“This dog is driving me crazy.” Always getting in the trash, under my feet at every turn I make.
“This hungry cat is driving me crazy.” She’s so loud and demanding, especially when she thinks I have not fed her soon enough.
“My child is driving me crazy.” Teenagers present their own set of challenges, and each of mine presents me with a new set every week.
“My husband’s actions are driving me crazy.” Coffee cups lined up on an end table and clothes thrown over a closet rod instead of a hanger.
“This slow-heating stove is driving me crazy.” These onions won’t caramelize themselves.
“This weather is driving me crazy.” Hot and humid one day, then cold and windy the next.
“My hair is driving me crazy.” On humid days, the curls pop. But on dry days, I have to use a cabinet full of products to keep them in place.
Everything in my life seemed to ‘drive me crazy.’ And the more I said it, the more life would bring me things to go crazy over. A nail in my tire, almost on an empty gas tank when I was not the last one to drive the car, cat puke when I first woke up, and more.
I didn’t catch it as a pattern at first. I thought I was just being easily irritated. Or having a difficult day. Then I noticed the phrase had become automatic. It was the first words that would come out of my mouth before even thinking about it.
Then I remembered: life and death are in the power of the tongue. Whatever a man thinks, so is he.Be impeccable with your word. The same truths — different languages. Scripture, positive thinking, ancient wisdom. They all say the same thing.
And I realized that I was bringing craziness into my life. Word by word. Complaint by complaint. And if I didn’t stop this loop of professing that I am being driven crazy, then I might actually go crazy after all.
So, I started catching myself mid-sentence. “Oh, my gawd, that is driving meh… (clears throat) um. This situation is a challenge to me in this moment, but I will figure it out.”
“That customer is driving me cra… She is not my favorite customer.”
“Mr. B is driving me… (deep breath in….) Mr. B can be difficult to deal with at times.”
Sometimes I stop mid-sentence, at a loss for words, because some things are better left unsaid.
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Darren had always been the star employee. He was a hard worker and the best driver they ever had. He could do long hauls in record time, saving the business money. Customers loved him. They always commented on how friendly and helpful he was. He was a major asset to the business. Clara had always been grateful that Martin took a chance on him when Darren moved up after she and Martin got married.
Clara still remembered Darren’s phone call. “Mom, I can’t do it anymore. I need help. I want to get my life together and move up there and get a job.”
So, they helped him. Let him stay with them for a few months until he was able to get on his feet. He even got sober. Started doing small things around the house and the business. Martin saw how hard Darren worked and offered him a job. It wasn’t long before he was driving.
Darren had been working for them for about five years when it happened.
He didn’t show up one morning. It was so unlike him. Darren always showed up. But he didn’t call either. By mid-morning, Clara felt the familiar tightening in her chest and gut, and her mouth went dry. She swallowed, but there was nothing there, just a cottony thickness coating her tongue and throat. She slowly moved to the window; it was as if she were moving through water. Her mind took her to that dark, familiar place she goes when she knows something isn’t right but doesn’t have proof — and this time her body wouldn’t let her move away from it.
What if he did what his brother did? She tried not to think about it, but she knew he and Mayah had been struggling. Even recently, he called Clara to tell her that Mayah wouldn’t let him leave the house when he’d been pushed to his limit.
Her fingers felt numb as she reached for the phone. The dial tone seemed to come from very far away. “Mayah, have you heard from Darren? He did not show up for work this morning.” But Mayah said she had not heard from him either. Said he left her house the night before, around 8 pm.
Martin decided it was best to do a welfare check at Darren’s apartment. Clara could see the fear in his eyes — that frozen, suffocating dread that had locked her in place. Then the phone rang. It was Mayah, she said, Darren was in the Orange County Detention Center for a DUI. Clara and Martin let out a sigh of relief. Glad he was alive.
But their star driver now had a DUI, which meant the company insurance wouldn’t cover him.
