This Wasn’t How My Story Was Supposed to Go

There are some points in your life when you look around and genuinely wonder how the fuck you got here.

This is mine.

I didn't grow up imagining that one day I'd be writing publicly about my marriage, my family falling apart, an abusive relationship, betrayal, losing people I loved, PTSD, therapy, medication and somehow trying to rebuild myself amongst all of it.

That wasn't the plan.

I was a mum. A wife. A daughter. A sister. A friend. I worked, raised my children, helped them through their problems, fought their battles when they needed me and became the person everybody seemed to rely on.

Somewhere along the way, though, I stopped recognising my own life.

And eventually, I stopped recognising myself.

This blog is the story of how that happened — but more importantly, it's the story of what happened afterwards.

I'm not writing it because I have everything figured out.

I absolutely fucking don't.

I'm writing it while I'm still living the aftermath.

There are relationships I don't know how to repair. There are things I'm still trying to understand. There are days when I'm angry, days when I'm heartbroken and days when I can laugh at the absolute insanity of it all.

I'm in therapy. I'm rebuilding. I'm learning what life looks like when you've spent so long surviving that you've forgotten what simply living feels like.

And I'm discovering that recovery isn't some beautiful straight line towards a happy ending.

Sometimes it's messy as fuck.

But I'm still here.

So this is where I'm starting.

Not at the end. Not with some inspirational version of myself who has miraculously got her shit together.

Right here, in the middle of it.

Because sometimes life can turn so completely that the only thing left to do is work out who you are now.

This wasn't how my story was supposed to go.

But it is my story.

And I'm finally going to tell it.