Letters From the Girl I Used to Be — Entry One: “Broken”

There were days I felt like I was sinking under everything life kept throwing at me.

Like the darkness inside me was fighting to surface — sharp, heavy, filled with memories I was too young to carry.

Childhood pain clung to me in ways I didn’t understand.

It pressed against my chest, whispered in my thoughts, replayed moments I wanted to forget but couldn’t erase.

Depression didn’t feel like sadness.

It felt like being drained from the inside out — like something was pulling the light out of my lungs.

I kept waiting for the day I’d be able to breathe without thinking about how much it hurt.

Waiting for the walls I built to crack in the right places,

so someone could finally see the damage and help me heal it.

But every time I tried to let someone in,

every time I reached for connection,

something would trigger the little girl inside me.

The one who lived through hell

and still carried the scars.

I didn’t want to remember,

but the past seemed determined to follow me.

Some days I just wanted to feel numb —

anything to quiet the pain

and the memories

of everything I survived too young.

Reflection From Me Now

I look back at this entry and I want to hold that girl.

She wasn’t dramatic.

She wasn’t “too emotional.”

She was a child trying to carry the weight of wounds no child should have to make sense of.

She wrote in spirals because that’s how trauma feels — repetitive, overwhelming, tight around the throat.

She was trying to survive, not knowing she was already rebuilding.

And even then, she was writing her way out of the dark —

the first small steps toward the healing woman I am today.