But I want to invite you today to think of it as amazing. I am asking you to drop all the things you have previously heard or felt about airing out ya biz on social media. I want you to just have a clear mind, free of worry or fear, and just HEAR what I am about to explain.

Pressing that publish button and unleashing your bad experiences into the world, filled with triggers and gooey details, is the exact ACTION this world needs you to take.

Why?

Let us take a quick review of how evil and sadness spread across the world. How injustices, prejudices, and discrimination contaminate cultures and infiltrate our species like a deadly toxin. Remember all the horrific actions in history and how they were addressed or abolished.

​Silence kills billions. What fights and overpowers bad are the noisemakers. The movers. The makers. The bringers of messages and impactful words.

Who has the ability to change the world and spread love to defeat darkness?

You.

I started to think through high school and then college that bad luck just followed me everywhere. Even though I worked so hard to get away from my old life and start fresh, I continued to attract abusive people + narcissistic people + addicts and other types of mental health issues which were all triggers that hindered me from achieving my full potential. I wanted so badly to be able to help people and heal people that I would psychoanalyze anyone that connected with me and commit to people that did not earn or deserve it.
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I am now 28 and a mother of 3, with an amazing spouse and little family that we build together. We are each working hard to become our best selves, achieve our goals and reach the desires we have for our family to be truly prosperous and successful. So many characteristics I developed and ingrained "truths" I had come to know about myself from the childhood I had until my late twenties all hindered me drastically from ever being able to actually "heal". 

But what does "heal" even mean to any of us? I kept fearing showing up fully as a business owner, as a wife, as a mother ---> All because of this concept of "wholeness" and "healing". FULLY. PUT TOGETHER. DRESSED. NOT DEPRESSED. NOT FRAGILE. 

I have been afraid in the last 4 years that I am still too broken to matter. To be happy. To fool people. To convince them I am actually OK. Everywhere I have gone, my insecurities have told me that everyone can see I am not alright. So I have just desperately wished that with enough reflection + self care and independence, I could some day climb over the wall and see what life looks like "On the other side of Trauma". ​

​This blog is a healing tool I am using to finally look all my experiences in the metaphorical face and validate. I also decided, thanks to a Brene Brown special on Netflix, that I need to be vulnerable and show up in my life dressed as myself. I have always waited on the right time to start revealing all of my truths. That time is now. 

I have made so many beautiful connections + friendships on Facebook in the past eight years thanks to the details of my life I have shared and the scars I have shown. This tribe I am building is one that encompasses pain + love + fear + courage and a sheer will to thrive not just survive.

I hope to gain many more people from this blog, who are willing to be brave with me and share their deepest experiences ---->For the purpose of WAKING UP society, shaking the standard, provoking the term "whole" and building branches of healing for those in desperate need of it.

"Below the surface"

I am looking at you, smiling, as I tell you I am ok.

"Ok".

I am not.

Beneath my unshapely, faded sweater I am panting, tightening, unraveling in my chest.

My mind is telling me many things. It tells me back to keep posture. It tells my skin to remain unmoistened by the pick up in heart rate I have been experiencing for 20 minutes already. 

It is telling my eyes to stay wide, my mouth to stay creased but not open.

This is a panic attack.

I do not look any different than I do any other time of the day. I keep a doe eyed and smooth forehead composure through the most uncomfortable moments.

It is a survival tactic.
One I developed in almost 3 decades of experiencing people close to me who had aggression, hostility, bipolar, manic episodes, split personalities, schizophrenia, and disassociation with normal, regulating emotions.
These traits can be found in my parents, some of both of their siblings, some of my ex girl friends, ex boyfriends, and people I was drawn to at work or school. It is not a coincidence for sure that even some parents' of old flames had these traits.
I attracted these things into my life. And then did not know how to tame them or handle them.

I am not about to say I ever put energy into attracting my own triggers, that I manifested shit or that I actually sought out people to help.

"This was not a savior complex. Even though I very much want to help people."

What I am talking about now are the traits I developed from being a childhood victim of abuse into a susceptible partner of trauma.

I was prey.

As a child, I was unfortunately a prey out of birth right. But as I got older, though I was not aware of it yet, I brought out the aggressors by being docile, doe-eyed, dedicated blindly to all that I did, a willing listener, accepting of all attention, caving to any form of praise at all.
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So any predator could come and sway me into their life so easily, when my nature was to be open and accepting to all.

