Hollywood when our store closed its doors without warning... another door slamming shut when I just needed something steady.

I lost my friends... the ones who made a bunch of promises they couldn't keep. The ones who I was always there for but disappeared when I needed them to be there for me...

They judged me, talked about me behind my back and even online... and left me in the dark.

The kind of friends who are there when the sun is shining but vanish when the storm hits.

I lost my father as he walked out of my life

...yet again,

leaving an even bigger father-sized hole in my chest... not because I did something wrong,

but because I dared to stay and choose my own life and future instead of holding myself hostage to his expectations and shrinking myself to follow a life that isn't mine and that I didn't want.

I remember how my family began breaking down under the weight of life itself...

starting when my Papa's brain injury from his accident years ago led to dementia... and with it, heartbreaking changes none of us could have imagined or ever saw coming...

The husband, dad, and grandfather we all knew, trusted, looked up to and loved... changed before our eyes.

He became aggressive... confused... and unrecognizable.

No goodbye. No warning. He was just gone.

A shell of the man he once was.

A stranger in his own skin.

My Nana held on for as long as she could... but eventually... for her safety, her sanity, and her survival...

she had to leave.

And with that, the family I had known for eighteen years of life shattered.

It wasn’t just a marriage that ended.

It was the end of the life I knew.

Resentments formed.

Walls built.

Lines drawn.

Sides chosen.

Grudges held.

Silence ensued.

Sunny afternoons riding four-wheelers...

Long summer days by the pool...

Birthdays surrounded by family...

New Year’s Eve countdowns and s'mores...

Backyard smoky barbecues where laughter hung in the air like music...

Road trips to Disney in the RV...

Thanksgiving dinners that smelled like home... Christmas mornings that felt like magic had shown up... just for us.

It was steady.

It was rich.

It was family.

The one I was born into.

It was where I belonged.

My place in this world I never questioned...

Until one day...

it all slipped through my fingers like vapor.

The family that once felt eternal crumbled like ashes.

It wasn't just the family outside that crumbled...

it was the one inside too...

---

No Safe Spaces:

My mom - the strongest woman I knew... was fighting in courtrooms, carrying the wreckage of her own parents’ divorce

on her shoulders,

alone.

She was trying to salvage pieces no one else could,

quietly waging battles that no one even saw.

But she had to keep going.

For us.

Because that’s what mothers do.

I came to find we were all drowning

within the same walls...

all in different ways...

thick with depression, distance,

and pain no one dared to speak aloud.

There were no safe spaces left.

Not in my home....

Not in my family....

Not even inside myself...

Our house sagged beneath the weight of it all... a sadness so deep

no one knew how to lift it.

And I was caught between it all...

watching the future I had once held onto slip through my hands.

Love.

Family.

Trust.

Home.

Hope.

Everything I believed in.

Everything I counted on.

Collapsing, one after another, until there was nothing left to stand on.

I watched the very foundations of who I was...

crumble.

It wasn’t just sadness anymore.

No...

I was beyond "Sad"

It wasn’t just grief I was fighting anymore...

It was a spiritual war over my soul.

---

A Heavier Darkness; Opression:

We learned a new word that year...

An intercessor through the church- a close family friend told my mom... told me... that's what it is.

"Oppression” comes from a Latin word that basically means to press upon. So if a person is oppressed, something from the outside is pressing on him or her. The word “oppression” also means to overburden, weigh down, overwhelm, or overpower. So when a person is oppressed, he or she feels overpowered by some external force, and the result is a feeling of being crushed, put down, smothered, subdued, or even tormented.

The particular word is used in connection with those who were oppressed by the devil himself.

I was trapped.

The pain.

The grief.

The loneliness.

The abandonment.

The silence.

It was too much...

A black aura... Like a heavy blanket wrapped around me so thick... it felt like no prayer, wish, or plea could ever lift it.

A thick, choking fog that wrapped itself around my spirit, a smothering darkness that seemed to press on my chest and steal the air from my lungs... chaining my very soul to blackness.

That beautiful blue-eyed bright blonde genuine innocent soul...

Satan had sank his claws in the walls of her room....

Into her mind...

Into her soul...

dragging me down, whispering:

"There's a way out"

And for one horrifying moment...

I almost listened.

---

The Suicide Attempt:

80.

90.

100.

110.

120 miles per hour.

