WHY I SHARE MY HEALING JOURNEY

A message from me — Kristi, Healing Mentor

🌼 Before We Begin

I want to make something clear:

I’m not a therapist, psychiatrist, or licensed professional.

I’m a woman who lived through trauma, survived years of repeated cycles, and finally learned what true healing actually takes. This blog isn’t advice or instructions — it’s the truth of what I lived, what I learned, and what finally set me free.

This is my story.

Not my family’s version.

Not anyone else’s narrative.

Just mine.

🌱 What I Used to Believe Healing Was

For most of my life, I thought healing meant:

• moving on

• not crying anymore

• not letting it affect me

• being angry instead of hurt

• building a life that looked “fine” from the outside

• telling my story so others would believe me

• proving what happened so I could feel seen

And for a long time, that was my definition.

I left a narcissistic relationship.

I confronted the pain with my mother.

I wrote blog posts filled with emotion and truth…

but none of it healed me.

I was bleeding onto the page and calling it recovery.

I didn’t understand that healing isn’t the story you tell —

it’s the story you face within yourself.

⸻

🌿 What Healing Actually Is

Healing isn’t “getting over it.”

Healing isn’t rage.

Healing isn’t numbing yourself until the memories fade.

Healing isn’t building a life around avoidance.

Healing isn’t hoping people finally understand you.

Healing is:

• sitting with what triggers you

• letting the truth rise instead of pushing it down

• allowing your body to feel what it avoided for years

• facing the memories you buried

• understanding why you reacted the way you did

• realizing your pain was born in environments you didn’t choose

• accepting that trauma shaped your brain and your nervous system

• learning you weren’t broken — you were wounded

And that was something I didn’t learn until I finally crashed.

⸻

🌑 When the Spiral Became a Freefall

In late 2023, something shifted inside me.

By early 2024, that shift became a slow, painful unraveling.

I wasn’t spiraling in fear or shame.

I was spiraling because nobody heard me.

I was speaking up more than ever, and the more I spoke, the less I was understood.

Every unhealed part of me rose to the surface at the same time.

I didn’t know anything about trauma, trauma responses, nervous system wounds, or CPTSD.

I didn’t know that years of emotional injuries had stacked on top of one another.

I didn’t know that one traumatic event can alter a person… and consistent trauma can rewire them completely.

But that’s exactly what happened.

And in August 2024, I hit rock bottom.

I remember sitting numb for what felt like days.

I remember going to the doctor convinced I was having a heart attack —

only to realize later, sitting in the parking lot,

that I had walked in with suicidal ideations…

and a plan.

A plan crafted not out of impulse —

but out of exhaustion.

I believed my family would be better off without me.

I believed I didn’t fit in this world.

I believed I had failed as a wife, a mother, a person.

I believed I was too broken to be loved.

But rock bottom, I learned, isn’t the end.

It’s the moment God finally gets your attention.

🌤️ Where God Stepped In

I cried to Him for months.

I begged Him to take me home.

I asked why He kept placing me in positions to help people

if it only led to me being hurt, used, or pushed away.

But God didn’t take me home.

He kept me here — painfully, intentionally, silently.

Because what I thought was my purpose… wasn’t.

And the life I had built on top of trauma finally cracked wide open.

He wasn’t punishing me.

He was redirecting me.

Four years ago, I started this healing blog because I truly believed I was healing.

I believed I was “over it.”

I believed telling my story meant I had moved on.

I was wrong — deeply, painfully wrong.

And if you’re reading this right now, especially if you were one of the four people who subscribed when I stopped posting… thank you for still being here. This new chapter begins with honesty.

This time, I’m not writing from survival.

I’m writing from healing.

Leaving a toxic relationship is a lot like trying to quit smoking.  Until you see the signs and you want to quit, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says.   Not all of if was bad, but when it was bad, it was bad.  And the few times it was good, I would begin to question myself and wonder if he was right, maybe it was me, maybe I was the problem all along.  And then self-doubt, overthinking, self-destruction started to creep in.   It starts out slow, and then before you know it, it becomes your life.  I wasn’t perfect, by any means, but I never deserved the way I was treated nor would I ever treat someone that way.  

