The weight of choosing to stay.

There is no guidebook for surviving the middle of your healing. The moment where you’ve already made the choice to live, but everything feels heavier than when you wanted to die.

I made the decision to stay. And because I made that decision, the pain got louder. The patterns became sharper. The grief grew teeth. This part right here is the hardest part I’ve ever walked through.

I know it’s going to get worse before it gets better. And I’m right in the thick of it. Doing the only things I’ve ever known to do when it gets too much. Push people away. Isolate myself. Or plot a dramatic death just to finally prove my pain to my parents. Don't challenge me on this, I am looking for any excuse to YEET myself off this bitch.

I’ve been crying out my entire life to be heard. To be loved. And I have always been met with judgment and shame. I didn’t put the full pattern together until this week. I finally understand my dad’s and brother’s fear of me being in therapy. It’s because, in their eyes, therapy is what led to my mom’s downfall. I don't disagree.

My dad told me once her therapist said she wasn’t actually an alcoholic the game was over. She said that she just had trauma and wasn't an alcoholic. She could drink in moderation because she’d healed it. Now I understand their fear. But I’m not here to live in it. I know without hesitation that I'm a a real alcoholic. I started drinking in 7th grade. I don't NEED any additional proof.

They see me as tethered to my mom’s story because I’m making noise. Because I’m acting out. Because I am behaving like a woman with undeniable mommy and daddy issues. But what they call crazy, I call courage.

And because the gaslighting is generational on both sides of my family, I will always be painted as the problem. The disruptor. The unstable one. But I’m not here to perform a fake happy family script just to keep people comfortable. Especially people who only love me when I follow the script they wrote.

I made a vow to my Jesus that I would heal the entire story. Publicly. Boldly. Honestly.

They don’t believe in my connection to Him. They don’t believe in the fire that drives me. And because I’m so hyper-aware of how critical my father is, that’s why you’ll never see me in public without looking like I stepped off a runway. Not even a crumb on my shirt. I don’t need to prove my trauma by creating more trauma for myself.

What I am doing is staying. And healing. And letting it rip me open, layer by layer, without trying to wrap it up in a pretty bow.

Thank you for walking this road with me. I don’t take a single message or moment of support for granted. This is sacred work. This is resurrection work. And I am

letting it all rise.