Outside, Looking Within

She was a quiet child. The kind adults called “well-behaved.” But quiet did not mean peaceful. From childhood, she learned to leave her body when the world became too heavy. She watched her life from above — through abuse, grief, displacement, shame, love, addiction, motherhood, and healing. Told through the eyes of a survivor writing to her best friend, Outside, Looking In is a story about the silence children carry, the pain women survive, and the light that remains even after life tries to steal it. This is not a story about being broken. It is a story about coming back.