I was the girl you might recognise.

Calm on the outside, adaptable, always there for others. Inside, anxious, tense and full of self-doubt. Am I enough, do people like me, am I doing it right? I only dared to say what I really thought where I felt completely safe. Everywhere else I stayed quiet, avoiding conflict.

But inside, another world was boiling.

Life has woken me up more than once. Anxiety and atopic dermatitis that had followed me since my teens. Postnatal depression. And then, separating from my child’s father. That grief pulled me into a purifying fire. It shook me to my roots. And it opened me in ways I could never have imagined.

Right there, in the hardest moments of my life, I found my way back to myself.

Not by becoming “stronger”. But by letting myself be vulnerable in the moments when everything in me wanted to close my heart and give up. I chose to ask for support anyway. To surrender. To let go of who I thought I was, so I could find who I really am.