A marriage is about compromise and no marriage is perfect, I understand that.  But a toxic marriage, is never okay.  It will never get better.  If someone tells you they love you and then turns around and shows you the opposite, trust your gut, it’s never a good thing. 

When I first found out I was pregnant he was angry, I had ‘ruined’ his life.  This pregnancy was not planned and I took us both by surprise.  Our relationship didn’t get any easier.  I was sick for months and by the time I started feeling human again and no longer had all day sickness (morning sickness…extended all day) I was showing.  I applied for jobs all over the place and I didn’t get any call backs.  I soured the newspaper every single day, dropped off applications and did follow-up calls.  Nothing.  The writer became angrier and I became very pregnant and very depressed.  I stopped getting out of bed.  I would wait until the hour before he was supposed to be done with work to get up and jump in the shower.  We moved to a new apartment shortly before my daughter was born.  The writer started working nights and I slipped into a deeper depression.  We had moved to Sacramento months prior so the writer could attend grad school.  That plan was caboshed due to me finding out I was pregnant.  He took me to the court house the following day and we got married.  I had no one, I didn’t know anyone.  I was isolated and alone.  The writer spent his time at work and when he was home, spent his time in the spare bedroom working on God knows what.  I encouraged him to keep his plans for grad school and he would slam his hand down on his desk and tell me I pretty much ruined that for him.  

My daughter was due on Dec 2^nd  1995, that morning I woke up and went to the kitchen to make breakfast and do my usual, sit in front of the tv.  I did not feel well, I wasn’t sure what it was, but something was wrong.   I found out after my daughter was born that I had PIH, pregnancy induced hyper-tension.  They didn’t tell me at the time because they didn’t want my daughter or myself in any more duress.  She was born the following day, Dec 3^rd.   My mom and mother-in-law both came and the writer.  After she was born they all left, including the writer.  They had to go back to Fresno and he had to get home so he could sleep and go into work.  I laid in my bed and cried.  My daughter was in NICU to monitor her and I was alone.  A week after she was born, we finally got to take her home.  I had quit smoking when I found out I was pregnant, but I started up again when she was in the hospital.  A Month after she was born, I convinced the writer to move us back to ND so I could be around family and get help with my daughter.  He agreed.  We didn’t last a full year, that Spring was the flood of 97.  We had fought all winter long, he made it very clear how much he hated ND. One night he walked into our kitchen and informed we he was going back to CA and I was welcome to join him or not, he didn’t care, he was leaving either way.  I chose to go with him.  I often wonder how life would have been if I had stayed. 

We waited until August, after my sister got married, and then packed up our lives and moved West.  A few weeks after our move I was looking for a job and with only retail and restaurant as my background, looked into going back to school.  I called my dad and stepmom and a few other family members after going down to MTI, College of Business and Technology and enrolling in a medical billing/medical office management program.  I was so excited and they were for me.  The writer’s schedule was all over the place, including nights/weekends and it just made sense for me to do this.  I could find a M-F job and be home for my daughter on the weekends.  When the writer got home from work I told him.  His response was not what I excepted.  “You selfish bitch” were the words that came out of his mouth.  You are going to put this family into debt for your selfish needs?  I didn’t say anything.  But I did it anyway.  And I graduated with a 4.0, was hired through the job placement program and landed a job at BCBS of CA and started out making more money than the writer.  I figured that would please him, I could pay off the loan faster.  I was wrong.  It made him anything but happy. 

We started counseling a few months later.  The writer got up and walked out during the first session.  We were discussing his ‘controlling’ me and how we didn’t even share a checkbook, yet I was supposed to cover all the bills with my paycheck and was not allowed to ask him for any help or money.  I was upset because the writer kept holding me going back to school against me.  The counselor asked the writer a question about it and the writer got up and stormed out.  I walked out to the car at the end of the session when I realized he wasn’t coming back.  I asked him what happened and his only response was “that asshole was taking your side.”  I told him there were no ‘sides’ in counseling.  He didn’t care, we never went back. 