That night, Martin sat at the kitchen table staring at his laptop. Three empty coffee cups lined up next to him. The screen glowed in front of him, spreadsheets and numbers that seemed to mock him. Insurance premiums. Liability coverage. The cost of hiring and training a new driver. He stared at them like they might offer an answer they didn’t contain.
The laptop’s cooling fan hummed steadily — a low, relentless sound that had become the rhythm of his thinking. He leaned forward, and the cold, smooth surface of the built-in desk pressed against his forearms, hard and unyielding.
“We have to let him go,” he said finally, not looking at her.
Clara knew that. But knowing and doing lived in different places.
“We can’t insure him as a driver anymore,” Martin said. “That’s just the fact.”
He closed the laptop. The fan’s hum stopped abruptly. “We have twelve other employees depending on us. We have a business to run.”
He thought of them then, Marcus and David, the younger drivers with kids in elementary school, living paycheck to paycheck. Tom, in the warehouse, was fifty-eight years old, whose wife had just gone on disability. Keisha was putting herself through night school. James, who’d just bought his first house. The temp workers who cycled through with no benefits or safety net.
If he bent the rules for Darren, what message did that send to them? That some people were worth the risk, worth the moral flexibility? That others were just… employees?
“Darren depends on us for survival,” Martin said quietly. “And if I keep him, I’m saying his fuck-up matters more than their stability.”
The silence stretched between them.
The next morning, when Jack showed up to work, he got there right before Martin could make the call.
“What if we moved him to quality control?” Jack said, pouring coffee like he hadn’t just suggested the impossible. “Pete’s drowning in it anyway. Always behind.”
Martin shook his head. “That’s not a demotion. That’s a promotion.”
“I’m not talking about reward. I’m talking about reality.” Jack leaned against the counter. “Darren’s meticulous. You’ve seen his pre-trip inspections. His logs. He notices things Pete doesn’t.”
Martin hesitated. “It sets a precedent,” he said.
“It sets a precedent that we don’t throw people away when they stumble,” Jack said. “That we find a solution instead of taking the easy way out.”
“The job’s physical,” Martin said. “He’d have to be here early. Stay late. Carry equipment. Inspect everything himself.”
“He can do it,” Jack said. “The question is whether we’re willing to let him.”
When Martin called Darren in, Clara positioned herself at the office window. She could see everything: the concrete, the trucks lined up like sleeping animals, Darren walking toward Martin with his shoulders already braced for bad news.
She watched from her perch as Martin spoke. Watched Darren’s shoulders drop — not the drop of disappointment, but the collapse of someone who’d been holding his breath for three days. Watched him nod, almost involuntarily. Then what looked like relief he wasn’t expecting washed across his face — the kind of relief that comes not from getting what you want, but from not losing everything.
Martin extended his hand. Darren took it with both of his hands — a grip that held too long, that said thank you in a way words couldn’t. He wasn’t shaking Martin’s hand the way an employee shakes a boss’s hand. He was holding on to a lifeline.
Martin felt it, the weight of that grip. Darren had no other options. No one else would be willing to take this chance.
Later, Martin came back inside and sat heavily in his chair. “I hope we didn’t just make the biggest mistake of our lives,” he said.
Clara hoped so, too. But hope and certainty lived in separate houses.
The job suited Darren in a way driving had never suited him. Quality control required paying attention, always being alert, and sometimes that never ended. It required something else too-something physical that didn’t show until the end of the day, when Darren’s shoulders ached and his forearms burned.
He moved through the warehouse with a crate in his hands, the weight of it settling into his palms. Dozens of parts to inspect. Pick it, turn it. Examine it under the light. Set it down. Pick up the next one. The motion repeated, hour after hour, until his shoulders screamed and his fingers felt thick and clumsy.
By midday, calluses were forming on his hands-rough patches where the crate handles pressed into his skin. Sweat beaded on his forehead, not from heat but from the concentration required. The work was meticulous, yes, but it was also relentless. Hours of sustained attention meant hours of his body bearing the cost.
