🌑 WEEK 7 — When Life Collapsed All at Once (2009–2012)

Healing Journey Series — From Darkness to Light

Healing is not a straight line.

Sometimes the past finds its way back into your life in moments when you are already trying your hardest just to stay afloat.

Between 2009 and 2012, I entered one of the most difficult periods of my adulthood —emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually.

This wasn’t just “a hard time.”

It was a storm that hit every corner of my life at once.

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🌧 Drinking Became My Distraction Again

Even after leaving an abusive marriage, the scars didn’t disappear.

Trauma was still running the show, quietly influencing my choices, relationships, and self-worth.

Between 2007 and 2012, I began drinking more heavily —

not because I wanted to,

but because I didn’t know another way to cope with:

• the unresolved pain of my childhood

• the exhaustion of raising two sons alone

• the stress of trying to survive financially

• and the emotional wounds I never had time to heal

I mixed alcohol with sleeping pills

and even with seizure medication —

a combination that could have taken my life.

I wasn’t drinking to party.

I was drinking to disappear — even if it was only for a few hours at a time.

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💔 A Second Marriage Filled With Emotional Games

In the middle of all of this, I remarried.

He wasn’t physically abusive, but emotional pain leaves scars too.

There were moments I needed emotional support more than anything.

Instead, I was met with coldness, distance, and punishment —

the same patterns I had been fighting my whole life.

I didn’t realize at the time that:

• emotional abandonment hurts just as deeply

• manipulation can be quiet but powerful

• and someone can “look good” on the outside yet drain your spirit in every way that matters

I wasn’t making excuses for him —

but for the first time, I understood something:

When two people are unhealed, their pain collides instead of connecting.

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🔥 The Day My World Broke — Zack Facing 30 Years

Nothing could have prepared me for 2010–2011.

My oldest son was facing 30 years in prison.

My world shattered.

My heart broke in ways only a mother can understand.

Instead of support, I heard:

• “Just suck it up.”

• “You still have another child.”

• “Stop crying.”

But a mother’s heart doesn’t work that way.

I needed help, comfort, reassurance — and none of it came.

At the same time, I was watching my son’s life fall apart,

trying to be strong for my youngest,

and trying to hold myself together with trauma that had never been healed.

I was drowning emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

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🩸 Losing Everything to Save Him

I fought for Zack with everything I had.

Every tear, every dollar, every breath.

Legal fees piled up so high that I eventually lost the home I had worked so hard to build on my own.

There were nights I cried on the floor because I didn’t know how to keep going.

But I did — because he needed me.

Even when he was far away,

I made trips to see him whenever I could.

Three-hour drives.

Three visits a week when allowed.

No matter what, I showed up.

Because that’s what love does.

It shows up.

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🌑 The Year I Couldn’t See Him at All

There was a little over a year when he wasn’t allowed any visits.

No calls.

No mail.

No updates.

Just silence.

As a mother, that silence was torture.

I felt him hurting through dreams

— one dream so vivid, so real, that it woke me trembling.

That dream became the beginning of the fight that came next.

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⚡ When I Was Told “Your Son Isn’t Alive

When his mail suddenly stopped and the prison couldn’t confirm his location,

I started writing letters to everyone —

the governor, the president, the news —

anyone who could tell me if my son was alive.

And then one day, I called a prison and the woman casually said:

“He isn’t alive.”

No explanation.

No compassion.

Just those words.

I collapsed inside.

Something in me broke.

But instead of giving up, I drove straight to Tallahassee.

I needed answers.

I needed the truth.

I needed my son.

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🌟 A Mother’s Intuition Saved Him

When I finally found the facility he was moved to,

I demanded to speak to the warden.

I told him everything —

every letter, every call, every denial, every fear.

He didn’t bring Zack out to me that day,

but he handed me a note —

in my son’s handwriting, with a small drawing.

And in that moment, my heart came back to life.

He was alive.

And eventually, when I did get to see him weeks later,

he finally told me the truth of what had happened —

truth that my dream had warned me about before anyone else.

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💫 Takeaway:

This was the chapter of my life where everything broke —

my marriage, my coping, my finances, my sense of safety.

But it was also the chapter where I learned:

✨ A mother’s intuition is powerful

✨ Love can keep you going even when life is impossible

✨ You can lose everything and still rise again

This period didn’t destroy me —

it stripped me down to rebuild me.