Only now do I see that I was an open fortress, ready to be invaded and conquered. At least, in an abusers eyes. Someone who saw that I could enable their bad behaviors, forgive their errors and even blame myself for their betrayals.

I know this now because of my ability to hold in my pain, oppress my panic attacks and completely shame myself when other people betray me.

I will never forget the one time I went to my mother for advice. I was in middle school. I came home crying after getting into a big fight with some girls at school. They were some of my close friends. And then they started to be cruel and be friends with someone else who bullied me.
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I was so upset I was crying outright and melting into my bed, when my mother came to see me. She asked me what happened, which was rare. She was in Jekyll form.

I told her what happened and her response was this:

"It must have been something you did. You are a bitch."

Really. My memory does not betray me. My thoughts on this have been clear ever since.

Whenever I spoke out against my mother, from childhood to adolescence, she called it "talking back".
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I spoke out against domestic abuse, violence, bad name calling, grounding on no grounds, rude behaviors, physical acts of aggression or drunken rages. I spoke out against alcoholism. I spoke out against her addictions.

And yet, she always told me it was me.

I was trained to think that other peoples betrayals were my fault. So what did that do to my teen years?

I was too ________ , I did not ______ enough; every single time someone was not my friend anymore, a boyfriend cheated on me, a person hurt me. It must have been me. I must have asked for it.

I have always considered myself "smart", "aware", "deep", "conscious". Each time I unfold my trauma, I realize I was doing the best I could with what I had. So I just accept it. It is OK that I made mistakes. It is OK that i sometimes chose wrong.

What is not OK is holding in those feelings. But imagine what 28 year old me would feel now if I let all these feelings flood in?

What would you feel? All the hitting, the screaming, the cursing, the lies, the truths, the mental illnesses that raised me just circulating as dark smoke in my lungs.
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It never really came out in the times of chaos. When all the things I saw and experienced were happening, I did not break.

But I realized something recently about this quiet, unrippling body. I am like a hologram of a lake. Toss stones into me and I do not let out a plop, or even a ripple.

No movement above the surface.

Just that hidden whirlpool beneath my unshapely, faded sweater.​

Now that I know I have symptoms of a survivor of trauma, I can catch myself after they happen. Which is a big deal and break through for me.

I know if I work at it and focus, I will soon be able to catch myself in the moment. What helps that is being transparent and real with myself.

I am not ok right now, but I am inviting the flood and embracing the aftermath.

"Chronic coping Robot"

Reflection on myself and my experiences in the past few months has made me realize just how many "symptoms" and signs of trauma I have in my every day life.

I always thought I passed for "normal" and took pride in this passing persona when I was in college as well as previous jobs.

The truth is, I fooled myself for over the last decade.

What is better than facing trauma in the eye as a kid? Sketching in my room.

What is better than facing my teen pregnancy and about to give birth body? Senior year taking full time classes and doing extra projects instead of naturally facing my emotions.


What is better than embracing my freedom as a young adult with my own apartment, a job, and college courses?

I should have taken a normal schedule. Spaced things out.

Seen a counselor regularly. I should have not dated, instead of being ghost-dependent on an asshole.

I should have not coped but dealt. I just did not know how.

And I do not hate myself for it. I am maturing. I am learning. And I am now accepting ME.

I got to thinking, an artist does art as much as possible. A writer, writes. A speaker looks for opportunities and goes to speak. Engages.

I love these creative professional titles guys. As it turns out, I am great at a lot of them.

But I only ever pick up a pencil or type when I am triggered. GASP.

Now that I see this, there will be no unseeing. The shocking truth is that i need slow pace, love, reassurance, healing, devotion, trust, committed people.
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I need to look at imperfect me and say, "hey that's ok. Tomorrow."

I no longer want a passing grade, because I am failing me on the inside.

So what is next?

I decided to start a new blog + website that will give me purpose and healing without avoiding my problems.

I decided to write down and set REAL goals.

I want to be a writer professionally. I already write. But I want to go public. I want to show up in my own fantasy and make it real.

I want to write about my struggles and feelings in the moment. This helps me validate them, analyze them, and have an actual record. So my fears of glamorizing or avoidance will not happen. I will be transparent and then reflective. All qualities of someone healing.

I am going to seek counseling and read books I have about anxiety + personal growth + positivity. Because I do not just want to mimic it, I want to only be that woman. Who is loving and mature, balanced and able.