The engine roaring beneath me.

The highway lines smearing into a single endless scream.

One twist of the wrist,

one pull of the wheel,

and it would all be over.

And God knows...

I almost did it.

I tried...

I remember the battle between my mind and my body...

the physical urge to end it all...

but physically being unable to.

I thought maybe somewhere deep inside,

a stubborn ember still burned...

But looking back...

It wasn't instinct...

It wasn't willpower...

It was Jesus.

Quiet, unyielding, unseen...

taking the wheel from my broken hands

when I could not.

Why???

Because it wasn't my time.

Because my story wasn't finished.

Because I wasn’t meant to go down with my pillars.

I was meant to rebuild.

---

I pulled over.

Shaking.

Sobbing.

Gasping for air.

I stayed alive.

Not because I was strong...

No...

but because HE saved me.

HE refused to let me go.

---

Letting Go and Moving on:

I never talked about that night...

I didn't know how to bring it up...

So i left out my journal for my mom to read...

She didn’t scold me.

She didn’t run.

She sat with me...Hands trembling...

Crying together...

She just held me... She just listened...

I told her it hurt so much, it felt like I couldn't breathe...

And she told me something I’ll never forget:

"Kristen, you’re still holding Jack’s hand in the middle of the ocean.

But Jack is already gone...

And if you don’t let go... you’re going to drown too."

And for the first time...

I realized:

I wasn’t betraying the past by letting go.

I was choosing life.

---

The Slow Healing:

The nights afterward weren’t easy.

Endless nights of gasping for air.

Of sobbing into pillows.

Of my mom... my anchor... sitting silently with me, holding me through it all.

While my mom and Mike fought for their marriage,

God was fighting for me.

Through her prayers.

Through her hands.

Through a love that climbed into the darkness and refused to leave.

The kind of love that changes you.

Present.

Unwavering.

Unconditional.

---

In the End... Not Every Pillar Crumbled

Through the wreckage,

my mom and Mike found their way back to each other.

They chose grace.

They chose each other.

They chose God.

They chose family.

They chose healing.

Slowly, miracle by miracle...

their marriage was rebuilt.

The court battles ended.

Our family was stitched back together through fire and water...

and we were all baptized together in 2015.

A family reborn

A family redeemed.

A family healed by the hand of God.

---

We Watched the Movie "Inside Out"

We watched Riley’s world fall apart one pillar at a time...

her family, her friendships, her pillars of identity...

one by one collapsing.

And when Riley broke down in the movie,

my mom quietly reached over and held my hand.

Because she knew.

She knew I understood that kind of loss...

Because I had lived it.

We lived it.

Slowly... but surely...

a Light found its way back in...

first a spark.

An ember.

Then a flame

---

The Fight To Rebuild:

After everything,

I chose to rebuild.

I worked multiple jobs.

Saved fiercely.

Bought my own car... a gift no one could take away this time.

Thanksgiving came again.

But it was never the same.

It became a reminder of the table that no longer existed and the seat at a table I wasn't at.

My mom, stepdad and little brothers now traveled on cruises without me, starting new traditions

while I stayed behind, quietly building a life of my own.

Not glamorous.

Not easy.

But mine.

---

The Lines That Continued To Blur:

With my Second love...

Somewhere between friendship and something more...

I was happy.

For awhile...

Until I realized

He wasn't a destination.

He was a lesson.

A stepping stone.

Both loves had taught me:

what I didn’t want,

and what I would one day recognize- the kind of love that wouldn’t drain your soul, and make you question your worth, leave you begging for scraps and starving.

At 19 I chose not to follow in someone else's path.

And years later at 23... I found myselfstanding at the same crossroads...

I was asked ONCE AGAIN to leave my home,

to follow someone else...

And again - I said no...

I stayed.

It felt like déjà vu,

but this time, I had the strength to break the pattern... because somewhere along the way, the story had shifted.

At first, he had been my safe place.

But by the end, I realized:

I was the safe place.

I was the home.

I was the light.

I had my therapy.

My friendships.

My small, sacred life built from ashes.

He had become the one thing that no longer fit.

It hurt, realizing that sometimes the very thing that once saved you...

can also become the thing that almost destroys you.

The boy I thought was perfect...

wasn't.

He brought a different kind of heartbreak than my first love did...the kind I wasn't prepared for.