My co-workers started to notice things about me and my relationship with the writer.  We would go to their homes and watch the Sacramento Kings games and I thought things were going well, we were meeting people and getting out.  I was wrong.   The writer and I were invited to join a group to attend a concert at the outdoor amphitheater 30 miles away.  We booked a hotel and my daughter stayed with a friend from daycare.  We were at the concert and I was dancing.  The writer leaned in with clenched teeth and was smiling.  He asked me to stop.  I kept dancing and he leaned in and whispered “you like a F’in idiot…quit dancing”.  I didn’t.  He turned and stormed out.  He left me at the concert.  We stayed for the rest of the concert and I assumed he would be at the hotel room when we returned.  He wasn’t.  I called home and left a message on the answering machine but he never called back.  My friends stayed with me that night.  I was crying and they were all telling me stories of what they saw with him and told me I was “too good for him”.    I fell asleep and woke up to him opening the hotel room door with coffee.  I asked him where he was and he said he drove back home, he had things to do.  My girlfriend laid into him and he told her she could leave now.  We never talked about it again and I quit hanging out with my friends, the writer convinced me they were not good for our marriage because none of them were married and they didn’t understand.   

I wanted to do this blog for two reasons.  One, I want to heal, I want to finally close the doors on my past and move on.  Two, I have done a lot of reading over the past year…books, inspirational posts, and learning about narcissism.  If I would have read stories about it early, knew more about it then, maybe I would have been able to see the signs sooner, so maybe someone will read my story and it will help them.  And to give someone hope, that if you keep fighting, if you keep pushing forward, and if you get help, it will not be easy, but it will be so worth it.  

The past few months have been, let’s just say, the most difficult months of this journey. My journey to heal. Some days I struggled a little bit in the morning, I hit play on my favorite Spotify playlist before I even got out of bed and used that to get me going each morning, regardless of how I felt. I would make my bed and go down and grab a cup of coffer and then I would change the playlist to my “shower” playlist. This playlist had two purposes. One, regardless of how I felt, it always made me me feel better, and two, because I tend to get lost in thought in the shower, so I know if by the time Tina Turner was belting out the chorus “Simply the best….” and I wasn’t out of the shower, I was now officially running late.

I could not figure out why I was struggling. Why was it so damn difficult for me to just go to work, do the job that I loved, and go home and just be content. Some days the answer to those questions seemed to be impossible. Years of being told I was never good enough, skinny enough or smart enough, that doesn’t just go away once you finally walk away from that kind of mental abuse. I so wish it would, but it doesn’t. You learn to put yourself down so that when it does come from someone you love, it doesn’t hurt as much. At least that’s what you tell yourself.

You never know when one of the memories comes up, all you know is when it hits, it hits hard. 

My daughter was in high school and shortly after Christmas, the writer left me for a second time. He filed for divorce a few days after he said he wanted the divorce. It came out of the blue and I was completely blind-sided, which as I look back I realized, my life with him was a constant blind-side.  We were living in CA at the time and it’s not like here in ND where you file on a Monday and you are divorced by Friday. It’s a mandatory 6 month “cooling off” period before a judge will grant a divorce. He had been texting someone from work, I only knew because he made it obvious. Valentines came and we were still living in the same house but I was in the spare bedroom. I was working from home at the time and had been in my office working and he was working out and then rode the exercise bike. He showered and got ready and said he was going out. I was crushed. His dad had committed suicide on Father’s Day, 1972. The only reason I know that date is because 9 months after his dad committed suicide, I was born. He was 13 years old at the time. Our first Valentine’s Day together we went out but after that, never again. He always told me Valentine’s Day was a Hallmark holiday only. I never made a big deal about it, I let it be. But tonight, he was taking her out. My daughter was not home, she was out with her boyfriend. I tried to keep myself preoccupied but nothing worked, I sent him a few texts and called him.  I was literally felt like I was losing my mind.  I couldn’t stop crying and everything reminded me of ‘us’ and it was tearing me apart.  What was worse, I was trying to figure out what it was I had done so wrong.    The majority of the time it was nothing.  I was not perfect, that I will say, but in a narcissist relationship, even if you are perfect, the metal abuse will turn you into believing you are absolutely worthless. 