Ladies and gents, I am ready to become me.

"MAY 21st"

May 21st, 12 years ago, I snuck out of my moms home with only my phone and charger, a pair of underwear, socks, one outfit and pajama pants. I had nothing else to my name. No form of I.D., no personal belongings, no hygiene or personal care products. Only what little I could quickly grab into a plastic bag before running out of that house, in fear they might return.

I was 16. Pregnant. In a relationship with someone who was only juggling girls and parties, while I was 3 months pregnant trying not to have a nervous breakdown after being torn down mentally by my parents.
Earlier that day, I had told my school social worker, a woman I had come to trust and respect, that I was pregnant and needed help. She then told the principals, the nurse, and then called my parents; the same parents whom had abused me for years and she was well aware of. I was given a ride on a small bus home, a short ride that I normally walked.

And as a former teen mom, having been asked this question over a million times since that day by others, my own reaction to my daughter telling me these words at any age or situation would be to comfort her and help her. In fact, I would already know my kid inside and out. So it would be no surprise if I had already know her life leading up to those words.

But she said the worst thing she could to me. "Go on, go tell your father."
So I did. I slammed that door. I walked on a hot summer day in May, two towns over by foot, as my feet blistered and my nausea caused me to spit up on a parking lot pavement. I marched with a fucking purpose. To the last job I knew he had on the books.

​I knew this job if his, because I had been there for a few years attending truck rides to different places. I learned how to drive a car there. I practiced driving an 18 wheeler car carrier. My dad was so cool.
And the 5 months I lived with him just TWO years prior to this day had proved it. My dad took me in after CPS had taken me out of my moms after a very bad event. And he provided for me for those months. He let me buy whatever clothes. Dye my hair. Listen to loud music. He took me out really late. I was allowed to walk a town over home from school to his place and with my own key get in. I took the train over an hour into NYC and he thought it was cool. I rode buses anywhere I wanted with the spare change in his drawer. I hung out with friends wherever and whenever. I bought our groceries. I budgeted and taught him about it. He let me eat anything I wanted and even let me do the laundry.

I had no idea what I was marching for. It was a mixture of anger and sadness. I was so overwhelmed at the idea of facing him again. He had stopped visiting me months before. Almost 8 months at that point. First, he had slowed down his visitations. Then he stopped answering calls. He said it was because I had changed. That 15 year old me had no longer wanted her daddy. 15 year old me wanted a boyfriend now. Someone else to see. To talk to. He said I barely listened on the phone when he called and only talked about this boy. So he was done.
I knew something was wrong. It was wrong for a father to be jealous of a boyfriend. It was wrong for a parent to go back on his promises, to reject me.

When I finally reached the tow truck company I had once loved to visit, everyone's faces were of shock. The 4 brothers who owned the place all had daughters around my age. They always greeted me with open armed hugs and laughs. Like uncles, both happy to see me and ready to poke fun. The flat faces that stared at me as I made my way through the dirt road up to the garage made me start to sweat. I was worried I walked all this way for nothing.

I asked for my father, but the receptionist said he was out. She was cold towards me. This woman used to glow when I came in, but now had zero enthusiasm of my presence as if I had personally done something to all of them.
Then a truck pulled up to the front of the shop and I saw his face as his lifted himself out of his truck, onto the pavement and around the side to meet me. His face got tighter and angry as he glanced at me and walked right past me, saying nothing. My heart sank.
I remember next saying a bunch of things outloud, in a nervous panic. I finally said the big, heavy thing I had walked over an hour in the sun to say. Dad. I'm pregnant.
That man slammed his things around, stomped his feet, and sloppily passed right by me again heading towards his truck. Now I remember shouting. Wanting him to respond.
Instead, he got into his truck. He started the engine. I ran out in my plastic ballet flats back onto the dirt road and positioned myself a few feet ahead of his bumper, my arms out in desperation. STOP.
He started to drive forward. At me. His green eyes did not look familiar to me as he glared with anger at my face through the windshield. He looked wild. He looked unsettled.

Out came 2 brothers, and owners, shouting for him to stop and get out. They had to scream and negotiate for him to stop the ignition and get back out. I remember next that someone grabbed me and pulled me to the curb. The receptionist. And she hugged me. Tight.
What happened after that is just a series of flashes now for me. The brothers took him in the back. Screaming and crashes. He stomped out after me and told me to follow him. I listened. We got into his old 63' impala. I sat tight, shaking, hands between my thighs together.
We drove silent for 15 minutes, me knowing the curves of that drive back home even with my eyes closed. When I opened them, we were at my mothers home.