The kind that chips away at you slowly.

The kind you barely notice until you look back.

I watched him change... slowly, painfully.

Two sides of the same coin:

the boy I loved and the stranger I couldn’t reach anymore.

The boy he was in person and who he was in distance during fire season...

Like Jekyll and Hyde.

I remember joking with my girlfriends...

that the next guy would have to pass two tests:

One... "You don’t work for the government, do you?"

Two... "You’re not planning on moving states anytime soon, right?"

Lol

You laugh...

But I was DEAD serious.

Because... I had learned.

Because I wasn't willing to lose myself again in the name of love

2018: Meeting Adrian:

It was 2018 when I met Adrian,

While working together at Kay Jewelers.

Just friends...

two hearts still healing from different and some of the same storms,

not ready for more.

We both stayed focused on ourselves.

Working. Healing. Breathing.

I signed up for college, Majoring in Nursing...

I lived on my own...

I lived with roommates...

I worked multiple jobs just to survive...

Piece by piece,

without even realizing it,

I was building something- Myself.

---

The Healing in My Family:

After years of brokenness- distance and heartbreak-

God did more healing.

In my Nana.

In the relationship between Nana and my mom.

In Nana and me.

In all of us.

Her tiny cottage in Parrish, Florida, became a sacred place of second chances.

Not just for her, but for our whole family.

For years, she and my mom carried wounds between them-

silent resentments, buried grief, unspoken pain.

But somehow, during those slow mornings and quiet nights,

they started to talk again.

To laugh again.

To be mother and daughter again.

I remember shopping at the Ellenton outlet mall together and purchasing matching Aéropostal hoodies and sweats and the selfies we took... frozen moments of joy.

I remember birthdays and Christmases in our family with her there again...

I remember how she always held her arms wide open exclaiming

"Kristeeennnn!!"

As I walked into her embrace -she wrapped her arms around me and held me in a way that made me feel like I was her favorite person in the world... the way Nanas do.

---

I remember visiting her cottage…

her beautiful garden out back,

thriving with life even as the seasons changed.

I remember long talks... and prayers.

Thrifting at Goodwill, hunting for treasures.

The glow of Hallmark Christmas movies playing on the TV

as we sipped hot cocoa.

She made me her signature French toast for breakfast.

Grilled cheese and chips with grapes on the side for lunch-

just like when I was little.

I remember the laughter. The hugs.

I remember her pulling through McDonald’s for her favorite:

a 13-cookie tote.

She’d take them home,

carefully arranging each one on a plate -just so -

to display on her counter.

Before I left one visit, she hugged me tight and said:

> “Kristen, I’m so proud of you.”

I asked her, “For what?”

She looked at me and said:

“For who you’ve become. You’ve grown into an amazing woman. You’ve faced adversity, and you bounced back fast. You’re strong… and your future is big and bright.”

She smiled and waved as I drove away.

I didn’t know those would be the last clear words she’d ever say to me.

But I held onto them like gold.

Those words live in me forever.

Before Alzheimer’s took her mind, piece by piece…

Before it took her body in 2022…

God gave us restoration.

He gave us time to heal.

And for that-

I’ll always be grateful.

---

My First Love Came Back:

Later that year... my first love came back from the military.

But he wasn’t the same.

He was different.

Darker.

Harder.

Colder.

The boy I once knew - the one I had loved with everything in me- had been replaced by someone else.

Haunted by things he couldn’t speak about... and never healed from.

"Well, you look like yourself... But you're somebody else...Only it ain't on the surface... Well, you talk like yourself... No, I hear someone else though Now you're making me nervous..."

-You're Somebody Else by Flora Cash

That song hit me like a punch to the chest.

Because that’s exactly how it felt.

And still...

I stayed.

Because I remembered him.

And I thought maybe- if I just loved him through it- he’d come back to me.

After all... Nana and Mom had reconciled after years of distance and hurt.

We all had.

Nana got saved. We laughed again. Loved again.

So a part of me believed...

If healing was possible there - maybe it was possible everywhere.

Even with him.

Even with us.

But not everything heals at the same time.

There were glimpses.

Tiny flickers of the boy I had fallen for.

The way he used to brush the hair from my face.

The way he held me like I was something precious.

And one night...

he did.

He brushed the hair from my face, like he used to...

with that same look in his eye...

he held me in his kitchen like nothing had changed.

