The Trio & Me

From trauma to triumph

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For almost forty years, my life was shaped by trauma — the kind that settles into your bones and teaches you to survive instead of live. But survival is not the end of the story. Not mine, and not my children’s. This blog begins in the year before I turn forty, the year I finally decided to change the ending. I made a choice: To right what I could, release what I couldn’t, and rebuild what was broken. To stop shrinking from my own life and start shaping it. To heal — deeply, honestly, and fully — not just for me, but for my three children who have walked through every storm beside me. They are my reasons to rise. My three small suns in a sky that has seen too many clouds.
  • 40 things to do – Before I Turn 40 (1)

    40 things to do – Before I Turn 40 (1)

    1. Start and finish a project

    In mid-2025, after 2 years in therapy, I was diagnosed with ADHD, Autism, and CPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress) and cumulative childhood trauma. A mixed bag of tricks, really. Labels that, on one hand, offered clarity… and on the other, opened a door I wasn’t entirely prepared to walk through.

    One of the hardest parts of receiving these diagnoses wasn’t the names themselves, it was what came next. Or more accurately, what didn’t.

    Without a known family history, and without anyone who could collaborate with psychiatrists to build a clearer picture of my developmental past, medication for ADHD wasn’t an option available to me. Instead, I was prescribed medication for anxiety and depression, conditions that had quietly wrapped themselves around everything else for years.

    And then there’s the reality of being an almost 40-year-old, perimenopausal woman. Because when those diagnoses landed, so did everything else.

    The floodgates didn’t just open, they collapsed. Suddenly, I wasn’t just living my life, I was reprocessing it. Every reaction, every coping mechanism, every moment that once felt like a personal flaw began to make a different kind of sense. My nervous system, my trauma responses, the way my brain worked – it all had context now.

    But insight without support can feel like standing at the edge of something vast, with no clear way forward.

    I found myself holding this new understanding, but without the tools, structure, or guidance to know how to turn it into healing. No clear roadmap. Just awareness. Raw and overwhelming.

    So I did the only thing that felt remotely within reach.

    I sat down… and I made a list.

    A list of 40 things I wanted to achieve by the time I turned 40. Not because I needed more pressure, but because I needed direction. Something to hold onto. Something that felt like movement, even if it was small.

    At the top of that list was the big, heavy stuff: trauma, my nervous system, the way my body responds to stress and safety. The lifelong patterns I knew I couldn’t ignore anymore.

    But I also knew I couldn’t start there. So I chose something simple. Finish a craft project.

    It sounds almost insignificant, especially when placed next to words like trauma and healing. But if you live with ADHD, you’ll understand – unfinished tasks don’t just sit quietly in the background. They linger. They loop. They occupy space in your mind in a way that feels disproportionate but very real.

    Each unfinished project becomes a small echo of “not quite,” a quiet reminder of things left undone. I wanted to change that.

    I wanted to know what it felt like to complete something. To close the loop. To free up that mental space, even just a little, in the hope that it might create momentum for the bigger, harder things waiting further down the list.

    The project I chose was something I genuinely wanted to try – crocheting. Or at least, the idea of it. The rhythm, the creativity, the sense of calm it promised.

    But the truth? I didn’t finish. I couldn’t quite master it. My attention drifted, my frustration crept in, and somewhere along the way, it became another unfinished thing. And yet… I’m still here, talking about it.

    Because maybe the point isn’t perfection, or even completion – not yet anyway. Maybe the point is the willingness to try. To notice the patterns. To gently challenge them, even when the outcome isn’t what I hoped for.

    This list of 40 things—it was never really about ticking boxes. It’s about learning how to work with my brain, instead of constantly feeling like I’m working against it. It’s about soothing my nervous system, not forcing it. It’s about finding small, manageable ways to build trust with myself again.

    So maybe the crochet project isn’t finished. But something else has begun – I started documenting my “40 things to do” via my Instagram page, and this became my new project! To keep me motivated – I took photos, documented the process – and of course added a cool accompanying track to celebrate the music of 86′. This items track was: Lionel Richie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling”

    Stay tuned – for more 40 things to do before turning 40!

    🤍 K

  • Three Reasons to Rise

    After almost forty years of trauma, I am starting to learn what it means to rise.

    The year before I turn forty, something inside me shifted. A quiet voice — one I’d ignored for decades — whispered that it was time to right the wrongs, to mend what had been broken, and to build the life I always wanted. Not just for me, but for my three children. They have been my constants, my witnesses, my reasons. My three lights in every darkness.

    So I wrote a list.
    A list of the things I wanted to achieve before I step into my fourth decade. Some dreams were gentle, almost shy. Others were bold enough to scare me. But every single one was rooted in a simple intention: to choose myself, perhaps for the first time.
    To heal — really heal — from a lifetime of wounds that I’ve carried in silence.

    I want to enter forty with love in my heart, hope in my bones, and space in my life for joy. I want my children to look at me and see not just a mother who survived, but a woman who chose to rise. I want them to know that despite everything — every trauma we endured together, every storm we walked through — we are still a family stitched together by love, not brokenness. And that love, not trauma, has made every one of our victories possible.

    My hope is for healing. True healing. The kind that doesn’t just patch the surface but reaches deep and finally unclenches the past.

    This is the start. I’m writing it all down — whether it’s ever read by others or not. If no one else sees these words, they will still be for me. A record of the beginning. A place to put the pain, the progress, and the prayers. My trauma journal, my truth, my turning.

    And this is only the beginning.

    So here I am: choosing to rise, choosing to hope, choosing to lead with my heart and believe in a future filled with more love than loss.

    🤍 K