Five Years Later: The Woman I Became After Being Told to Take My Shit & Get Out

The 5-Year Mark — A Soldier Mom’s Truth About Pain, Growth, and Family

Five years ago, they told me to take my shit and get out. Five years ago, I stood there—bags in hand, a baby on my hip, and a heart that had finally shattered enough times to stop pretending it could still hold. My daughter was three. I was thirty-two and terrified. And the people I thought would protect me, guide me, love me—they became the very reason I had to learn how to survive.

I grew up believing chaos was normal. That yelling meant passion. That walking on eggshells was “keeping the peace.” I thought dysfunction was love—because that’s all I knew. It wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized how sick that kind of love really was.

When you’re raised in dysfunction, you don’t learn what love is—you learn survival. You learn silence. You learn how to shrink to make others comfortable. You learn to call pain “growth” and trauma “tradition.”

And for years, I couldn’t tell if I was afraid of ending up like them or if I was just too numb to care. Every relationship I touched carried the residue of my past—trust issues, hyper-independence, that twisted addiction to chaos. Because when pain is all, you’ve known, peace feels foreign.

Sometimes, I still ask myself: What do I owe them—for who I became? Do I thank them for forcing me to find my strength, or do I curse them for making me need it? Because growth and pain—they really do feel the same.

Five years later, I’ve learned how to rebuild a life from ashes. I’m raising my daughter in peace, not chaos. I’m showing her that love doesn’t have to hurt. That home can be safe. That apologies can heal, and boundaries can protect.

There’s still a burn in me—a scar that never fully fades. The kind that aches on quiet nights when I remember how it felt to be unwanted by the people who were supposed to love me most. But that burn has also become my fire. It’s the reason I keep going, keep fighting, keep mothering with purpose.

Because pain, when met with grace, can become your greatest weapon for change.

I still don’t know where to place the credit or the blame. Maybe I don’t need to. Maybe all I need to know is that I broke the cycle. That I turned dysfunction into discernment. That I turned their silence into my voice.

Five years later, I’m no longer that scared woman standing in the driveway with a crying child and no plan. I’m a soldier mom—battle-tested, heart-healed, and raising a daughter who will never mistake chaos for love.

And that’s enough redemption for me........

Own Your Light,

Soldier Mom