After losing a close friend to suicide, my world cracked open. Then, not long after, I was involved in a fatal accident that changed everything. The trauma didn’t just affect me emotionally, it took over my entire life. I couldn’t leave my room. I couldn’t show up as a mom. I felt like a shell of who I used to be. I was lost, empty, and broken. Eventually, the pain started showing up in ways I didn’t expect. I began hearing and seeing things that weren’t real. My body and mind were screaming for help, but nothing I tried seemed to work. Therapy felt like talking into a void. Medications numbed me. I started to believe I’d never be okay again. And then, something shifted. I started opening up to people who got it. Peers. Survivors. People who weren’t trying to fix me but just to listen. Slowly, day by day, I started feeling human again. Not “healed.” Not “cured.” Just heard. And that saved me. I was diagnosed with C-PTSD. I’m not the person I was before trauma, and I never will be. But this version of me sees the world differently, and with more compassion than ever before.