12/02/2025
This is going to ruffle some feathers.
So let’s ruffle.
It has officially been one year since I made the hardest decision of my life. One year since I stepped back from the people who should have been my safest place. I kept inviting them into a healthier relationship built on honesty and boundaries, and instead of softness it was met with defensiveness, pushback and cruelty. They didn’t want the healthier version of me. Only the quiet one. The small one. The one who kept the peace at her own expense.
And this year has been anything but calm. It hasn’t been silent or peaceful. There has not been one moment of softness or accountability from their side. Just pressure, accusations and reactions that still stun me.
I will never understand how people who claim to love you can respond to your pain with more pain. And I’m thankful I don’t understand it. It means I’m built differently. It means I’m a different mother, a different woman, a different human. One who breaks cycles instead of repeating them.
Family estrangement is not the easy way out. It’s a choice you make because the alternative is losing yourself. It brings you to your knees. It forces you to face every shadow. It is not for the faint of heart.
You don’t just lose people. You lose the version of yourself who kept bending and hoping. And you slowly grow into someone who finally knows she deserves more.
Healing hasn’t meant pretending it didn’t hurt. Healing has meant telling the truth, feeling what I used to swallow, letting in light without denying the dark and finally reclaiming my voice.
If you’re in a season like this, here’s what helps: gentle check-ins, people who listen without fixing, people who don’t need the polished version of your story.
What doesn’t help: family is everything, you’ll regret this, pressure to reconnect, minimizing, spiritual bypassing.
One year later, I’m proud of myself. I chose peace over pretending.
Here’s to the chapters that bled, and the woman who kept writing anyway. 💕💕
