INTRODUCTION

Before I learned to speak my truth,

before I knew how to listen to my intuition,

before I became the woman I am today —

there was a little girl surviving rooms she didn’t yet know were cages.

This is the story of her.

And the story of me.

The same person, decades apart,

finally speaking to each other.

CHAPTER 1 — AGES 3 TO 9: THE YEARS THAT BUILT MY SHADOW

I don’t remember these years in sentences —

I remember them in sensations.

Cold walls.

Tension in the air.

Stillness as safety.

Softness becoming silent.

Children assume their world is normal.

They assume the walls they’re given are the shape the world is meant to be.

Between three and nine, I adapted instead of unfolding.

I learned to shrink.

I learned to survive.

I learned to read danger before I understood myself.

I didn’t know those rooms were cages.

I just knew I had to stay small to stay safe.

But I walked out of every one.

Even when I didn’t know the way.

CHAPTER 11 — THE THINGS NO ONE PROTECTED ME FROM

I was three years old when I drank Clorox.

I don’t remember the moment.

I only remember being told the story later —

casually, like an anecdote.

But now I understand:

Three-year-olds don’t drink poison in safe homes.

It wasn’t an “oops.”

It was evidence.

Evidence of chaos.

Evidence of neglect.

Evidence that eyes were watching me

but not seeing me.

I survived something I should never have reached.

And the adults around me laughed it off

because the truth beneath it was too heavy.

That moment wasn’t an accident.

It was a message:

No one is coming.

You keep yourself alive.

And somehow — I did.

CHAPTER 111 — THE GIRL WHO GREW UP TOO FAST

People called me mature.

Independent.

Well-behaved.

But “maturity” in a child is often loneliness in disguise.

Quietness is often fear trained into obedience.

Independence is often a child raising themselves emotionally.

I learned to read the room before I learned to read books.

I learned to predict danger before I understood safety.

I learned to disappear in plain sight.

These weren’t traits.

They were survival mechanisms.

And that little girl —

the one who adapted, who endured, who watched —

became the blueprint for the strength I carry now.

She kept me alive.

CHAPTER 1V — WHAT I CARRIED INTO ADULTHOOD

Children don’t leave their rooms behind.

They carry them — in instinct, in reflex, in behaviors they don’t recognize as survival.

I carried:

 • hyper-independence

 • emotional vigilance

 • people-pleasing

 • fear of depending on anyone

 • normalizing chaos

 • hiding softness

 • shrinking myself to be loved

None of these were choices.

They were what a little girl needed

to navigate a world that wasn’t designed to protect her.

But in adulthood,

these traits stopped being survival

and started becoming obstacles…

…until I chose to transform them.

CHAPTER V — THE WOMAN WHO WALKED OUT OF THE FIRE

Healing didn’t arrive as a revelation.

It arrived as a whisper:

“I’m done living the way I was taught.”

I reclaimed my voice.

I set boundaries my younger self never knew she was allowed to need.

I chose love that required truth, not silence.

I mothered my child the way I once wished someone had mothered me.

I let myself feel anger without shame,

softness without fear,

intuition without self-doubt.

I walked out of the fire

not untouched —

but real.

Everything that burned away

was

never mine to carry.

CHAPTER V1 — I WOULDN’T REWRITE IT, BUT I OUTGREW IT

I don’t honor my past by pretending it didn’t hurt.

I honor it by acknowledging that it shaped me —

and then refusing to stay shaped by it.

I wouldn’t erase what happened.

Not because it was beautiful,

but because I am.

The girl I was

built the woman I am.

She survived the rooms.

I dismantled them.

She endured the silence.

I broke it.

She carried the pain.

I turned it into power.

This is not a story of suffering —

it’s a story of emergence.

The rooms were cages.

But I was always the key.

Hair

Being Dominican and having Afro hair had left me without an identity of my own. My hair my biggest struggle. Every day waking up looking like a Dominican Goku. Embarrassed I would wear wigs to cover my hair. From an early age having my scalp burned by relaxers. Hair pulled from the roots as I cried on the salon chair. The hair stylist pulling at my dry fro. Pull after pull. Don't be tender headed. Don't complain when it burns. "Are you holding up ok? Does it burn?" The stylist would ask and I would shyly smile and say "no." No, my scalp was not burning like I was just transported into hell and the demons of the relaxer burning a hole into my skull. Too embarrassed I would just sit and wait 45 excruciating minutes for the relaxer to do its work. 

I recently did another relaxer. I miss the feeling of my hair flowing in the wind. The next day I woke up looking like a lioness in heat. Hilarious, yet embarrassing. As I left the restroom I hoped I didn't encounter anyone before returning to the room. 

After getting a phone call for an interview today, I decided to do my braids again. I did two strand and put charms. 

Each charm a representation. A poem on my hair.  As I learn to love and live with my hair. A story will be told. 

        Time a cacoon for my soul.
       As the clock runs down I wonder what she will       Look like when she emerges.
       The butterfly inside the cacoon will look like. 

October 31, 2023

I did my hair today. I haven't used a relaxer in years but the one who birthed me brought it back from her vacation and I decided to give it a shot. It came out nice. 

Not the usual excitement I get from spending hours on my hair. No longer feeling protective of my crown. It's just another thing I can do on my own. 

I took a picture to send to my hubby. He's my inspiration to keep trying even if he doesn't know it. I took the first picture. No smile. I decided to smile. 

took the picture with a smile I looked beautiful. Yet, all I see is how dead I am inside. I smile on the outside but feel

dead. 

Death never looked more beautiful on me 

Another cycle 

I'm slowly creeping back into depression. It happens from time to time. Normally, I reach out to someone and normally, I feel like a burden. I get depressed a lot but barely anyone notices it. 

My partner has been asking me what's wrong? And if I'm ok. I keep deflecting. In my mind I'm just worried about him and his mental state with this never ending stress inducing wasteful job of his. Ugh customer service. Blah. 

Now laying alone. Crying. Not knowing who to turn to has a peaceful concoction. No longer am I reaching out for superficial support. No longer am I letting myself be known intimately unless it truly matters at the moment. 

Empty. This has all left me feeling empty. I'm beautiful now, sure, but who am I? What do I have to offer? Depression is creeping in again. I always survive. After all I'm built differently. 

Shadow

I don't recognize the girl I see in the mirror. I smile when I see her now. She is, I am beautiful. However, beyond the beauty displayed before me in the mirror, my soul feels empty.

Lost.

Disempowered and empowered. 

I'm a shadow of my former self. Now, I can't remember who I'm supposed to be