#BrookeUnbroken

There was a time I knew I wouldn’t be around to celebrate another birthday. A time where raw emotional pain determined how my day would go. A time where getting through it wasn’t day by day, yet minute by minute.  A time when I valued darkness and being alone more than I valued the very breath that kept me on this earth. A time where I literally made a choice between life or death.  Since that time I’ve made some major changes.  Not the first time I’d seen a significant change in my life, but  I’ve moved mountains in the progress I’ve made.  Does depression still peek its head through? Absolutely. The difference now is that I know my worth and will never give it, or anyone else for that matter, that kind of power over me (thanks to a great friend for offering up that advice that has literally saved my life...more than once).  It was through my journey through those years of dark days that I found out who I was, and more importantly who I didn’t want to be a...

Pain.  I know it like the back of my hand. For the past 4 years it has stared me in the face every single day.  It’s what woke me up in the morning.  It’s the last thing that saw me before closing my eyes at night.  It’s what had me by the throat and wouldn’t let me breathe.  It defined me, and resonated throughout my soul. I was broken for a long time.  Hell...still am really. Time doesn’t heal all wounds. Some are life long.  All time does is build a scar, and I have a lot of those.  The difference now is that pain doesn’t control every aspect of my life, and that alone has opened my heart.  Don’t get me wrong, life sucks sometimes. It’s hard as fuck and the struggles are still heavy! Knowing I’ve survived my darkest days, and that I have the choice to let it consume me all over again, or move the hell on is empowering in itself.  It’s one of the only things I can control because trying to understand the whys of life itself is much b...

Some people remember dates for birthdays. Some remember dates for anniversaries. Some remember dates of death. And some...remember dates of survival. June 5, 2017. A date for me that will be tattooed in my heart for the rest of my life.   A day that I was to take my last breath ultimately lead to me learning to appreciate the very breath I breathe today, and becoming absolutely sure that there is a God much bigger than any of my problems. My Facebook status that morning was “I’m not good at being strong. 💔💔💔”  I can remember typing that.  A way of reaching out, yet vague enough to keep me in the dark.  I sat alone in the house that was once filled with the life I yearned to get back. The memories around every corner we’re drowning me and there was no escaping. I was at a point of no return.  I wanted out. I wanted it to be over, and there was no changing my mind. My broken heart was physically painful. Mentally I was in a place so low climbing out was unatt...

I spent almost two years of my life buried in a very deep dark hole trying to fight depression and suicidal thoughts on my own. I stared death in the face. Just the two of us sitting in silence, looking back at one another on three different occasions. Luckily I found the strength to walk away from him. I laid in bed more days than I was out. I went through days without even remembering how. Cried more tears than a body could produce. Sent calls to voicemail more than I could count. It was a silent fight. Because until I wrote and made it public, no one had a clue. It changes a person. It changes their heart, their mind, their soul. And you don’t go back. You don’t go back to who you used to be. Those scars, whether physical or emotional, they are there forever. The bruises heal. The aches go away. But the scars...they stay forever. You never forget the suicide attempts. You never forget the places, or the dates. You never forget the meaning of all those songs, or the sm...

The day she sat across the table from me with a completely emotionless, empty shell of who she used to be, she starred straight through me. I was hysterically crying , unable to contain my brokenness. She didn’t even blink an eye. The judge handed me a tissue, and told me it would be ok. A month ago I was delivered the envelope of papers I thought I’d never see. The official “closing of the book”. She got their wish. I got a twist to the knife that was already sticking in my heart. A twist that would kill every feeling I had left. I have been completely empty since. A few tears now and then as a memory races through my mind, but then as I realize what’s happening I quickly wipe it away. Quite the contrary to where I had been the past two years when I allowed her to hold the key to the very breath I breathed. She lost...not me. She lost the only person in her world that loved her unconditionally. She lost someone that would fight until death do us part. She lost someone tha...

Ever hear one of those songs that you can’t stop listening to? You keep putting it on repeat and it takes you somewhere you don’t want to leave. I found one of those a few days ago and it could not explain me more. It’s a prayer that I pray consistently, yet in a song. It makes the tears well up in my eyes, I lose my breath, I drown in my own tears and it makes my heart ache in a familiar way that I hate. So why can’t I stop listening to it? When I try and look back over the past 20 years of my life the good times are so clouded by the hurt that I can’t even see it. The pain has changed who I am; some for the good, and some for the not so good. I used to be a firm believer in “Things Happen For A Reason”, but not so much anymore. Some people are born to love and I know that the intensity in which I love someone is not something that can be found very often, if even at all. It’s one of my best and worst traits. Others are born to hurt. Even when they have been hurt themselves...