Darren caught things no one else saw. Small inconsistencies Pete had been missing. He took it seriously. More seriously than anyone expected. More seriously than Pete liked.
Pete had been doing parts of the job for years, always behind, always frustrated. Now Darren was doing it better. And without complaint. Clara could feel it every time Pete walked past the office-the resentment of a man watching someone do it better.
Then, one Monday morning, Darren showed up to work with his dominant hand wrapped. He had broken his hand playing football the previous afternoon. And now there was an obvious problem. He couldn’t do the job.
This job wasn’t like driving. It required both hands. Stability. Precision. Control. One hand to hold, the other to adjust and stabilize. Without both, the work cannot be performed.
Martin stood in the doorway of the office. “He can’t do it,” he said.
Clara nodded. “I know.”
“We don’t have anything else for him.” Martin reminded her.
There it was again. Not a question. The fact. No one said it out loud, but everyone knew.
Martin spoke up, “He wouldn’t still be here if he weren’t family. If it had been anyone else, he would have been gone after the DUI.”
Clara knew it. Jack knew it. And Darren knew it too.
That was what made it heavy.
“It’ll take months,” Martin continued. “And I have to hire someone else to do the job. He’s put me in a bind again.”
“I know,” she said. “Do what you need to do. We’re not responsible for figuring his life out for him.”
Martin nodded, but didn’t move. “Yeah,” he said. “But I don’t know if I can handle what happens if we don’t help him.”
Clara sat behind her desk, and Darren stood in the doorway, not quite crossing the threshold, as if the space itself was too formal, too official for him to enter fully.
His right hand was in a white plaster cast, prominent and stark against his work clothes. He didn’t look at her. His eyes darted from the corner of her desk to the edge of the window frame, anywhere but her face. “This is so embarrassing,” he said quietly.
The fluorescent light hummed above them. Outside the window, the warehouse continued its rhythm-the sound of work, of movement, of people doing jobs with two functioning hands.
“Well, now what?” Clara asked. “How are you going to work?”
Darren shifted his weight. The cast caught the light. “It’s not that bad,” he said, his voice smaller now. “I’ll be alright.”
But even he didn’t sound convinced. He knew. He knew what a broken dominant hand meant in a job like his. He knew he had no options left.
Jack and Martin were back in Martin’s office, and the weight of Darren’s injury pressed down on Martin like it was his own. “We can’t keep doing this.”
Jack didn’t answer right away. He stood at the counter, arms crossed, watching him. “You said yourself he’s good at the job. Better than Pete ever was.”
“That’s not the point,” Martin replied.
“Then what is?” said Jack.
Martin looked up at him. His hands were flat on the table, as if he needed to hold himself down. “The point is, I have twelve other people depending on me to be fair. And this is showing them that fairness isn’t equal. That some people get rescued and some people get paychecks.”
Jack let out a quiet breath. “Fair doesn’t always look the same.”
“No,” Martin said. “It doesn’t. And that’s the problem.”
He stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at the dark warehouse. The concrete floor was invisible now, but he could see it in his mind — the place where Darren had stood that day after the DUI, waiting to hear if he still had a job.
“If he were anyone else,” Martin said, quieter now, “this wouldn’t even be a conversation.”
Jack nodded. “But he’s not anyone else.”
That was the problem. And the answer. And the part no one knew what to do with.
Martin turned back to face him. “It will take eight weeks for him to recover and his hand to heal,” he said. “Maybe more. Two people doing one job. And everyone else watching to see if I’ll bend the rules for him again, or if this is finally where I say no.”
Jack didn’t move. “Maybe what they’re really watching for is to see what you would do if it were them,” Jack said.
“Whatever we do,” Martin said finally, “we’re going to pay for it.”
Jack gave a small nod. “Yeah, we are.”
Silence settled between them.
Clara stood, listening. She had heard all of it before.