I walked bravely back to that front door and did not look back even once. My back hot with rage, I opened up the front door with my key and slammed it shut. Then, I clenched my first and I screamed as loud as I could. I screamed and I cried, I slid my body down to the ground and just held myself. No one was there to receive me but the gaping staircase in front of me that I hated so much. I hated the whole house. Every room was draped in trauma. And now my only salvage of hope was climbing those stairs and grabbing what I could from my room, hoping I could get back out before anyone returned.
​

"Someone mightier"

When you have no money to invest in yourself, it can feel really helpless and lonely. When you are barely getting by and need help just buying groceries, everything else does not seem important. Feeding our children and surviving is most important.
​
For the last few years and FIRST years of our lives together as a couple, we have struggled financially. Starting off a relationship with our own business and kids was HARD. We have been together almost 5 years now and it has not gone the fairy tale way most people dream of when it comes to lifestyle, milestones and having belongings.

We do not have a home and we do not have our own place yet. We did not have a formal wedding. I had no family involved in any of our special occasions or celebrations. My in laws and my husband are my whole world. Unfortunately, I lost so many friends along the way, including my best friend. Life has just been really hard.
But there have been so many amazing moments. My husband was my knight from the moment he came into my life. He is my best friend and partner through life. He and I have each other. And his amazing parents, who love us tremendously. We have beautiful, healthy children. My baby girl, *who was my only child before meeting him, loves him with all of her being and knows him as daddy. She is so happy and proud to have this little family. Because we did not have a strong family before hand. We had people in our lives, but none who fought hard to stay or really be there when we needed it most. Everyone slowly left.

​I grew up poor. My parents were addicts and mentally ill. After being married in their mid 20s, they had section 8 housing. They struggled big time. And funded their addiction more than caring for their only child. After the divorce, my mother took me to her parents' home, where we stayed in a cellar for 2 years and shared the bathroom/kitchen when we were able to. My mom was ashamed. And though I was too young to know it, she was actively on drugs while being high functioning and juggling a full time job. She ended up dating and marrying her BOSS within a few months of the relationship becoming public, and he whisked us away to an apartment we shared. But we were still low income, and I was still neglected and abused.

It was not until a few years later that we got a home his parents actually bought him. Turned out they all had money, but my mother and I were not going to be supported by it because we were not what his family wanted for him. So they both worked full time and I raised myself. Every day, I was either alone on my stoop after school for hours or I would hangout with my neighbor. She became my best friend over time. No one knew how poor we were or how much I struggled to keep it together.

​In h.s., I had to move out twice after my mother had severe drunken episodes that became violent and endangered our lives. Between that, I had run away in the night many times to stay with my friend, look for my birth father or run to my first boyfriends' house. I was scared mostly and wanted to get out of my town. Out of the poverty. Out of the dysfunction.
I had dreams of going to college for fashion, art and journalism. I was obsessed with sketching and writing: it was all I did when I had to endure being at home and locked myself in my bedroom with furniture in front of the door (since I had no lock).

But I had no savings. My mother had no savings. His family bragged about their strong catholic ethic and how all the grand kids would get funded for their education after graduating. I would not be one of them. I did not count.
My mother received child support from my father. In her right, she could use it for whatever. I will never know what she really spent it on. What I do know is when she was home from her 40+ hour a week job, she was in a drunken stooper with CREED blasting, as she slow danced through old visions and memories that kept her from facing her current problems. Kept her from facing the empty fridge, the sadness stained across our walls, the empty walls, and empty belly she hadn't earned but was part of her fate.

I left at 16, after locked doors and my full belly broke me free of that house and into a new life. But as a single mom of a little baby girl, no boyfriend or family support, I did not have many choices and my chances of college seemed bleak.
I was so lucky my aunt and uncle from my birth fathers side took me in. I had always stayed in touch with them even though they lived over 2 hours away and were busy with 4 kids of their own. I called on them to rescue me after my home life imploded from discovering my pregnancy at 3 months. I packed only an overnight bag but would never return.

