Raised by Trauma, Fueled by Love: For the Moms Rewriting the Story”

Some of us didn’t grow up with lullabies and bedtime stories.
Some of us were introduced to fear before we could even form full sentences.

My earliest memory isn’t a holiday or a warm hug—it’s watching my father try to drown my mother in a bathtub. I remember her fighting to breathe, and me—only four years old—trying to fight him off. He shoved me away like I was nothing. But I kept trying. That was the beginning of me becoming her protector. I wasn’t a child. I was a soldier. And that never really stopped.

By the age of seven, I had already decided what I wanted out of life.
A family.
A real one.
Not the kind that smiled in public but bled behind closed doors.
Not the kind where love and violence blurred into one.

I just wanted safety.
Peace.
A home where my child wouldn’t flinch when someone raised their voice.

But no one tells you how hard it is to build something you’ve never seen.
How easy it is to fall into the arms of people who mirror the very pain you swore you’d never repeat.
How love, when you’ve never felt it right, becomes a gamble you almost always lose.

Every man I gave my heart to let me down.
Some broke it.
Some ignored it.
Some took advantage of it.

And now I’m here. A single mom.
Holding my child close while trying to shield her from everything I grew up around.

Some people think we’re bitter.
Some think we’re too guarded.
Too hard. Too much. Too damaged.
But what they don’t see is what we survived.
They don’t see the little girls we used to be—forced to grow up way too soon.
They don’t understand how heavy it is to carry trauma and a child at the same time.

This post is for the moms like me.
The ones who are healing on the job.
The ones breaking generational curses without a blueprint.
The ones who show up anyway, despite being misunderstood, unloved, and underestimated.

You are not weak for being cautious.
You are not broken for needing time.
You are not failing just because you’re doing it alone.

You are the cycle breaker.
The protector.
The nurturer you never had.

And I know it’s hard.
God, I know it’s hard.

But your child will know a different kind of love.
Because you chose different.
Because you kept going.
Because you are turning your pain into power.

Not just protection.
But purpose.
Healing.
Legacy.
A life so much bigger than the one you came from.

To the moms like me:
You are not alone.
And you were never too much.
You were just too real for a world that didn’t know what to do with your strength.