The next morning came gray and cold. Early light filtered through the warehouse windows — the kind of light that made everything look harder, more exposed. The concrete floor was still wet from the overnight cleaning, and the smell of diesel and metal hung in the air.
Darren showed up early, standing just inside the warehouse door. The morning cold had followed him inside. His breath was visible in the air.
Clara watched Martin walk toward him. His footsteps slid slightly across the wet concrete — a soft, uncertain sound, the soles of his shoes catching and releasing with each step. The floor was slick enough to make him move with deliberation, his body bracing against the slight slip of it. The warehouse hummed around them — the ambient sound of a place built for work and movement.
She couldn’t hear what was said. Only saw Martin lift his hand. Then she watched Darren nod and walk away.
About Author : Yoli Kae Reynolds is an author and Certified Journal Therapy Coach based in Central Arkansas. Her writing explores suicide loss, family trauma, and survival in the aftermath of abuse. Her personal essays have appeared on Medium in Women Write and Reaching Hearts, and her fiction in The Fiction Journal. Through both her coaching practice and her fiction, she investigates how systems fail survivors and the violence that echoes through families.
The Fiction Journal is a home for stories that make you feel and think. The Fiction Journal is for readers who believe that good fiction doesn’t just entertain — it resonates.
I can see her face, looking up, eyes open, skin pale and purple — a soil-stained, china-doll face. Dirt and leaves around her. This is how he left her.
This is what I see when I close my eyes, when I open them, when I’m driving to work or standing in line at the grocery store.
“Remember me.”
I do. God help me, I do.
Her voice isn’t loud. It’s soft. So soft I could almost pretend it isn’t there, but it cuts through me like a scream. It comes out of nowhere. And when it does, there’s no shutting it out.
“Tell them what happened.”
She deserves that and more. But the parole board doesn’t deal in what people deserve. They deal in time served and good behavior. They deal with a Preacher proclaiming reformation, as though he deserved it.
A man of God, they called him. The community trusted him and loved him. When he stood at the pulpit, they heard divine authority.
We trusted him, too. My husband was his friend.
Twenty-four years. That’s what her life was worth in the arithmetic of justice. After fifteen years had passed, he was eligible for parole. He could be eating breakfast in the local diner, coffee and eggs in front of him. Bowing his head, thanking God for his freedom.
The same God whose name was in his mouth when his hands were around her neck. And the people at the next table would pass him the ketchup, not knowing what he had done.
In my mind, she will always be in that hastily dug pit. Leaves caught in her hair, just enough dirt to hide, but not bury her. Cyanosis for make-up. And that stare, frozen for eternity.
“Tell them my name”.
I remember watching the news. I was states away, safe in my own home, or so I thought. When they announced that Michelle was gone and that he had done it, then my world tilted. I didn’t need to be at the crime scene to see it. I saw it in my own living room. Because I knew it could have been me.
I knew the look in my husband’s eyes when he was angry, the hands that grabbed too hard, the voice that used scripture to silence me.
Michelle’s death was a mirror I couldn’t look away from. If it wasn’t for her and the horrific price she paid, I might still be there. Still shrinking into the corners of my house, pinned there with the weight of his body, convinced it was my cross to bear.
Her death was the only thing loud enough to tear through the silence of the lies I’d been told.
People have told me that I have an empathic gift. That I’m sensitive to things other people feel.
It wasn’t a gift; it was cold-blooded terror. I knew that the only difference between Michelle’s story and mine was a few years and a shallow grave.
I felt the weight of my husband’s rage. The certainty that one day he’d go too far and I’d be the one in the ground. That atrocity saved my life. It was a warning, not a gift. The voice of a woman who had been murdered was loud enough to be heard by a woman who might be next.
The living move on because they have to. But I can’t, and she won’t let me — or maybe I won’t let her.
“Say my name.”
Michelle Piwowar. Her name was Michelle.