My stomach started to ache and I thought I was going to throw up.  I got up and went into the bathroom.  I heard the garage door open and he pulled in.  He opened the door from the garage so hard it slammed into the wall.  I was in bathroom and the look on his face was not good.  He asked what the hell was wrong with me.  I was crying and asked him why he was doing this to me.  His response.  Because he didn’t love me anymore and he needed someone more like him.  I felt like a knife had been shoved in my stomach.  I told him I should just kill myself and his response was “good, yes do it, and when you are done, I will clean the mess off the floor”.  I went up to bed and cried.  My daughter came home and went to her room, I covered my face so she couldn’t hear me.  She eventually knocked on the door and asked if she could come in.  She crawled into the bed with me and just held me.  She started wiping my hair out of my face and told me I would be okay.  We would get through this.  I never felt like more of a failure at that very moment. 

The next morning, I got up and got ready.  The writer had left for work and Jamie was at school so I cranked the music (the writer hated when I listened it and usually came and turned it down, or off) and I jumped in the shower.  Chris Daughtry’s “Over You” was playing.  The lyrics hit me…hard.  I got out of the shower and got ready and went to my office to start work.  But I couldn’t concentrate.  What was happening to me? There was no way I was going to make it.  I couldn’t do this again. I typed up a note and sent it to my daughter’s school counselor and the writer.  It was a cry for help, that sounded like a suicide note.  I put our dog in his kennel and jumped in my car and drove, and drove and drove.  Her Counselor called me a few times and I eventually pulled up to her high school, right behind a car with ND plates, and I stopped my car and I called him. 

I went into his office and we talked for a while and then I was taken away…in a police car.  I had just 51\50’d myself.

At the hospital I was seen by the on-staff psychologist.  We talked for quite a while.  I told her about the writer and things that had been going.  Not just recently but over time.  The psychologist told me she was going to admit me, not because she thought I was going to kill myself, but because she felt I needed some time away from the writer, to save myself.  That was the first night I was told I was being mentally abused and she wanted me to gain the strength and get the help I needed.  When we walked out of the room and a member of the staff came up and told us the writer was here to see me.  She walked with me, he pulled out his notepad that he kept in his pocket and immediately asked her if I was staying or going home.  She told him I would be transferred to a facility and they were just waiting on a bed.  He started asking questions about where I was going and how long, she stopped him mid-sentence and told him that under the circumstances it was none of his business.  He got in her face and she put her hand up and told him again, it was none of his business.  He turned on his heel and stormed out of the hospital.  The writer moved out while I was in the hospital.  Two months later he hurt his back jogging and was laid up.  His new friend didn’t have the time to take care of him, he called on me.  And of course, my guilt took over and I helped him.  A month later, I went back to the writer and he went to the courts and pulled the divorce paperwork….

I don’t know where to start, so I’ll just start where it’s fresh. I didn’t realize it then, but I know it now. When I thought my entire world was crashing down around me, in reality, it was teaching me much needed lessons to break free of a past that was single handedly destroying me. To teach me to fall in love with myself again, so I could finally live again. What I didn’t know, was that I would be going through some of the toughest shit I had ever endured in my life Leaving a narcassist was easy, dealing with the emotions that exploded after I left him, I had no idea what I was in for.