And just for a moment...

I forgot the damage.

I forgot the silence.

I forgot the years.

And I thought:

"There.... There it is..."

But the darkness always came back.

The hot and cold.

The mixed signals.

The rules and limitations.

The love that only existed on his terms.

He told me that staying broke him.

That he hated me.

That he still loves me but... he could never trust me again.

That loving me hurt too much.

That he can't do it.

I understood...

---

The What-Ifs:

I think I stayed so long because of the glimpses.

The guilt.

The what-ifs.

What if I had gone to Hawaii when he asked me to, years ago?

What if I had followed him?

Would we have made it?

Would he have been different?

But buried underneath those questions...

was the one I didn’t want to face:

What if what he did to her... he would’ve done to me?

The cheating.

The betrayal.

The unraveling.

What if loving him would’ve destroyed me in ways I couldn’t come back from?

That truth didn’t just hurt.

It saved me.

Because sometimes God doesn’t answer the prayers we cry out for-

because He’s protecting us from the things we don’t see.

Sometimes unanswered prayers...

are the greatest mercy.

---

The Diagnosis:

It wasn’t until I was 23 years old… sitting in a therapy room in 2019… that I finally heard the words:

Borderline Personality Disorder.

A diagnosis that didn’t break me... it explained me.

What once felt like a death sentence became a strange kind of relief.

It gave a name to the war I had been silently fighting for years.

I started antidepressants...not because I didn’t want to feel, but because I felt everything so deeply, so completely, that it nearly destroyed me.

I just wanted less. Less chaos. Less pain. Less of me.

But I had no idea what I was in for.

Survival came at a cost.

The light I’d fought so hard to reignite was slowly swallowed by the darkness again.

I never meant to lose my dignity. Or my self-respect.

But every time I reached for numbness instead of healing, it chipped away at my soul... Until one day, I looked in the mirror and couldn’t recognize the girl staring back.

Because this time, I wasn’t mourning the loss of a person...I was mourning myself.

Everything I’d worked so hard for over the last five years...gone.

And sometimes, even now… I still wonder:

What’s worse? To feel everything all at once? Or to feel nothing at all?

I kept fighting. I took the pills. I did what the doctors told me to do. I swallowed survival one tiny capsule at a time.

But it never healed me. It only dulled the edges... kept the pain at bay.

What once was grief that stole my laughter and my light… became something colder. Something scarier.

Apathy.

Becoming the Storm

I didn’t just disappear.

I became the storm.

There was a point where I stopped feeling like a victim and started feeling like a volcano...quiet on the outside, but ready to erupt at the slightest touch.

The trauma i endured for years had splintered me. My mind. My soul.

I didn’t even realize I was breaking ...I just kept surviving.

I lived inside those broken shards for years, a mosaic of who I had been and who I was trying so desperately to become.

I was split between feeling too much and feeling absolutely nothing. Like living without skin...raw, unprotected. Every emotion a tidal wave that hit without warning.

I gave away pieces of myself in hopes that someone might give something whole back in return. But they never did.

I started seeking pain just to feel anything again. Validation. Attention. Control. Any temporary high to quiet the ache inside.

I thought I was surviving.

But I was drowning.

And all the while… I kept telling myself it was okay. That I was in control. That I had this.

But the truth?

I wasn’t lost anymore. I was raging.

“I'm a wanderess, I'm a one-night stand. Don't belong to no city, don't belong to no man. I'm the violence in the pouring rain....I'm a hurricane"

-Halsey

And I was...

Unpredictable. Untouchable. Unrecognizable.

Because the girl who once prayed for peace had turned into something else entirely.

I wasn’t just feeling too much anymore-I was burying it.

And pain that’s hidden? Still grows.

Beneath the surface...

2020: Megan, Masks, and the Mirror:

In 2020, after years of surviving, my best friend Megan and I signed a lease together.

We moved into a little house - two girls, two bedrooms, and a freedom we had fought hard for. A freedom no one could take from us.

LED lights lined the ceilings of every room, dancing to the beat of our favorite songs.....

There were late nights at the park getting high, sunset walks on the beach, pina coladas and shrimp quesadillas at the bar at Sunset Grill...

Dunkin' runs, matching tattoos, and grocery trips on food stamps where we hid Smirnoffs under the cart. We laughed until we couldn’t breathe....

