This piece is shaped by both my own lived experience and my clinical work with individuals recovering from childhood trauma. It reflects a shared understanding of how difficult it can be to feel and allow joy after growing up in environments where safety, connection, and lightness were not consistently available.
This was a piece I wrote way back in 2023, during a major depressive episode. It describes how I felt like I was being pulled back into my past, to be reminded by some part of me that longed to heal. As hard as this was back then, I can see how much healing I have done since then.