Two months after we had moved back to ND, 4 1/2 years ago, he told me our marriage was over. I had been struggling and felt he was acting ‘off’ and hiding something from me. One night while he was at work I grabbed his laptop and started digging. I found an email conversation he had deleted between him and his first girlfriend. He had planned on flying back to CA for his mom’s birthday in July and had reached out to his first girlfriend. He told her how she was on the only woman he has ever loved, how he was a fool for ever letting her go and how is marriage was on hospice with no change of survival and that his wife had not let it go into the night like he had. I was so hurt and so angry and called him at work to confront him. He at first denied it until I quoted the email. He hung up on me. I put the laptop back but not before I printed the email and hid it in my closet. I crawled into bed and cried. I heard the door of our apartment open, he had come home from work early. My heart started pounding as he opened the door to the bedroom. The first words out of his mouth were “it’s over, we are over” and then slammed the door. I jumped out of bed and opened the door, he was putting his lunch away and slammed the door freezer door shut. He started yelling at me for reading his personal things and when I tried to talk he walked over to me and was so angry he was spitting. He asked me if I knew why we would never work. I was crying and shook my head ‘no’. he said “because I am up here and he lifted his hand above his head and then said “and you are down here” and bent down and moved his hand across the floor”. I couldn’t breath, I wanted to die, at that very moment I didn’t care if that was my last day, how could someone I had loved so much so those things to me. He went into the spare bedroom, grabbed his clothes and went into his bathroom and shut the door to shower. A few minutes later he was grabbing his keys and he left. He moved back to CA, I filed for divorce. I started a new job at UND, bought a condo and in January that following year, he reached out and because my empathy was stronger than me, I took him back. It happened so fast, we were married days after he flew in GF, I remember sitting in the driveway, our daughter in the backseat and him getting angry with me for mixing up the payment to the pastor and the donation money to the church. I sat in the driveway and looked right at him and told him I did not want to marry him again. He told me I would disappoint my family if I didn’t. I looked back and my daughter and my heart was crushed. What was I showing her?? I put on my seatbelt and started my Jeep and backed out of the driveway to go pick up my mom on the way to the church.

Let’s jump ahead to March 2020. I don’t think I have to remind anyone what happened during that time. I had just been told that UND would be shutting down for 2 weeks to help ‘flatten the curve’. My anxiety went through the roof. I wasn’t sure how I could handle 2 weeks at home. Work was my escape from my marriage. The marriage that I had finally realized was over, I was no longer in love with him and I was starting to realize what a toxic marriage it had been. No, there was no way I could stay home with him. I didn’t feel well and ended up going to FMR, they tested me for COVID so I took sick leave and just rested. 3 days later I was getting out of the shower and my phone rang, it was FMR, my test was negative. I started crying, hysterically crying. Not because I was negative but because I had done it again. Worked myself up so badly to the point that I was making myself physically ill. I wrapped up in my towel and slid down the bathroom wall. I couldn’t do this again. The writer (I will get to why I call him that at some point but for now, my ex is the “writer”) walked in and asked what my problem was. He stepped over me to go the bathroom. He asked what my plans were for the day and I told him I was just going to take the rest of the week and start over next week. He finished and walked back over me again and mumbled “must be nice”. He went downstairs to leave for work, I heard the front door shut and I got up and finished getting ready, threw on my favorite worn out Sioux hockey sweatshirt and went downstairs to watch tv. Later that day he returned from work, walked right by me and said “I see you haven’t done much today, what exactly did you do all day?” I pointed to the tv. He responded “wasting your brain on useless information”. I mumbled a “yup” and he went upstairs and road the exercise bike, showered, and came down to eat and then back upstairs he went to write.

