Reading Trauma Mama: Velvet & Taboo

For a long time, I confused silence with safety.

I thought if I stayed small, stayed quiet, stayed numb — I would finally be okay.

But healing asked something different of me.

It asked me to feel again.

To listen to my body.

To stop apologizing for wanting more.

Desire isn’t recklessness.

It’s aliveness.

And reclaiming it wasn’t about another person —

it was about trusting myself again.

There was a girl once

who swore she didn’t care.

She’d roll her eyes,

laugh too loudly in the hallway,

pretend she wasn’t watching

for the way your shoulders shifted

when you turned toward her.

She thought she was hiding it well—

the way her pulse jumped

when you said her name,

the way she replayed

your half-smile

as if it meant something more

than teenage electricity.

But the truth is

she was always softer than she looked.

She wrote feelings in margins,

scribbled confessions on paper

she never intended to send,

and practiced the words

she was too scared to say out loud.

You never noticed

how she memorized you

in pieces—

your laugh,

your hands,

the way you walked ahead

but always slowed for her to catch up.

You never saw the version of her

that whispered your name

into the spine of her notebook

like a secret,

or the way she held every moment

as if it could break.

And she—

that girl—

never realized

how much of herself

she was pouring into someone

who was only passing through.

But she kept writing anyway.

Because even then,

before life hardened her edges

and love taught her weight,

she knew something:

you can’t love quietly

and call it living.

She hasn’t forgotten that.

There was a time when loving someone felt as natural as breathing.

Back then, I didn’t know how to hold my feelings gently — everything burned bright, fast, and all at once. I wrote your name into margins, into poems, into the quiet spaces between classes, hoping somehow you’d hear the way my heart tripped over itself every time you looked at me.

I think about her sometimes — the girl I was.

The one who fell too fast, too hard, and thought every skipped heartbeat meant fate.

She didn’t know much about love.

But she knew how to hope.

You were the kind of boy who made everything feel loud and electric.

My pulse, my thoughts, the air in the hallways — all of it changed when you were near. Even now, I can remember the way she felt: the rush, the nerves, the way she kept trying to be “enough.”

She wanted to be someone worth choosing.

But here’s the truth she couldn’t see then:

She already was.

If I could talk to her now, I’d tell her:

You didn’t have to twist yourself into shapes just to be noticed.

You didn’t have to apologize for wanting love to feel safe.

And you didn’t have to chase someone who kept running.

I think that’s why your memory still sits in my chest — not because I miss you, but because she deserved more than she knew how to ask for.

You were a chapter.

She was the whole story.

And now?

I’m finally learning how to read myself the way she wished someone would.

There were so many things I wanted to say back then.

Things I wrote in margins, in notebooks, in half-finished poems

because I didn’t know how to speak them into the world.

I carried you in a way only a teenage girl can—

all heartbeat and hope,

all daydreams and disasters,

all or nothing with no in-between.

I remember watching you laugh with your friends,

pretending I wasn’t memorizing it.

I remember every moment that felt like a sign,

every look I replayed until it meant something,

every silence I tried to survive.

Back then, love felt like a tidal wave.

Like something bigger than me.

Like maybe if I held my breath long enough,

you’d finally turn around and see me standing there

already half-in love,

already half-broken.

I wrote so many lines that were really just questions:

Do you think of me?

Do you feel anything when you look at me?

Do you know you undo me without even trying?

I never said them out loud.

I didn’t know how.

I was afraid of the answer—

or maybe afraid of the truth.

But looking back now,

I realize those words weren’t really meant for you.

They were for me—

for the girl who felt everything too deeply,

who loved too quickly,

who was learning the hard way

that sometimes the heart breaks before it ever gets touched.

She deserved to be heard.

She deserved to be held.

She deserved someone who saw her

the way she was trying so hard to see you.

And maybe that’s why I keep returning to those pages—

not to remember you,

but to remember her

and everything she never said

but felt so fiercely it shaped the woman I became.

There was a darkness inside me long before I could understand its name.

Not evil — just heavy.

Just familiar in the kind of way pain becomes familiar when you grow up learning to survive instead of breathe.

I used to feel like everything simmered beneath the surface.

The anger.

The secrets.

The things from childhood I tried to bury so deep they’d never rise again.

But bruises don’t disappear just because you stop looking at them.

And memories don’t dissolve simply because you pretend they never happened.

Some days it felt like everything inside me wanted to erupt —

not to hurt anyone,

but to finally release what I’d held for too many years alone.

I built walls around myself thick enough to keep everyone at arm’s length.

