The Legacy of Survival

A little over a week ago, I published the second book in the Freedom Series. The plan was to finish that book, get it out there, let the world know, and dive right into the next project...but I've been struggling. Because there's something surreal about closing the door on Christine's story and letting it go.

Stories like this one don't come out of nowhere. They aren't just imaginary threads pulled from the fabric of creativity. They're the fruit of truths that sometimes feel impossible to digest, echoes of pain in places we don't always talk about. They're trauma and compassion, forgiveness and understanding, survival and identity. They're pictures of the emotional healing process that transforms a childhood trauma perspective. Illustrations of how a survivor mindset shifts the psychological impact of abuse toward understanding and the reclaiming of personal power.

The Freedom Series begins with devastation—because domestic violence awareness is more than a pretty purple ribbon, and I refuse to look away. Too often, we admire resilience after trauma. We celebrate the silent strength in women healing after domestic violence, and we talk about emotional growth after abuse.

Am I doing those things in the Freedom Series? Of course I am. But the truth is, Christine's post-traumatic growth wouldn't look the same without addressing the reality of hidden abuse, and understanding abusive relationships is deeper than asking why women stay.

That's also why it isn't a story about violence. The violence is there, but the story is about what happens after. It's about the power of survival, and the slow, painful process of reclaiming your voice in the aftermath. Because Christine is more than a character in a book. She's an invitation to a place where trauma-informed empathy is more than a buzzword—a peek at the strength in choosing understanding over judgment.

She's every girl overcoming resentment for things she shouldn't have had to see. She's every woman working overtime in the struggle to break cycles of abuse. She's empathy after anger. She's me, standing in the gap between trauma and self-awareness after learning compassion the hard way. And she's everything my mother deserved a chance to become.

I still remember the look on my mother's face when I told her he was dead. The man who ruined our family. The man who made me loathe everything about her.

He was a violent convicted felon, covered in gang tattoos and racist symbolism so revolting she didn't even know what it all meant. The kind of sadistic monster that makes horror films seem almost funny. She should have known better. Everyone else did. But surely, by the time she married him, with her frightened children looking on in helpless dread, she knew. Shouldn't she have known? Why did she sign that form and speak those vows and surrender everything she'd worked so hard to save?

What mother exposes her children to a world where gang initiations happen in the front yard, where broken things become the landscape of childhood and sex education begins before Kindergarten?

I hated her for the memories that came before. For scratch-off tickets and Yoo-Hoo bottles and bike rides and minnow fishing. For a Barbie dreamhouse that got left out in the rain. For memories that felt like hope was ripped from my hands before I could even write my name. For memories so fragmented they barely even make sense—like the time I was stripped and photographed by police in the guidance counselor's office at school. A third grader, covered in bruises, wearing the wrong days-of-the-week panties. I still have no idea what happened to me, or why.

I hated her when he strangled her on the front porch for making his sandwich wrong. I hated her when I spent my fourth grade year in a children's home. And I hated her when she came to get me, after he ended up in prison again. Because it was her fault. She should have known better. She should have left sooner. She should have protected us.

My mother died a lot. The first time, complications from a heart attack and a blood clot. The second time, complications from infection after her fingers were amputated. Another time, her heart refused to start back up after a bypass. I hated her because her disability made her fragile. Because she was angry at the hardness of her life. Because she was irresponsible and stubborn and paranoid. Because she was selfish. Because she was an addict.

But when I was fifteen, my boyfriend hit me. I was tickling him, trying to wake him up for work, and he said, "You better quit before I slap you." And I thought, "He would never." Then he did. I didn't break up with him until a year later...and I thought about my mom.

I spent almost five years with an addict who couldn't quit. "Well, I just won't let it get serious." When we moved in together, it was, "Yeah, but I'm not getting married." And after we were married, I was definitely "not having kids with him." When I finally left him for the third and final time, he told me he'd kill me. He'd leave voicemails telling me how. And I thought about my mom.

I lived with a narcissist for a decade, and the constant chaos made me wonder if I was losing my mind. It seemed like every day was a new disaster that was always someone else's fault, and in the turmoil, I thought about my mom.

Because I didn't ask for it. I was fooled into it. And I couldn't have known better...because it was all I'd ever known.

Sometimes, my mom would talk about her second husband. And as the internet grew, I learned how to look him up in the prison system. I saw the way her eyes relaxed when I told her he was still locked up, and her relief kept me from telling her when he got out. For years, I tracked his whereabouts, reassured by far-away addresses. And I still remember the look on my mother's face when I told her he was dead. The way she held my phone like a priceless gift, slowly reading the obituary that resurrected hope in her life.

I've gone to therapy in ways that she couldn't, experienced compassion that she never saw, and healed in ways she didn't have access to.

She died for the last time on the morning of her sixty-first birthday. And by then, I didn't hate her anymore. Not because she changed, not because she apologized, not because she healed into stability. She didn't do any of those things. And as a daughter who is now a mother as well, my feelings for her will always be complicated, but seeing your parents as human opens a door to perspective and healing. My mother was a victim—and a survivor. She was an embarrassment—and an inspiration. A weakling—and a warrior. She never had the chance to become what she might have been, and yet she made me so much of what I am.

It is for her that I share the stories of the Undaunted.

*****

For a long time, I thought strength looked like knowing better. Choosing better, doing better. I thought abuse recovery looked like leaving. Drawing a hard line. Something obvious we could point to and say, "There! That's courage. That's what it means to stand up for yourself."

But it doesn’t always look like that, especially with generational trauma. Sometimes, it's surviving something no one else fully understands. Sometimes, it's staying longer than you should, because fear is louder than reason, or hope isn’t quite dead yet. Sometimes, it's carrying the weight of choices you didn’t make in a world that says you did.

It took me a long time to realize that some strength is quiet. So quiet it goes unrecognized for years. Or decades. And I didn’t always see that in my mother, but I see it now. Not perfectly, and not without questions. Not without the ache of what could have been...but with an understanding I didn’t have as I struggled to survive the aftermath of her decisions.

I think that’s part of what it means to stand up, too.

And yes, the moment we find our voice matters—but maybe those moments are possible because somewhere along the way, we soften enough to choose compassion over judgement, and we allow someone else’s story to be more than the worst thing we remember about them.

Maybe that’s how it spreads, too. We open a door to make space for understanding that wasn't there before, and then one voice becomes many, one song becomes an anthem, one story becomes a reason to keep going. One woman stands in a way no one else notices, and still leaves something that matters behind.

I’m still learning what that looks like, even now. Learning to hold both the hurt and the understanding in the same space. And it isn't always easy to look at hard truths or to offer compassion without pretending it fixes everything. But sometimes the greatest legacy isn't what we survive, it's how we use that survival to help someone else...

Life is fragile, but we’re stronger when we share it, and every day is an unopened gift. Sometimes it's heavy, sometimes it's light, but it's always worth unwrapping. So if my words helped you feel seen today, I'd love to keep sharing moments like this with you. Each week I send a quick recap directly to my favorite readers, including links to recent content, updates on my writing projects, and tidbits of my life behind the scenes. Want in? Sign up here!