Becoming Unboxed
Stories of survival, justice, healing, and becoming heard.
There are stories we survive before we ever learn how to tell them.
This is where I share, heal, and grow while helping others recognize that trauma can be part of their story without being the only thing that defines them.
My Latest Post
• • •
- They Thanked Me for My Service. I Was Begging Them for Help.
I spent nearly half my life as a proud public servant. Twenty-six and a half years, to be exact. How do you explain being a woman who proudly dedicated more than twenty-six years of her life to serving the people of Arkansas, only to find herself fighting the very government she spent her career serving? How do you explain going from being a confident, respected professional to spending approximately nine months isolated in a windowless room? How do you explain … Continue reading They Thanked Me for My Service. I Was Begging Them for Help. - The Woman in the Flowered Nightgown
–An Unexpected Journey Back to Belonging– Saturday morning, I looked at my daughter and told her something I hadn’t been able to believe about myself for a very long time. I deserve a seat at the table. I didn’t know that before the morning was over, I would find myself sitting on a stranger’s couch, in a neighborhood I’d watched grow from almost nothing, remembering what it felt like to belong. But first, I had to convince myself to leave … Continue reading The Woman in the Flowered Nightgown - The Gift of Being SelflessWhat does it mean to be a good person? The way I see it, everyone has the capability of being a good person. All it takes is looking outside yourself and seeing the person standing in front of you. Everyone should be equal or greater than your overall sense of self. It doesn’t take much to be a good human but being a bad one can take everything from someone else.
- She Was Only 25
It took me 46 years to see my mother’s grief through the eyes of a mother. For 46 years, I’ve carried the story of the little girl who lost her daddy. Tonight, I found myself thinking about the young woman who lost her husband. I feel as though I have spent most of my life trying to understand and overcome what losing my daddy at six years old meant. Suddenly, 46 years later, I think I am beginning to understand … Continue reading She Was Only 25 - The Art of Healing: Living with Trauma and CPTSD
For Whoever Needs This If you are reading this because something inside you hurts, I want you to know something. Maybe the noise won’t stop. Maybe the memories won’t fade. Maybe you are tired of pretending to be okay. This was not your fault. You did not deserve it. And struggling does not make you weak. It means your body fought to keep you alive. There may not be one cure, one medication, or one answer for all of us. … Continue reading The Art of Healing: Living with Trauma and CPTSD - The Voice on the Other End of the Line
One of the hardest things for a trauma survivor to do is reach outside their little bubble. To move beyond the isolation that has started to feel safe. To reach for another human being. Another voice on the other end of the line. Because after trauma, isolation can become comfortable in a strange way. Not because we necessarily want to be alone, but because being alone can feel safer than risking another misunderstanding, another dismissal, another judgment. Sometimes healing begins … Continue reading The Voice on the Other End of the Line - Friday Night Lights
I am here to support my son and his team on a beautiful fall evening. It feels almost surreal that nearly a year ago today, I could sit in these stands without trembling. Back then, I could feel the thud of the players’ feet, the sway of the bleachers, the contagious energy of youth—and still breathe without flinching. I didn’t know then how sacred that internal calm had been. Back then, I just stayed somewhat numb to avoid the pain. … Continue reading Friday Night Lights - The War in My Mind
The six hearts came before I understood why there had to be six. Because how does one heart describe how a beautiful life that once held longing, hope, purpose, and possibility became a battlefield of destruction that no one else could see? The damage was not visible in my physical appearance, yet internally, I was being torn apart. One heart could not tell that story. The damage itself could not either. It became a festering wound that tried to kill … Continue reading The War in My Mind - The Strength We HideThere is something deeply human about the way we hide our suffering. It is not vanity. It is not pride. It is fear. Ancient and instinctive. The fear that if others see how much we are hurting, they will decide we are no longer worthy of standing where we once stood. That our pain disqualifies us. That our suffering is evidence of weakness rather than survival. So we learn to tuck it away. We learn to smile carefully. We learn … Continue reading The Strength We Hide
- The Scream They Never Heard
I want to scream. I want to yell. I want to curse at the people who hurt me. I want to physically fight back in the way that, mentally, I can’t. I want to look those who tormented me straight in the eye and say: How could you do this to me? I am hurting and in shock. Frustrated. Mentally collapsing. And angry, oh so very angry. I don’t mean the kind of anger that comes and goes. I mean … Continue reading The Scream They Never Heard - Slowly, but Surely, I DisappearedPeople tend to imagine disappearance as dramatic. A slammed door.A final goodbye.A body walking away. Mine was quieter than that. Mine happened one toilet flush at a time. One door slam. One scream from the hallway. One sudden laugh behind a wall. One startled jump of my nervous system after another. Slowly, but surely, I disappeared. Not physically. I still showed up to work. I still answered emails. I still attempted to do the job that had been assigned to … Continue reading Slowly, but Surely, I Disappeared
- MaleficentWho is the fictional character you relate to the most? Maleficent. She was only cold because the world was unable to see that pain became her darkness. That darkness became her shield.
- The Grain Beneath
So as I was working on an old door today—a vintage door, I’m not sure how old it is, but it looks like it was probably an exterior door with a single pane of glass in the middle—it hit me. It’s one of those things I bought because I knew I would do something with it someday.And then everything happened. Now it has become one more project that sat too long—whether from procrastination, exhaustion, trauma, or simply life getting in … Continue reading The Grain Beneath - The Way My Mind Remembers : Trauma, Memory, and the Pain of HealingPeople have often asked me how it is that I’m able to remember so many details. The truth is, I don’t remember quite as well as I once did. A lifetime of incredibly difficult and unusual circumstances, wrapped up in the word trauma, changed the way my mind holds onto things. Trauma has a way of affecting even someone who once could catalog everything in their mind down to the smallest detail. That does not make me extraordinarily brilliant. Quite … Continue reading The Way My Mind Remembers : Trauma, Memory, and the Pain of Healing
• • •
