Owning My Power

Reclaiming Life After It Felt Stolen

There was a time when I believed my life was no longer mine. I sat in courtrooms where strangers decided the most personal parts of my story. I listened to lies spoken about me, and I watched those lies land more heavily than the truth I carried. Papers were signed that I had no control over, and in the eyes of others, a part of my identity was erased. Some people even acted as though I had lost the right to be called “mother.”

That word — mother — felt ripped out of my hands.

When you live through something like that, you don’t walk away the same. Shame starts to settle in, and it gets heavy. I carried it without even realizing how much it was shaping the way I saw myself. I thought I had failed. I thought my best years, my best self, and even the best version of my motherhood were behind me.

But the truth is this: nobody can actually erase me. Nobody can rewrite my soul or take away the core of who I am. Even when I felt silenced, even when I was drowning in grief, even when I believed the lies more than I believed myself, something inside of me never went away. It was quiet, but it was still there. That was my power.

Letting Go of “What Should Have Been”

For years, I thought healing meant getting back what I lost. I thought it meant rebuilding the same kind of family, recreating the same picture I had in my head when life was “normal.” I thought it meant proving to the world that I could check all the boxes of what a good mother or a good woman is supposed to look like.

That way of thinking kept me trapped. It kept me stuck in comparison. I would look at other mothers who had what I didn’t, and every glance felt like a reminder of how far I had fallen. I measured myself against standards I never even agreed to in the first place, and I always came up short.

The turning point came when I realized that chasing the past was only keeping me from building a future. Healing isn’t about going back. Healing is about moving forward in a way that makes sense now. It is about building something new, not to erase the pain, but to honor the strength it took to survive it.

That realization didn’t come in a dramatic, lightning-strike kind of way. It came slowly, in little moments. Like sitting in a quiet house and realizing I could breathe without waiting for the next crisis. Like making a meal just for myself and letting it be enough. Like noticing that even though the ache of missing my kids never goes away, I was still here, still standing, still capable of joy.

Redefining What It Means to Create

When I finally let go of the need to recreate what I had lost, something inside me shifted. I began to see that creation isn’t only about children or relationships or family structures. Creation is much bigger than that.

Creation is building peace where chaos once ruled. It’s finding joy in the middle of sorrow. It’s choosing to believe in your own worth even when others try to convince you otherwise. Creation can be as simple as lighting a candle in the evening and claiming a moment of stillness. It can be as powerful as saying no to the people who once controlled your life and yes to yourself.

For me, creation looks like making my home feel safe again. It looks like reclaiming my voice through writing, even if I’m the only one who ever reads it. It looks like investing in friendships that feed my soul instead of draining it. It looks like showing up for myself with the same dedication I used to give away so freely to everyone else.

That is still creation. And it counts.

The Illusion of Control

The hardest truth I had to face is also the most liberating one: the people who tried to control me only ever had the power I handed them. Their grip on my life was never real. It was an illusion, one I believed because I was too beaten down to question it.

That doesn’t mean what happened didn’t matter. The losses are real. The scars are real. But the illusion was in thinking that my life ended there, that I no longer had the ability to choose anything for myself. Once I saw through that illusion, everything changed.

I still stumble. There are days when old wounds reopen, when memories feel too sharp, when I wonder if I’ll ever fully heal. But I no longer live under the lie that I am powerless. I know now that my strength has been here all along, waiting for me to notice it again.

Reclaiming My Story

One of the most painful parts of losing so much was feeling like my story was being told without me. Other people got to decide what was said about me, and their version spread faster than mine ever could. That silence was its own kind of wound.

But now, I refuse to let anyone else write the ending. My story is not finished. The darkest chapters do not get to define the rest of the book. I get to pick up the pen. I get to decide what the next pages will hold.

Maybe that looks simple. Maybe it isn’t flashy or dramatic. Maybe it’s just waking up one morning and realizing I feel lighter. Maybe it’s noticing that laughter comes easier than it used to. Maybe it’s letting myself dream again without immediately shutting it down.

Whatever it looks like, the point is this: it’s mine. Not theirs. Not the court’s. Not the past. Mine.

And there is something powerful in owning that truth.