Yesterday felt heavy in a way I still haven’t fully shaken from my body.
The kind of heavy that settles in your stomach.
In your chest.
In the silence after a long day finally ends.
I sat in a courtroom while strangers tried to piece together a version of me from one moment of my life.
A moment born from chaos, fear, exhaustion, and years of dysfunction that no one in that room truly understood.
And maybe that was the hardest part.
Not even the guilty verdict.
But sitting there while someone painted me to be cruel. Violent. Controlling. A monster.
As if one moment defines an entire person.
As if human beings are not more complicated than one of the worst days, they’ve ever had.
I told the truth the best I could. Even while being twisted, interrupted, and pushed. I stayed calm. I stood my ground. I corrected what needed correcting. I refused to let anger take me somewhere darker.
That alone tells me how much I’ve changed.
Even though parts of my past still seem to follow me... the chaos of addiction, the environments shaped by it, the version of life I fought hard to leave behind.
Because years ago, I would have exploded under pressure like that.
Yesterday, I didn’t.
I stayed steady even while my stomach twisted itself into knots.
Sebastian fought hard for me. He listened to me, advocated for me, and believed there was so much more to this story than the version painted in that courtroom. I think part of what hurt so deeply was knowing that despite all of that... despite finally feeling heard by someone... the outcome still reduced me to something cruel and one dimensional.
The reality is… there are pieces of that story no courtroom would ever fully understand.
The exhaustion of living in chaos.
The emotional tension.
The constant instability.
The nights spent helping someone who could barely hold themselves upright from intoxication.
None of that erased what happened.
But none of it was allowed to exist either.
And that’s a strange thing to sit with... knowing your truth can exist while still not being enough to change an outcome.
I am not proud that things escalated physically.
But I also refuse to carry a label that says I am some heartless, violent person.
That is not who I am.
The people who truly know me know the softness I carry. The way I care for broken animals. The way I love deeply. The way I continue trying to heal even after life has knocked me flat more times than I can count.
Violent people do not spend their lives trying to become gentler.
Healing people do.
So now… I wait.
Wait for sentencing.
Wait with fear sitting quietly beside me.
Wait while my mind tries to wander toward worst case scenarios.
And truthfully? I am scared.
Not because I believe I’m some terrible person deserving of destruction... but because placing your future into the hands of strangers is terrifying.
Still… even in all of this, I see something important.
The old version of me would have let this destroy her.
Would have spiraled.
Would have numbed herself.
Would have become consumed by rage over being misunderstood.
This version of me came home, took a breath, curled up beside her kitten, accepted love from the people who care about her, and survived the day without abandoning herself.
And maybe that matters more than the verdict ever will.
Because healing is not becoming someone who never makes mistakes.
Healing is becoming someone who refuses to stop growing from them.
And no courtroom in the world gets to decide the entirety of who I am.