We turned that house into a home- a sanctuary where the world couldn’t touch us.

Where it didn’t matter that we were still fighting battles no one else could see.

For the first time in a long time...

I felt young. I felt free.

It was the kind of friendship every girl should experience at least once - the kind that makes the dark seasons feel a little less lonely.

But even then... I wore the mask.

It was easier that way. Easier to pretend. Easier to smile when needed. Easier to wear the mask-the one that said, "I'm fine."

Because if they knew how far I'd fallen... what I had done... how broken I really was... maybe they’d leave too.

So I stayed hidden behind the smile. Behind the small talk. Behind the, "I'm doing good, how about you?"

Everyone saw the version of me I allowed them to see. Everyone... except him.

Slowly but surely, I didn't just close myself off from others... I closed myself off from God.

I didn’t just feel like the lost daughter. I felt like the darkness itself. And the darkness doesn't walk towards the light... it hides from it.

The shame was crushing. The sadness, isolating.

I remember the pain crashing through me like floodgates bursting wide -breaking me open without warning. Over and over, I crumbled beneath the hot water, sobbing so violently that even my own cries dissolved into steam.

And then… the silence.

Not peace. Not calm.

Just apathy. Cold. Heavy. And back again.

I built walls -brick by brick -until the only one left inside them was me.

Except with him....

He was the only person I didn’t have to pretend with. I didn’t have to smile for him. I didn’t have to have it all together. I didn’t have to act okay.

Maybe because he already knew the darkness... because he was drowning too.

Maybe that's why I clung to him so long. Because even though he couldn’t love me the way I needed, he didn’t flinch at the darkness inside me.

And when you're drowning... even a sinking ship feels like home.

The Final Pieces:

We kept our orbit -colliding, drifting, colliding again. He didn’t want to lose me, but he didn’t want to love me either.

During those years, he stayed over for days at a time. My roommates even joked he should start paying rent.

There one day. Gone the next.

I knew we were doomed. It was just... familiar.

And familiarity, even when it hurts, can feel safer than starting over.

But then came the night I looked at my mom as she cried in front of me... and I laughed.

The day my dad showed up to therapy, broke down in tears, apologized for years of abuse and abandonment... and pain he's caused...and I had to force my hand to touch his knee in comfort.

Because that’s what the old me, his daughter... would have done. Because my heart didn’t move on its own anymore.

Later, as we stood in the parking lot, he looked at me ...really looked ... and said with a half-smile,

“You look good. You look different. Tougher. You even got the Tomb Raider braid and everything.”

It was a strange moment. Almost like he saw the armor I had grown... but had no idea what it cost to build it.

I didn’t know whether to feel proud, sad, or angry.

Maybe all three.

But now, looking back, I see it with softer eyes.

Because the truth is - my dad isn’t the villain in my story. He’s human. He has wounds too.

He wasn't a perfect father… but he’s still my dad. And I love him. I always will.

We’re all out here just trying to survive the hand life dealt us, doing the best we can with what we’ve been given.

And I forgive him - not just because he earned it, but because I needed the peace.

Because holding onto bitterness became heavier than the hurt itself...

It felt like my humanity had been switched to: off

And it was in that terrifying numbness I realized:

I hadn’t just been surviving.

I had been disappearing.

Piece by piece....

Until I almost vanished altogether.

The Breaking Point:

I stopped my antidepressants cold turkey. (No, it wasn’t safe. And no, I don’t recommend doing it the way I did.)

The withdrawals ripped through me. The dark thoughts came back louder than ever.

The self-harm started. Small cuts along my wrists. Bloody knuckles punched into walls...

I wanted to feel- even if it was pain.

And yet... even in the spiral... a tiny, stubborn ember inside me refused to die.

I realized:

I would rather feel everything - every heartbreak, every fear, every wound than feel nothing at all.

Because apathy? Was death while breathing.

And I wasn’t ready to die.

Not like that.

The Buffy Moment:

There’s a scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer I’ll never forget:

Angelus corners her. She’s boxed in. Exhausted. Defeated. He taunts her:

"No weapons... no friends... no hope. Take all that away, and what’s left?"

He draws the sword and thrusts it directly at her face.

With lightning-fast reflexes she swings up with both arms and catches the blade between the palms of her hands, eyes closed.