Michelle Piwowar, who loved running and lit up when her children were around. Michelle, who had the longest, most beautiful curly hair I’d ever seen. Michelle, who loved to bake fresh bread for her family. Michelle, who was more than what he made her. More than a body in a hidden patch of earth. She was more than a victim. She was my friend.
I’ll say her name and remember she was a person, not just a crime or a page in his redemption story.
Why can I still hear her?
Maybe nobody else is listening. Because the world wants to forgive him and forget her. She’s trapped between being the woman she was and the victim he made her, and I refuse to let either version disappear.
Remembering is the only thing I can still do for her. But it’s more than that. I hear her because I owe her my life.
I can still imagine her face, purple skin, and those unblinking eyes. I don’t just feel horror anymore. I feel a debt. I hear her voice in the quiet moments, and I realize she wasn’t just whispering for herself. She was screaming across state lines, screaming through the news reports, loud enough to shatter the walls of the prison I was living in.
She screamed clear enough for me to finally hear the truth about my own marriage. Before my own story ended in the dirt.
And yet, after I left him, I could still hear her.
Michelle, it’s been 22 years since Robert took you from this world. I am breathing this free air because you stopped breathing yours. I will never forget it. I owe you my every breath.
I remember Michelle. I will always remember you.
Remembering Michelle was originally published in Women Write on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
It is that time of year when the heat of summer has turned into the cool of fall. Except here in the south, you have a mixture of warmth and humidity with that coolness.
I love how the damp leaves lie on the ground in various colors — orange, yellow, brown, and sometimes red. There is just a certain feeling in the air. It feels like the atmosphere is giving me a hug. Like it is saying, “You have made it this far. It’s not too much further.”
The sun sets earlier, and the sunsets are prettier. The moon shines brighter, or so it feels.
I am drawn to the death theme — more now, since my son passed. Halloween is the one holiday that gives me permission to acknowledge and embrace darkness. I love the ghouls, the skeletons, the witches, the bats, the black cats. I like the fake spiders but not the real ones — though I do admire their webs. I love darkness. Without it, I would have never seen light.
I can breathe better around Halloween. When I think of it, it feels warm. Like a bonfire — warm because of the cool around it, bright because of the dark.
I think the main reason it’s my favorite holiday is because of when it falls. By the time Thanksgiving arrives, that warmth is gone.
Paul sat at his dining table, staring at the license plate number he’d scribbled on the palm of his hand in haste as the woman from the library sped off. She barely acknowledged him, and he wasn’t even able to get her name. Instinctively, he smelled the palm of his hand, remembering the way her bookmark smelled, the way she smelled. He searched the internet for her address. Talking to himself, he said, “Oh, look, the car belongs to Mildred Huff. Mildred? Millie, that’s what I would call her. Mildred seems a bit old-fashioned. No, that can’t be right. Let me see how old this Mildred is.”
Upon further investigation, Paul discovered that Mildred was way older than the woman in the library. But Mildred did have a daughter named Debbie. “Hmmm, Debbie looks like she may be who I’m looking for. Dang, these privacy settings are getting on my nerves. I just want to find one good photo to confirm. I will keep searching.” Mouthing his thoughts, Paul continued searching the internet looking for a photo of Debbie.
****
Meanwhile, Debbie was conducting her own investigation. She kept her TruthFinder account active, one of the few apps she allowed herself to use. TruthFinder was a background-check app she downloaded after her incident with that guy at the coffee shop. She decided she would never go on another date without knowing everything she could find out about a guy first. But she didn’t find out anything more than she already knew about Paul. He was rich and donated generously to the library, at least that’s what the internet said.
For a brief moment, Debbie wished she still had social media so she could stalk him properly. But she’d deleted everything. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, all gone. She’d even tried creating a fake account under a different name once, thinking she could slip back into the digital world undetected. But it didn’t feel right. She couldn’t keep up with all her friends and acquaintances without raising suspicion, and the isolation of a half-life online felt worse than no life at all. Not because of strangers like Paul, but because of her mother, Mildred.
