“Sometimes hope is the only thing we can hold when we can't control what happens next. So we hold it tightly.”

“I spent years waiting to feel pretty. Healing taught me I should never have had to wait to feel worthy.”

“Coming forward takes immense courage. But when the system answers your truth with silence, the waiting can become its own kind of trauma.”

Leaving is an act of courage. Staying gone is an act of strength. Learning your worth again is an act of healing.

I didn’t always have the words for what I was feeling, only a body that stayed on high alert. Mental health, for me, began as survival.