Two weeks turned into two months of me working from home. I moved my make shift office from the kitchen counter to the office upstairs to work. I was struggling and slipping so deep into a depression I didn’t know what to do. I had people I reached out to and one who I shared my every day struggles with among other thoughts. I started to lose myself in those conversations, they saved me some days and they were the only thing I looked forward to, but it still was not enough. I was struggling mentally on a level I had never struggle with before. I knew deep down, I was not okay. For 2 months I was home, 24/7. No going out, no meeting up with friends or family, I was not made to be confined, honestly I don’t know what human is. Our wedding anniversary (wedding #3–another story, another time) came and went in April, we didn’t so much as even have supper together that night. The entire time we were home together over the months we watched 2 movies together, that was it, the only time he spent with me. My supervisor would check in with me daily, one day she called and asked how I was doing, she asked if I was sick because I sounded congested. I had been crying. I didn’t open up too much to her but let her know I was struggling. We got off the phone and a little while later my other supervisor called me. We started talking and I completely broke down, a daily norm for me anymore. I told her I wasn’t sure about anything anymore and one thing I was certain about was that I wasn’t in love with my husband anymore. She tried consoling me and assuring me that I was just having a moment and I agreed, but as soon as we hung up I realized I was not having a moment. My marriage was over and I couldn’t handle one more day being cooped up with him.

That night I finished up work, cleaned up my desk and headed downstairs. The writer was upstairs riding the exercise bike. I sat down on the couch and started watching tv. I stared out the window and started crying again. I had to do something. I got up and went upstairs, changed and put my earbuds in and jumped on the treadmill. The music, the release, it was exactly what I needed. Every day after that one when I finished work I would jump on the treadmill. Throughout the day when my Fitbit would go off 10 minutes before the hour and tell me I needed to move, I cranked music and danced in the hallway. The writer came in one day and smiled and said “you look like your loosing weight, nice.” He turned and walked out and I flipped him off. The writer was never in love with, my heart, my soul…me.

It sounds harsh but in reality, he punished me for gaining weight after having our daughter. I was 110 lbs. when I found out I was pregnant at 23. When I delivered my daughter I was over 200 lbs. Again, another story for another time. Once you put on that kind of weight, it is a constant battle to take it off and keep it off. He was never happy with my body and body shamed me to the point I could not be naked him around unless the lights were off because I was humiliated. The words “I pretended to be asleep because the very thought of having sex with you repulsed me” rang through my head. The exact words he said to me on our 10th wedding Anniversary while we were in Las Vegas celebrating. I had purchased an outfit for our Anniversary night, went into the bathroom to change and came out to him sleeping. He later told me that he caught a glimpse while I was getting ready and I repulsed him so he pretended to be asleep. He walked downstairs and I flipped him off again and cranked the “training Montage” from the movie Rocky in my ears, raised the speed on the treadmill and started running like my ass was on fire. Never again would he get to touch my body.

aHe punished me for gaining weight after having our daughter. I was 110 lbs. when I found out I was pregnant at 23. When I delivered my daughter I was over 200 lbs. Again, another story for another time. Once you put on that kind of weight, it is a constant battle to take it off and keep it off. He was never happy with my body and body shamed me to the point I could not be naked him around unless the lights were off because I was humiliated. The words “I pretended to be asleep because the very thought of having sex with you repulsed me” rang through my head. The exact words he said to me on our 10th wedding Anniversary while we were in Las Vegas celebrating. I had purchased an outfit for our Anniversary night, went into the bathroom to change and came out to him sleeping. He later told me that he caught a glimpse while I was getting ready and I repulsed him so he pretended to be asleep. He walked downstairs and I flipped him off again and cranked the “training Montage” from the movie Rocky in my ears, raised the speed on the treadmill and started running like my ass was on fire. Never again would he get to touch my body.