She opens her eyes and meets his.

And says:

"Me."

She shoves the blade away from her, hitting Angelus in the face. He staggers back, as she hops to her feet and kicks him in the chest. He stumbles back even more, and she reaches down and picks up her sword...

That scene lived in me.

Because that’s what it felt like:

Like Satan himself had returned for me -to drag me back into the same pit of darkness he once pulled me into years before.

But this time? He didn’t find the same girl.

This time... I fought back.

Not for anyone else. Not for love. Not for the past.

But for me.

For the girl God created. For the future He was writing.

I wasn’t destroyed. I wasn’t defeated.

I caught the blade. And I stood.

Still breathing. Still fighting.

Still me.

Forged in fire.

Wearing the armor of Christ.

Wielding the sword of Spirit -sharpened by a lifetime of battles.

A heart of steel forged from countless setbacks.

A lifetime of effort to forge one sword.

Letting Go & Learning Why:

I continued therapy.

I let my mom back in-

I began praying again-turning to God.

I ordered my first Silk + Sonder journal. Started writing my way through the wreckage.

And finally... I let go of Cody.

Not because I stopped loving him.

But because I loved myself more.

Because healing taught me this:

You can’t water dead roots and expect them to bloom.

You can’t pour life into someone who doesn’t want to be revived.

You can’t bring the dead back to life.

I also realized..it's not my place. It's God's.

So I gave him to God, and I let him go.

For good.

Letting go still hurt... but it hurt softer this time.

Because I knew I wasn’t losing my future this time...

I was saving it.

In those sessions, I learned something else that shook me:

I chose people who were emotionally-sometimes even physically unavailable.

Because deep down, I knew it wouldn’t work.

And if it didn’t work, then I couldn’t really get hurt.

It felt safer that way.

But I was wrong.

Because trying not to get hurt... only hurt me more.

The Heart that Was Finally Mine

For the first time in years... my heart didn’t belong to anyone else.

It was mine again.

Whole. Beating. Healing.

The day came where I looked into the mirror and I smiled.

The woman staring back at me wasn’t just the girl that once was. She was there- but something more was too. Something newer. Shinier...

Pride. Happiness. Hope. Peace. Love.

A woman who finally knew who she was and what she wanted.

A woman who finally knew her worth.

And that's when God did what only God could do.

That's when He sent love back to find me...

2021: Adrian's Return:

When I least expected it, Adrian reached out.

The friend. The lighthouse. The steady hand.

He didn’t find a polished gem sitting pretty in a velvet box. He found a girl still under pressure. Cookie dough.

Still becoming.

He didn’t flinch.

He sent me a song -"What Ifs" by Kane Brown. A song about fear and hope. About risking your heart even when you’re terrified.

I told him now wasn’t a good time. I told him the little crush would pass. I even promised it would.

It didn’t.

The song really stuck with me...

"You say what if I hurt you... What if I leave you

What if this goes south... What if I mess you up

You say what if I break your heart In two...then what..

Well I hear you girl I feel you girl, but not so fast

Before you make your mind up I gotta ask...

What if I was made for you... And you were made for me...

What if this is it... What if it's meant to be...

What if I ain't one of them Fools just Playin' some game...

What if I just pulled you close What if I leaned in...

And the stars line up And it's our last first kiss

What if one of these days baby I'd go and change your name..."

And that’s exactly what happened... word for word.

It stayed. It grew. Into something real. Into something true.

A love forged in patience, in friendship, in faith, in fire.

With Adrian, it wasn’t about abandoning myself. It was about building something new...side by side. A life not borrowed from someone else’s dreams or destruction, but crafted from mutual hope, mutual love, and mutual prayers.

That year, I moved out of mine and Megan’s place and into Adrian’s quiet little villa by the beach in Saint Petersburg. It was small. Peaceful. Safe.

We ate Boston Market, spending our first Thanksgiving together-and for the first time in 7 years, I wasn’t mourning what was lost. I was building what was next.

Falling in love with Adrian wasn’t flashy or wild.

It was intentional.

Steady. Healing.

He didn’t just raise my standards-he redefined them:

He watched buffy with me. He never hesitated to bring in the groceries. He learned my Starbucks order. He made me a dog person when I fell in love with his. He took care of me when I was sick, on my period, through COVID, and even helped me get dressed. He prayed over me. He knew exactly what to order for me at restaurants. He even got me to like sushi -ha.