For 7 years, I did what I could to grow. To be better. To give my child her best chance. At 17, I went into college right after graduating with honors in high school (my 5 month old daughter in the crowd). I got a job part time in school at the community college theater sewing costumes. It was the closest I could get to my decade long dreams of being in fashion.
Saying good bye to FIT and hello to my AA degree in liberal arts, I next set my heart on a University. I was accepted to and attended Stony Brook University for my 4 year program in Women's Studies and English literature. My dreams were finally close and real.

I had 4 glorious years at that school. I was able to get a one bedroom family apartment for myself and my child right on campus. So from age 20 to 24, I lived very low class but I did it all by myself. I was able to work at the apartment complex dorm office, a University job that helped me develop into a better person and mother. I could pay my bills with the help of loans. I could put food in my fridge. Take myself out to get it. Show my child what it means to be independent and not struggle but make the best of what you have.

Meeting my husband senior year was weird timing for me but definitely meant to be. I was struggling to pay my final semester and raised money on GoFundMe to finish out. I had worked so hard and was winding up to my last semester while applying for the next piece of my journey: My Masters degree.

For the past year and some months, we have been reflecting on our journey as entrepreneurs. We started off with so many expectations and so much hope but instead got beaten up and eaten up by overworking ourselves and struggling.

So here we are now. 28 and 30, 3 kids total, 2 local businesses, and we are struggling. I tell no one, because it is hard to. So instead I have no one. I have no local friends. I have no family here. I watch my amazing husband grow more tired and more ashamed as he gets beat up by the physical and mental work it takes to run a business. I watch the sparkle in his eyes dwindle. And we barely scrape by. We have multiple times skipped our own meals to make sure our own kids eat well. We have sold things, we have worked 60+ hour weeks and brought our kids since we cannot afford daycare. All to keep the businesses afloat.
Coaching? $8,000 Expos? $1000+ , Books & self help guides? $500+ A weekend retreat and 2 personal mentors $6,000
Did we have good attitudes? Did we ask the right questions? Did we do what we were told. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Times a million.

But we are here still struggling. We have dreams of our own home, of montessori schooling our kids, of having holistic dr's, and an amazingly healthy lifestyle.
Here we are still IN LOVE. Still together. Just trying to keep it all together.
I think we have poor man's subconscious plague. I think we are bound by chaos and problems. That is because I was the survivor of trauma and abusive. I cannot rationalize enough what success means. I try hard. I am a go getter. But right now, all the energy I have goes into being an amazing mom and surviving. My #1 is to raise my babies.

My Masters program was in Social Welfare. I wanted to become a medical social worker and mentor pregnant teens + child abuse victims. I wanted for 4 years to become that. And then walked away to become an artist, my childhood dream. But I do not ask myself what ifs. Because I did the right thing at the time I was given that choice. And I always stand by my choices because I deeply contemplate my actions with heart, gut and brain.
I now know that every move my husband and I made in the past few years was all part of some bigger shift. It was part of a necessary series of experiences and mind growth we both needed.

Where most couples take their time in the beginning, we did not. The first 12 months of our relationship, we exellerated everything. It was what we wanted. My nana, who's husband died unexpectedly after 18 yrs of them being married, in his late 30's, once told me that you HAVE TO live in the moment.
You have to seize your moments. It is all we have in this world. So many people waste time contemplating. Being unsure. Being afraid. Or having the wrong focuses in life.

We are scared right now. We are tired. We both never got to be kids. We always had heavy responsibilities, even though our lives were so different. Together, my husband and I have something we both never had. Someone to be ourselves with. That is priceless.
I realize only now in 2019 that I have always only shed what was not needed. I have always shed my skin's, to grow into something more. Someone mightier.

I have rationalized this with facts. By analyzing all of the obstacles I ever went through since childhood, I see how each gave me scars as well as the qualities that are my deepest strengths now.
Resilience. Appreciation. Love. Empathic abilities. Highly emotional and intuitive powers. Truly. I know this because of all the good I have done. The people I have touched in their hearts. The difference I have made and people I have been inspired.

I could have been a great designer. I could have been a great social worker. I could have been a great teacher. But I want more. We want more.
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We have lost and we have gained. We have learned a lot. And now are truly changed. We better know ourselves and our goals.
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My new goal is to get past my own barriers. I am not fearless. But I am ready. And my depth has carried me through such darkness, that these moments are a field of flowers. I have what matters now. My babies. My partner. And my vision.

Now that I know this, I cannot wait to earn what we long for and make our dream life a reality.