Not because I didn’t want love,

but because I was afraid of being hurt

or worse—

abandoned.

The armor I wrapped around my heart kept the world out,

but it also kept me in.

Part of me believed that in order to save the woman I’d grow into,

I had to save the little girl inside me too.

I just didn’t know how to reach her yet.

I didn’t know how to tell her she wasn’t a burden.

I didn’t know how to show her she deserved softness.

I only knew the darkness was asking to be healed,

even when I didn’t feel ready to look it in the eye.

Reflection From Me Now

When I read this now, I don’t see a girl who was “too much.”

I see a child carrying a weight she had no tools to name.

That darkness wasn’t who I was —

it was everything I survived.

And every piece I thought made me “broken”

was really just a part of me waiting to be understood.

Healing didn’t start when the pain ended.

Healing started the moment I stopped being afraid

to look at the darkness

and call it mine.

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.

There is a moment, quiet but undeniable,

when you realize you are no longer piecing yourself together—

you are standing fully in who you’ve become.

Not half-formed,

not hesitant,

not waiting for permission to exist.

This is the rising.

It isn’t loud.

It isn’t dramatic.

It doesn’t come with a declaration or a sudden burst of clarity.

It comes in the softest way—

a knowing,

a settling,

a feeling in your bones that you are finally living from a place

that belongs to you.

You rise not because life became easier,

but because you became stronger—

not hardened,

not closed off,

but strong in that quiet way

that comes from surviving your own storms

and choosing to grow anyway.

Strength, for you, looks like softness.

Like trust.

Like letting someone close

without losing yourself in the process.

And he sees it—

the way you move differently now,

the way you meet the world with your whole heart

instead of the shell you learned to hide behind.

He doesn’t take credit for your rising.

He simply takes your hand,

like he always has,

and matches your step.

Not leading.

Not following.

Walking beside you

as you rise into the woman you fought to become.

You stand taller—

not because someone held you up,

but because you finally stopped folding yourself

into shapes that made you small.

You speak more clearly—

not to be heard,

but because your voice is no longer afraid

of its own truth.

You love more deeply—

not recklessly,

but with intention,

with awareness,

with the kind of devotion that comes

from knowing what it costs to be vulnerable

and choosing it anyway.

The rising is not about perfection.

It is about fullness—

living with your grief and your joy,

your darkness and your tenderness,

your strength and your soft edges

all at once.

It is the moment you look at your own reflection

and recognize the woman looking back—

wounded, yes;

changed, certainly;

but powerful in ways you once believed

were meant for other people.

You are not the fire you walked through.

You are not the silence you carried.

You are not the girl who disappeared

just to keep the peace.

You are the woman who rose

from all of it—

with a heart still open

and a love still worth offering.

This is the rising.

The becoming.

The truth of you.

And you are just getting started.

There comes a moment, somewhere between letting go and letting in,

when you realize you are finally coming home to yourself.

Not the self you performed for the world.

Not the self you became out of survival.

But the self who has waited patiently inside you—

steady, quiet, whole.

This is the returning.

It doesn’t arrive with celebration.

It is subtle—

a shift in your breath,

a softening in your chest,

a sudden understanding that you don’t have to fight so hard

to exist in your own life anymore.

You feel it in the way you carry yourself—

not lighter,

but more rooted,

like you’ve stepped back into your own skin

after living on the edges of it for far too long.

He notices the change.

Not because you’re different,

but because you are more yourself than you’ve ever been.

Your laughter comes easier.

Your silences feel safer.

Your touch is no longer hesitant—

it’s intentional,

like you finally trust your own heart enough

to let it lead you somewhere tender.

He doesn’t guide your returning.

He simply walks beside it—

a constant presence,

a quiet witness,

a steady warmth that reminds you

you don’t have to disappear to be loved.

And slowly, you stop shrinking.

You stop apologizing for your depth.

You stop hiding your softness

as if it were something fragile

instead of something powerful.

You return to your body—

to the way it holds your history,

your desire,

your strength.

You return to your voice—

to the truth that trembles

and then steadies,

as if it always belonged here.

You return to your heart—

not innocent,

not untouched,

but wiser in its darkness

and braver in its light.

The returning is not about becoming new.

It is about becoming true—

the truest version of yourself,

shaped by everything you’ve endured

and everything you’ve learned to love again.

Here, in this quiet reclamation,

you understand something you never could before:

You are not returning to the past.

You are returning to the woman

the past was preparing you to become.

And she?

She is nothing short of extraordinary.