Mildred stayed glued to social media, watching Debbie’s every move, commenting on her photos, messaging her friends, inserting herself into every corner of Debbie’s digital life. It was suffocating. So Debbie erased herself from them entirely. At least with TruthFinder, she could protect herself.
Mr. Paul was a handsome guy, but there was something about him that made her feel uneasy, and she wanted to know why. She wanted something tangible, something that she could say, Aha, see? This is why. But she found nothing. Still, his presence at the library triggered something in her, reminding her that she was never truly safe from being watched or consumed by someone else’s need.
Earlier, Mildred noticed Debbie had grown quiet, so she inquired about her night. “Are you okay, sweetie? Did something happen at the library?” she said in her raspy smoker’s voice, intently watching Debbie’s facial expression.
Debbie explained her awkward encounter with Paul. She told her Mom that he would not stop staring at her and how he would interrupt her reading to try to have a conversation with her. “In the library of all places, where you’re supposed to be quiet,” she said, frowning.
But as she spoke, she felt the memory of him again, how close he’d gotten, so close she could feel the warmth of him behind her. She remembered how he made her flush, but also that flutter low in her stomach. She was attracted and terrified at the same time, and that contradiction left her confused and a little ashamed. How could she be scared of someone but also drawn to them? It didn’t make sense, and she couldn’t explain it to her mother without sounding foolish.
Mom blew her off, said he was probably just trying to be nice. The reaction Debbie expected, which is why she left out the details of how he sniffed her hair and took a whiff of her bookmark before handing it back to her. She didn’t want to seem like she was over exaggerating. Even though Mom supported Debbie throughout the trial those ten years ago, she could tell it had worn Mom out, as if the incident had happened to her instead of Debbie.
She loved her Mom, but she was ready to have her own place again. She moved here to help her out after Dad died. No one thought Dad would go first; he was the healthy one, the one who held everything together. After he retired from military service, he drove Mom everywhere, even though she had her license. He cooked every meal, managed the finances, and made every decision with precision and authority. Mildred never questioned it. Although she spent decades resenting his control, she never actually did anything about it. Dad managed her as an Air Force Captain would.
When he died suddenly of a heart attack, Mildred didn’t just lose a husband. She lost her framework for existing. She didn’t know how to be alone, make decisions, or function without someone telling her what to do. So she’d turned to Debbie.
And Debbie had to step into her father’s role, driving her Mom to appointments, managing her medications, making decisions about the house, money, and everything. Once again, she became the one to hold her Mom together to absorb her anxiety and fear. Dad had chosen it, but Debbie had to slip back into it. The weight fell entirely on her, just like it had when she was a child, when she had to be Mom’s emotional support. Back then, Dad tried to be the buffer, but now he was gone.
Living here with Mom did come with a few perks, though, like free room and board and a classic car to drive. Mom’s old ’68 Ford Mustang. Debbie couldn’t wait to make it her own. Not that she was trying to rush Mom on to Gloryland with Dad, but rather that she was looking forward to it when the time came. At least that’s what she told herself.
It would be pretty shitty if she wished for her Mom to move on that way, wouldn’t it? But she did. And she even wrote about it in her journal once. It was late, she was exhausted, and she admitted it on paper. I wish she would die.
Only five words. And yet they looked so unforgiving and shameful on the page. She trembled as she stared at them. She didn’t plan to write them; they just spilled out like blood on paper.
Then she started to panic. What if Mom found it? What if she went snooping through Debbie’s things again? Debbie ripped the page out, tore it into pieces, and flushed it down the toilet. She watched the water swirl them away as her heart pounded.
But the thought of it didn’t flush away with it. It stayed, along with the guilt, the religious kind of remorse. Wondering how you could honor your father and mother while wishing she were dead. That verse haunted Debbie, her Mom reciting it whenever she disobeyed as a child or expressed a different opinion as a teen, and she remembered her pastor’s sermons in church. But how could she honor someone she resented? Someone whose neediness drained her dry, whose tears and complaints filled every room and every thought? Mom made love feel like a debt Debbie could never repay.