He planned birthdays, spoiled me in quiet ways. He got close to my family. He kissed me with morning breath, loved my body with its scars and stretch marks and softness. Worships God beside me.

He loved my cat like he was his own.

He made “kiss in the rain” from my bucket list come true.

He pointed at me and said, “Dis... Dis my BB.” and hug and shook me lol

He makes me laugh.

He's grounded me in BPD splitting episodes. He's dealt with my cold feet, my OCD ways and my loud mind

He’s the reason I finally came off my antidepressants -the right way.

He saw how they dulled me. How they muted my spirit....

And this time, I didn’t cold-turkey crash.

He walked me off them. Slowly. Carefully. With love.

Because he didn’t want the mask... He wanted me.

The real me.

And in 2022, we left Florida... not running, not chasing.

Building.

We moved from the city to the mountains. We flipped houses. We got engaged. We eloped by law and under God, creating a bond no man could break.

And soon, when we finish flipping our final house… we’ll go back home.

To Florida.

A real marriage. A real covenant. A real forever.

With a man who doesn’t walk in front of me. Doesn’t walk behind me.

He walks beside me.

Hand in hand. Heart to heart. Home to home. Soul to soul.

I promised him he will never be alone again...and he promised the same.

We aren’t perfect, but in the end... it’s him and I.

---

The Battles That Followed:

In 2022, after years of carrying pain I thought I could outrun, my body finally cried out.

Fibromyalgia.

A nervous system permanently altered by trauma. A body that remembers everything the mind tried to forget.

Chronic pain. Fatigue. Invisible wounds.

And in 2025, another puzzle piece fell into place:

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

A mind desperately trying to create control in a world that always felt like chaos.

I didn’t just carry emotional scars. I carried mental ones. Physical ones too.

And I still carry them today.

Even after more loss ...losing my ability to work. Losing Nana. Losing Axel. Losing my car. My engagement ring. Watching my independence shrink under chronic pain and fibromyalgia. Watching my body slow and being able to do less and less. Losing more and more, little by little, even as OCD added another battle...this year.

Even as relationships changed with distance from 2022 to 2025...

God was still working.

Today, He has healed my relationship with my mom too.

We are closer than ever..

I kept fighting. I keep holding on. I keep praying.

And if I ever doubt again... I will come back to this:

I am not broken. I am not stupid. I am not a bad person. I am not heartless. I am not crazy. I am not weak. I am not worthless. I am not too much. I am not too little.

I am a soul who carried far too many battles that were never mine to carry... in a world never meant to be this way.

This world is fallen. Broken.

A place full of grief and loss and pain and death and tragedy.

A place where people drive through pharmacies like fast food trying to numb out the ache.

A world of people who sedate themselves with food, liquor, pills, drugs, screens, sex... anything to forget the weight of it all.

I've been there...done it all....

But even in this fallen world...

I stayed alive.

Even when my mind, my body, my soul screamed at me to give up...

I stayed.

I am a fighter. I am still here.

Whole.

Grateful.

Rooted in faith and forged in fire.

Because I’m not the girl who waited on docks for ships that never returned.

I’m not the girl begging for scraps of love.

I’m not the girl who had to be rescued.

I’m the woman who saved herself.

I’m the woman who got back up.

I’m the woman who built a life.

And through it all... every heartbreak, every diagnosis, every spiritual war... God never left me.

He held my hands on the wheel when I tried to let go.

He carried the small ember when my flame nearly went out.

And He still does.

Even when I don’t see it. Even when I don’t feel it...

He’s always working.

He left the ninety-nine...

to rescue me.

The lost lamb.

Pepe.

The little broken girl in the mud.

The lyrics from Reckless Love played over my life:

"Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.

It chases me down, fights 'til I'm found, leaves the ninety-nine." 🎵🎶🥰

And He did.

He found me.

He fought for me.

Over and over again.

Because that’s what He does.

That’s who He is 🙏

---

My Vow to myself...💓

I vow to honor the girl who almost didn’t make it and the woman who did.

This isn’t just my story.

This is my testimony...

A life rebuilt through fire and water... stitched together by the hand of God Himself.

Because some women are lost in the fire...

But I?

I was built from it.

> "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." John 1:5

Kristen, Unfiltered Xo 💋