🌕 WEEK 8 — The Years That Rebuilt Me: Healing, School, Zack, and the Truth (2017–2021)

Healing Journey Series — From Darkness to Light

When Zack was released in 2017, he wasn’t the child who went in.

He carried wounds that ran deep — anger, wisdom, pain, and love all mixed together.

And I understood that more than he ever knew.

We loved each other deeply,

but both of us were still unhealed.

Being together was love…

but it was also too heavy, too triggering, too unsafe for where we were emotionally.

I knew that if we stayed under the same roof:

• his pain could pull him backward

• my pain would keep me stuck

• and we would lose each other in the process

So, for the first time in my life, I chose a boundary —

not out of rejection,

but out of love.

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🌱 2018–2019 — The Year I Finally Turned Toward My Own Healing

In 2018, while Zack started working through his shadows,

I finally started facing my own.

I began therapy.

I started healing my childhood trauma.

I began touching the pain I had been avoiding my entire life.

And after the night of my convulsion and blackout on March 22, 2019 —

the night everything changed —

I made a commitment:

✨ I wanted to understand myself

✨ I wanted to heal

✨ I wanted to break patterns

✨ I wanted to be a better woman, mother, and human

So, I did something huge:

I enrolled in my Bachelor’s program for Psychology in 2019.

Those early years were the hardest.

I was learning about trauma, attachment, brain reactions, triggers, coping, survival…

all the things I was personally living through.

School wasn’t just education —

it was self-discovery.

I didn’t want to only survive my story.

I wanted to finally understand it.

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🌸 2019–2020 — Rediscovering Myself Through Healing Tools

As I studied psychology, I expanded into holistic healing:

• therapy

• acupuncture

• grounding

• breathwork

• hypnosis

• affirmations

• Reiki

• spiritual retreats

Becoming a Reiki Master helped me heal my own energy.

Grounding brought me back into my body.

Spiritual work reconnected me to God, intuition, and truth.

Slowly, I started to stitch myself back together.

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💛 Late 2020 — The Reunion That Changed Everything

Then — out of nowhere — Zack reached out.

But this time he wasn’t coming from pain.

He came with love. With softness. With growth.

We rebuilt our relationship slowly:

• we talked honestly

• we apologized where needed

• we created healthy memories

• we understood each other in new ways

• we released the past so we could love each other better

For the first time, I saw him not as a broken version of himself —

but as the man he fought to become:

kind, wise, spiritual, thoughtful, protective, funny, growing…

He became — and still is — the greatest male role model I’ve ever known.

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✉️ Early 2021 — Confronting My Past After a Lifetime of Silence

With my healing growing stronger,

I finally felt ready to confront the people who hurt me in childhood.

I sat with both of my sons first —

I wanted their blessing, their support, their understanding.

Together, we agreed I was ready.

So, I wrote the letters —

raw, honest, brave —

and mailed them all on the same day.

The reactions came quickly:

• one offered an empty apology

• one made excuses

• one called it “an experiment” — a cruel attempt to avoid accountability

• others sent threats

I filed a police report.

I protected myself.

I chose my voice.

I chose my truth.

I chose the little girl I used to be.

And I walked away from every person who ever harmed me —

effortlessly.

Because I finally knew:

Blood is not family.

Love is family.

Safety is family.

Healing is family.

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🕯 October 21, 2021 — The Day My World Stopped

Nothing prepares a mother for the moment she loses her child.

Even writing it will always feel unreal.

But here is the truth:

Without the healing I did from 2018–2021,

I don’t know if I would still be here.

The grounding saved me.

Therapy saved me.

Spirituality saved me.

Reiki saved me.

The psychology program gave me understanding.

And Zack — even after passing — guided me in ways only a mother can feel.

He didn’t leave me.

His presence transformed.

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💫 Takeaway:

This chapter taught me:

✨ Healing requires courage

✨ Boundaries can save lives

✨ You can break generational trauma

✨ People can transform

✨ Reconciliation is holy

✨ Love continues beyond death

✨ Healing doesn’t erase grief — it teaches you how to carry it

The years between 2017 and 2021 became the bridge between who I once was

and the woman I am becoming.

And even though Zack is not physically here,

his love is woven into every part of me.