Often, Mom would sit and cry because no one talked to her, even though Debbie had just spent hours listening to her. Mom would get her feelings hurt when Debbie didn’t give her the time she felt she deserved, as if being a mother meant Debbie owed her everything. And maybe she did, wondering if that’s what honoring meant. But Debbie was tired of the one-way emotional labor; she was drowning in it and felt guilty for wanting her own life.
So, she endured her Mom’s smothering ways and how she made everything about herself. Sometimes she even caught herself doing the same thing. Once, she was texting a friend who was complaining and needing reassurance, and Debbie found herself telling her friend all about the times something similar had happened to her, instead of comforting her. She always did this, deflecting instead of dealing with it head-on.
Today, Debbie decided to stay in her room and read to avoid Mom. Also, because she was afraid to go back to the library. Now, where was she going to find good books to read for free? She hated reading books on an electronic device; there was something special about holding a book in your hands, the way it feels, the way the pages smell when you turn them. On a device, everything felt trackable. Books were real and tangible, something her Mom couldn’t scroll through, couldn’t monitor, couldn’t comment on.
Debbie loved underlining the words and phrases on the pages that spoke of her hunger and need for escape and self-knowledge. It was empowering and bold. Like being a graffiti artist in a small act of rebellion. Until the weight of guilt crept in. What if Mom finds the book and reads what was underlined? She would think it’s about her. And she would get her feelings hurt.
****
Paul refreshed the page again. Debbie Huff. No photos or anything to scroll. He leaned back in his chair, smiling.
“That’s okay,” he said quietly. “I know where to find you.”
****
From down the hall, her mother called her name. Debbie closed the book, thumbing the edge of the pages. She set it aside and closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep.
About the Author: Yoli Kae Reynolds is an author and Certified Journal Therapy Coach based in Central Arkansas. Her writing explores suicide loss, family trauma, and survival in the aftermath of abuse. Her personal essays have appeared on Medium in Women Write and Reaching Hearts. Through both her coaching practice and her fiction, she investigates how systems fail survivors and the violence that echoes through families.
Have you ever met someone who checked all the boxes-kind, consistent, emotionally available-and felt… nothing? Or worse, felt suspicious?
If you’ve experienced relational trauma, this disconnect isn’t unusual. Your mind might recognize healthy love, but your body hasn’t yet learned to trust it. You’re not broken. You’re just wired for survival, not safety.
In my last post, I wrote about green flags: what healthy love actually looks like. But recognizing green flags and choosing them are not the same thing.
After trauma, your nervous system doesn’t automatically trust calm. Sometimes it craves chaos. Sometimes intensity feels like connection. Sometimes steady feels suspicious.
That doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means your body learned survival first.
The Tension Between Knowing and Choosing
You can intellectually understand what healthy looks like and still feel pulled toward what’s familiar. If you were trauma-bonded, adrenaline feels like chemistry. If you grew up in unpredictability, stability feels flat. If you survived control, freedom feels unsafe.
Your mind may say, “This is healthy.” Your body may say, “Something’s missing.”
That internal conflict is normal. Healing is learning to let your nervous system catch up with your wisdom.
Slow Down Attachment
Trauma moves fast. Intensity can feel urgent, exciting, magnetic. But healthy relationships don’t require urgency.
“Healthy people are not threatened by pacing.”
You don’t need to match someone else’s pace. You can slow conversations down, slow commitment down, and slow future planning down. When you refuse to be rushed, the fog of intensity clears, and you can finally see what’s actually there.
Watch Patterns, Not Promises
Words can be persuasive. Apologies can feel meaningful. Declarations can sound convincing. But patterns tell the truth.
Do they regulate consistently? Do they respect your boundaries repeatedly? Do their actions align with their words over time?