A few weeks later we went to the lake and opened up. The campground we stayed at let us know when we arrived that per the Governor’s orders, we were not allowed to be around any other campers. We unloaded the camper and cleaned it. He stayed up to write and I went to bed, at 7 p.m. I woke up the next morning to snow. I got up and had a cup of coffee and told the writer I didn’t want to stay. He did. Thankfully we drove separately so I headed home. The following weekend was better, we could be around more people, but things were still so off with me. I couldn’t stop crying and it pissed the writer off. “Getting over it” was not something that was happening fast enough for him so we just argued. Saturday night we joined my brother and one of the neighbors for a bonfire. The writer and the neighbor got into an argument and the writer stormed off to our camper. I totally lost it. My brother asked what that was all about and I told him I didn’t know, but all I knew was my marriage was over and I didn’t know how to end it, but it needed to end. He told me not to worry, they (my family) would be there for me. I started crying and asked how I was supposed to tell my family I failed, again and for the 3rd time my marriage was again over. I went back to the camper around 2 a.m. and crawled into bed and moved way to the other side of the king size bed. I woke up a few hours later to the writer shaking my shoulder. He said he was going to head home. I asked what time it was he said 5:30 a.m., I asked him why so early, he said “because I am tired of spending my intelligence on useless stupid shit like this camper and the lake, I have better things to do than this”. I rolled back over and a few minutes later I heard the door of his pickup shut and him driving away. I started to cry again and ended up crying myself back to sleep. My daughter had stayed at another camper the night before and had come by for coffee and a change of clothes. We went to my mom’s for breakfast and then cleaned up and headed home ourselves. I picked up supper on the way into town, we ate and I drove her back to her apartment. I came home and started putting stuff away and the writer came downstairs and I asked if we could talk. The conversation was short, I think he already knew. The marriage was over. He told me he would look for a place as soon as he could but that he wanted to stay in GF to be around our daughter. The following weekend I went to the lake, my daughter joined me, the writer did not. We came back to town on Sunday, I dropped her off at her apartment and went home. When I arrived, the writer informed me he was transferring with his job and moving back to CA on Wednesday of that week. I was beyond relieved but felt bad for my daughter. He obviously had not told her of his change of plans because she had just told me how she was going to be getting together with her dad over the next weekend.

I was okay with him leaving. This time, I was over him before I had told him I wanted out of the marriage. I pushed forward but had no idea what was about to hit me. It wasn’t just my marriage but trauma from my childhood, it was all coming at me all at once. I ended up selling the camper, he wanted me to buy him out but we had already purchased the camper in full, I wasn’t going to pay him for something we had already paid for, so I sold it. I ended up having an blowout with my mom after she attacked my daughter verbally (another story for another time) and aside from cleaning out the camper of my personal belongings, I was done. I returned one last time to move out and then called it a Summer.

I was okay with it. I missed the lake but there was things going on that I just needed to remove myself from. It was a Saturday night and I decided to redo my downstairs bathroom. I was up on a ladder when my Fitbit went off notifying me of a text. I looked down it was from my mom to my sister, brother and me. All it said was “despite all the drama, I loved you all” I climbed down off the ladder and my Fitbit went off again “I love you all, goodbye” I grabbed my phone and called my brother. I asked if had had received the text, he said yes. He was pissed off. Him and my mom had gotten into a fight that night and he was packing is stuff to leave in the morning and not return. He said to me “sis, all this time I thought you were the cause of all the drama like mom said, you are not, it’s her and I am so sorry” I told him not to worry and had he gone to check on mom. He said no and thinks she is just playing a game. I asked him to go check on her. He went into the camper with me on speaker, mom was mumbling and he said there were empty Rx bottles all over the place. He said the dates on some of them were really old and he thinks she just did this for attention. He started panicking and asked what he should do. I asked him to hang up with me and call 911. He did. A few minutes later he was calling me. The Sheriff was there and they were waiting for the ambulance. My brother had me on speaker phone and the Sheriff was asking mom questions. He asked her if she took the pills and she started crying and said she was just having a bad night. He asked her what was going on and she said “my son, my son, the only child I love, the one I love the most, he tried to leave me tonight and I couldn’t handle him leaving me” My brother took me off of speaker and said “Kris, don’t listen to her” I told him it was fine, I always knew she didn’t love me and regardless it doesn’t matter. They took her to Park Rapids and admitted her. I finished my bathroom and poured a glass of wine. I had planned on going to see here but decided against it. They kept her and were planning on discharging her on Sunday but that didn’t happen. My brother called and said something happened with mom, she wasn’t coherent and mumbled a lot but was not alert or awake. I went to work Monday and my brother ended up staying in Park Rapids and going to the hospital Monday to talk with the doctor. He was talking to me when the doctor came in and asked if he could put me on speaker phone. What happened next we were totally unprepared for. The doctor had informed us they had been monitoring mom closely for the past 24 hrs. and they were certain she was in detox. My brother told the doctor she hadn’t had much to drink that night but the doctor said it had nothing to do with that night, the detox level was that of someone who abused alcohol often and asked if mom was a heavy drinker. My brother said no, and immediately flashed back to 9th grade, shortly after my parents divorce and remembered when my mom moved us to San Luis Obispo, CA. It was fun at first and then mom would start locking herself in her room and sit on the phone for hours at night. She stopped cooking and taking care of us and one night when she went out to a divorce support group I broke into her room and found empty and full wine bottles and boxes under her bed. I called my grandma (my mom’s mom) and told her what was going on. The next day my sister and I were in our bedroom and my mom came flying in and stuck her finger in my face and told me until I knew what it was like to go through a divorce (ironic, and here I am divorce #3 under my belt) I had no business sticking my nose in her business or calling her mom. We go into a screaming match and I lost. I told the doctor she was and had been drinking for years. My brother didn’t say a word.

