Being told you won’t survive if you’re “weak” is like telling a ship it won’t sail unless it floats. The same way you won’t realize you can float until you’re in the water, you won’t know the extent of your strength until you become a mother.

There simply aren’t enough stars in the ether to help me now. I’m left pleading with an endless black hole, praying the void swallows me.

My mind created my alters to protect me and in a way, they sacrificed themselves for me too. When it came time to fully integrate, my alters knew they were no longer required so they fell into my metaphorical memory dome.

I would argue that those suffering from depression are among the strongest of us. Why? They keep showing up despite it all.

A constant battle of conflicting identity. One a retribution and one a damnation.

We feel guilt for what we do, but we feel shame for what we are. To feel shame is to feel personal disappointment of your own existence.

Virginity belongs to each of us as an expression of our own sovereignty. This insight has helped me regain my personal authority and bodily autonomy that for so long I felt had been taken from me.

I had just the right circumstances and personality traits as a child to make me the ideal candidate for responding to trauma in the way that I did. A (not so) perfect storm if you will.