“Safety is not situational. It is consistent.”Listen to Your Body
Notice your physical responses. Are your shoulders tense? Do you rehearse conversations in your head or scan for mood changes? Does your stomach tighten or your breath become shallow? Do you feel relief when they leave?
Your body notices safety before your mind explains it. These signals aren’t signs of weakness-they’re your nervous system gathering information. Notice them without judgment. You’re simply collecting data.
When you’re around someone, does your body gradually relax, or does it stay braced for impact? That difference is everything.
Stop Managing Other Adults
After trauma, many people become hyper-aware of other people’s emotions. They anticipate reactions and adjust themselves to prevent explosions. But in a healthy relationship, you’re not responsible for regulating another adult.
You can be compassionate without becoming their emotional manager. If you’re constantly scanning and soothing, pause. That pattern belongs to the past.
Chemistry vs. Calm
Adrenaline is not intimacy. Intensity is not depth. Healthy love may feel less dramatic but more sustainable.
If you find yourself addicted to highs and lows, ask whether you’re feeling connection or activation.
“Calm may feel unfamiliar. But calm is secure.”Rebuilding Trust in Yourself
Trust is rebuilt through small decisions: honoring discomfort instead of dismissing it, saying no, observing the response, leaving early when something feels wrong, and listening to your intuition even if it inconveniences someone else.
You don’t rebuild trust by being perfect. You rebuild it by being honest.
Choosing green flags after trauma is not about finding flawless love. It’s about becoming regulated enough to recognize safety and brave enough to stay in it.
You are not behind. You are rewiring. And that is real healing.
Key Takeaways
What’s one green flag you’ve learned to recognize in your own healing journey? Or what’s one pattern you’re working to unlearn?
Share in the comments below-your story might be exactly what someone else needs to hear today.
In the journey of healing from toxic or high-control environments, we often start with the visible warnings. We look for the red flags -the anger, the control, the minimization, and the fear we’ve spent years explaining away.
We talk about why we ignore those flags: the trauma bonds, the conditioning, the hope that things will change, and the way survival is so often disguised as loyalty. In many of our stories, faith was even used as a tool for endurance, keeping us stuck in cycles that were never meant for us.
But eventually, the conversation shifts. We move from what to avoid to what to look for. We start searching for green flags -stability and emotional regulation, consistency and calm, respect for boundaries.
However, after years of navigating trauma and grief, I have learned that the deepest work isn’t actually about spotting the flags at all.
It’s about seeing beyond the warning signs.
You can see every warning sign and still choose to override it. You can recognize what “healthy” looks like and still feel a magnetic pull toward chaos because chaos is what you know.
You do not heal by becoming suspicious of everyone; you heal by becoming honest with yourself.
True healing happens in the quiet, intentional choices we make every day:
By slowing down instead of rushing into the familiar.
By listening to your body instead of silencing the physical “no” it’s trying to give you.
By honoring discomfort instead of justifying it.
By refusing to shrink yourself just to keep someone else comfortable.
If you look back at your history and see yourself in these patterns, you are not weak. You were surviving, and survival is smart. Your brain and body did exactly what they needed to do to get you through. But now, you are in a season of learning. You are learning to pause, to question, and to choose differently.
That isn’t just growth-that is power.
Maybe the most important lesson I’ve learned is that red flags were never the real problem. Ignoring myself was the true problem
The moment I started listening to that quiet voice inside me, instead of explaining it away or drowning it out with “faith-based” endurance, everything changed. If you are learning to listen to that voice again, too, you are already further along than you think.
This transition from survival to self-trust is a major part of my own story. If these reflections resonate with you, I invite you to go deeper with me: My upcoming book, Not What God Promised, explores the intersection of faith, trauma, and grief, and how I began untangling the patterns that kept me stuck.
I am building a hands-on resource called The Write to Sanity. Through this journal therapy course, I help women process trauma, rebuild self-trust, and recognize emotional safety again.
