Tag: trauma recovery

The Trap of Thinking You Have No Say

The Trap of Thinking You Have No Say

For anyone tired of believing they do not have a choice

Have you stopped trying because you don’t think your choices matter?
Somewhere along the way, you’ve convinced yourself that nothing you do changes anything. Maybe it was the years of fighting for peace that never came. Perhaps it was the abuse that taught you your voice did not matter. Maybe it was the exhaustion that made you numb. So you shut down and coast, letting life hit you.

You tell yourself, “This is just how things are.”

But that belief does not come from truth; it comes from survival. Survival mode does not tell the whole story.

Does staying stuck feel easier than facing yourself?
It is easier to let life drag you down than to stand up and change directions. Change requires you to look at what you tolerate, avoid, and why you keep choosing things that hurt you. This exposes the gap between the life you have and the life you want.

You might pretend you have no control, acting like the script is already written.

Why?

Because if you are powerless, you don’t have to take responsibility; you protect the pain rather than yourself.

You can take the pen back!
Life is not happening to you; you are participating in it.. Even when you are silent and afraid.

You can decide what you will and will not allow. You get to choose one small action step that moves you out of the old patterns.

You can stop reliving the same chapter and start writing something new. It does not have to be dramatic or perfect; it just has to be yours. That is the moment you’re able to take your life back, rewrite your storyline, and make it yours.

Why Happiness Makes You Nervous

Why Happiness Makes You Nervous

For the girl who thinks the tightness in her chest is normal

Good times make you nervous, don’t they?

You don’t call it fear—you call it “being cautious,” or “not getting your hopes up.” But the truth is quieter: you’re not used to peace. For so long, love has felt like tension, panic, apologizing, overthinking, and walking around someone else’s moods like they’re landmines.

So when something finally goes right… Your whole body glitches.

You look around, waiting for the explosion.
You wait for the tone in his voice to shift.
You wait for the moment he decides you’re “too sensitive,” “too emotional,” or “too much.”

And if nothing happens right away, your brain fills the silence with dread: Is this the part where it all turns again?
You don’t trust happiness—not because you’re broken, but because you’ve survived too long without it.

Girls like us learn early that peace feels like a trap.
A setup.
A calm before the next storm.

No one told you that real love isn’t supposed to feel like bracing for impact.
No one told you that safety isn’t the same thing as “keeping the peace.”
No one told you that if your body relaxes only when he isn’t home… that’s not comfort. That’s survival.

Listen, sweetheart—if happiness feels foreign, it’s not because you’re incapable of it.
It’s because someone taught you to expect pain.

And here’s the part I wish someone had whispered to me sooner:
You don’t have to keep living in the story where fear feels like love. You don’t have to keep shrinking yourself just to fit into a relationship that was never safe to begin with.

Real peace doesn’t make you nervous.
Real love doesn’t make you flinch.
And real happiness doesn’t feel like a setup—it feels like finally coming home to yourself.

You deserve that kind of happiness.
And I promise… it won’t explode.

When someone ties despair to God Himself, it buries you in a deeper kind of fear. You stop dreaming. You stop believing in the better. And every time life gets quiet, you brace yourself, because you know the calm never lasts.

I remember once, after one of our rare calm seasons, we tried to dream again. We made a little vision board together — nothing extravagant, just things a normal couple would hope for. A peaceful home. A reliable car. A future that didn’t feel like walking through broken glass.

But his face went dark, the way it always did when anything felt too good.

He looked at me and said,

“God hates me. We will never get any of this.”

And just like that, the air changed.
The hope drained out of the room.
My body learned — again — that peace wasn’t safe, and happiness wasn’t to be trusted.