Healing While Holding Everything Together.
Chapter 1: Healing Isn't Quiet. It's Constant, It’s Gentle.
Healing with two young children isn’t just hard, it’s excruciating. It’s messy and raw. Overall relentless. I would honestly say this is one of the hardest seasons I’ve ever been through, because this isn’t just my healing journey, it’s also my sons. Two little boys. Both neurodivergent, one with Autism and ADHD and my other with ADHD and ODD. And we’re all trying to rise from the ashes together.
They’ve had their world ripped out from under them, thrown through emotional fire, yet somehow, we’re still standing. Even when my ex-husband wasn’t safe or supportive, he was still the idea of a father they’d grown used to. The Instability and painful, but still felt familiar, that’s how deep the damage goes and the moment we stepped away from that, we were thrown into another storm: the adjustment.
I faced outbursts of anger, confusion, and emotional lows so deep they rattled me. Tears would come over the smallest things, a missing toy, the wrong cereal and behind every meltdown, I saw the deeper loss. I was holding space for grief I couldn’t fix and emotions I was still sorting through myself. Some days, I didn’t even recognize the woman in the mirror. I was tired, isolated, and constantly questioning if I was doing enough or if I was just surviving.
That’s the thing isn’t it. When you’re healing from trauma while raising children who’ve also lived it, you don’t get a break. You carry the weight of the past while also carrying your children through the now. I faced every emotional uproar, every wave of silence, and every drop into exhaustion alone. It was like being in a whirlwind that never stopped spinning.
But even in the chaos, I kept showing up. Because I had no choice. I wasn’t just trying to rebuild my life. I was trying to rebuild their belief that life could be safe, and love could be soft again. I never wanted them to feel like everyone gave up on them.
Chapter 2: The Rebuilding One Step at a Time.
The first real hump in our healing journey wasn’t just the emotions, it was the logistics. The paperwork, the phone calls and updates. I had to reorganise our entire life from the ground up. New contact information, updating school records, updated all the doctors and providers, every detail had to reflect our new reality.
It felt mechanical at times. Like I was filling out forms for a life I didn’t recognise yet. But I did it. Because this time, I wasn’t going to let things fall through the cracks. I was going to make sure they had what I never did, support. I got them both in with counsellors, created mental health care plans and put them on paths of healing that I didn’t even know existed when I was their age.
But amidst all this structuring, there was something even deeper happening. Especially with my oldest. When I told him the truth, that my ex-husband wasn’t his biological father, to my surprise he didn’t flinch and didn’t collapse under the weight of betrayal. He simply said, “Okay, Mum. Thanks for telling me.”
He felt relief, not loss. That moment hit me harder than I expected. He detached without hesitation, even changing how he referred to him no longer “Dad,” just a name from that one moment on. He didn’t want the illusion anymore and that moment told me everything. It told me that I wasn’t just healing with them. I was healing because of them.
His strength, his clarity it anchored me. It reminded me that sometimes, kids feel the truth long before they’re told it. He didn’t need the fantasy, he needed the honesty and when I gave it to him, he gave me peace.
Chapter 3: Crying in Silence, Healing in Pieces
Healing with two neurodivergent children isn’t something you do on a schedule. It happens in the cracks between routines, between tantrums, therapy sessions, school pickups, and bedtime. And for me, it started in the quietest moments of the night.
While my boys were finally sleeping soundly, safely tucked into the comfort I’d worked so hard to give them, I would sit alone in the dark and try to find myself again. At first, it was just stillness, desperate silence to breathe after a long day. But that stillness turned into meditation. A practice that was once foreign to me soon became the only way I could survive the emotional weight I was carrying.
What started as a few minutes here and there slowly transformed into a sacred rhythm. Meditation became my daily reset. A moment every morning to centre myself before chaos began and then every night, it became a window into the pain I’d hidden for too long.
At night, I would enter a space of deep reflection, not just breathing, but remembering. I would relive memories I had buried, confronting them from an external point of view, almost as if I were talking to my past self or the people who had hurt me. I asked questions I never got to ask: “Why didn’t you protect me?” “Why did you compete with me instead of love me?” “Why did you think I didn’t deserve safety?”
Night after night, I cried quietly, my body trembling as the weight of it all poured out. This became my nightly ritual to not just meditate, but excavation. I was digging out the trauma, layer by layer, allowing myself to feel it so I could finally move past it.
I did it all while keeping the world turning for my boys. Because that’s what healing looks like when you're still in the middle of surviving, it’s not neat. It’s not quiet. But it’s necessary.
Chapter 4: Grieving the Secrets I Protected
Even after that release, came the purge. Not of things of secrets. Secrets I held to protect others who never protected me. I cried not because I missed anyone I’d left behind, but because I had once loved them enough to carry what they should’ve been ashamed of. I sobbed over the realization that I was never protected just only used, dismissed, or blamed.
I questioned my own kindness. Why was I always the one targeted, judged, broken? Why did people take my softness as weakness and my loyalty as an invitation to abuse? And still I prayed. I begged God for answers. And He gave them, slowly and painfully. This wasn’t punishment. It was deliverance. The pain I carried wasn’t mine and the life I was rebuilding? It wasn’t just mine either, it was for my boys, so they’d never have to ask the same questions I did.
Chapter 5: This Isn’t the End — It’s a Resurrection
We’re still in it. Still bouncing from temporary spaces. Still trying to rebuild stability after losing our home, our car, our rhythm. The boys live out of suitcases. I count their socks. I sort their shirts. I whisper, “We’re okay,” even when I feel like I’m not.
But we laugh now. Genuinely and I let myself cry, too. That’s the difference. There’s no more hiding, no more lying about bruises and no more apologizing for taking up space. Every morning, I pray. Every night we thank God we’re free. I don’t know what tomorrow looks like, but I know I’ll rise with it.
Affirmation
I am not weak for breaking. I am not broken for feeling. I am worthy of peace, and I am healing at my own pace. I will rise, again and again, for myself and for my children.
Closing Prayer
God,
Give me strength when I feel weak. Give me clarity when I feel lost. Thank You for the space to breathe, for the courage to keep going, and for the gentle reminders that we are no longer living in fear. May our days be filled with light, our nights with rest, and our hearts with hope. Amen.