The next day I was at work, thankfully I was allowed to come back to the Hyslop full time. I had called the hospital to see if there was any change with my mom, there wasn’t, she was still out of it. I asked if a DNR is necessary and they said “yes, she is in ICU, if she has one we should have a copy”. I called my sister who was out in CA where my mom’s attorney was. She called the attorney to pick up the paperwork but because I was the primary, they needed me to sign a release for my sister to pick up the paperwork. I type up something and printed it out, went to sign it, stuck a carrot in my mouth and completely lost it. I started crying and looked up to one of the athletic trainers standing in my doorway. I thought I was alone. She asked if I was okay and my thought was “no damnit, I wanted cucumbers for lunch not carrots”. She came into my office and asked if she could hug me. She also asked I would like to talk to someone, I replied with a “yes”. She made a call and the following week I was back into much needed therapy.

For years I asked myself over and over why I was never good enough, why love was so painful and then overthinking began, the anxiety, the lack of confidence, the depression, the sadness, the self hate, the self sabotage, the thoughts of suicide. The journey has not been easy, and some days I didn’t think I was going to make it through. But I can promise you, it was so worth it.

Through all of it, the painful lessons, the childhood trauma, my toxic marriage(s) I never stopped, I fought, I failed, and cried, I faced the demons and finally became free, I finally chose me, loved me, and became soul happy and free.

This blog is for me to share with you, not to blame anyone for the things that happened to me, or to cause hatred towards those that did hurt me. I have forgiven those who have hurt me, for me. I have learned to walk away, gracefully. In this life and all the lessons, I have learned, it all begins and ends with you.

I learned that people who suffer from childhood trauma can become narcissistic or empathetic. I became an empath, and I married a narcissist.

I used to suffer in silence. When I would try and talk about my marriage and issues from my childhood and how I felt, people were not very receptive, so I learned to not talk about it at all. I taught myself to shut down, and through that process my empathy became stronger. I turned my own pain and suffering into ‘fixing’ and helping others, unbeknownst to me, I was slowly destroying myself.

I recently read something on my Instagram feed, as I was reading it my body exploded with goosebumps: “My home will be a home with no loud anger, no explosive rage, no slamming doors or breaking glass, no name calling, shaming or blackmail. My home will be gentle, it will be warm. It will keep my loved ones safe. No fear, no hurt, and no worries. I am come from a broken and twisted place, but I will build something whole and safe. I’ll sing in the shower again, cook with a smile and dance in all the rooms. I will heal.” This was my childhood home, even after I became an adult and married, this described my home. But it stops here. From this point forward it ends with me. My home will be happy and most importantly healthy. The generational curse ends with me.

I look back now and realize my journey, the pain, the suffering, the sad days, the heartache, the ‘why me’ moments, the dropping to me knees and begging God to talk me home. Those were all meant to teach me, to heal me, and to finally make me into the person I was always meant to be.