Because Rock Bottom Is Not the End: A Journey of Healing and Transformation

Because rock bottom isn't an ending...it's an invitation from God to release the version of you that was built from survival, not truth.

My Struggles in My 20s

I spent most of my 20s spiraling out of control. I was running from pain, chasing validation, and numbing feelings I didn’t know how to express. The drinks, the drama, the detours… I was in survival mode without even realizing it.

Then, toward the end of my 20s, everything shifted. I got pregnant with my son when I was 29. That number plays a huge role in my story and still shows up for me in divine ways. I had him when I was 30. That sweet boy cracked something open in me. He was light. He was purpose. He was mine. But that doesn’t mean it was all peaceful and magical.

The Emotional Rollercoaster of Pregnancy

The truth is, my emotional state during that pregnancy was rocky. I was excited, yes. But I was also exhausted, confused, and numb in some places while overly reactive in others. I was still carrying the weight of my past—the unprocessed trauma and unresolved guilt. Pregnancy didn’t erase any of that; it magnified it.

I was trying to hold it all together while still falling apart inside. On top of it, my then 12-year-old daughter was furious. She was used to being the only child, and honestly, I get it. Her world had revolved around us, and now it was shifting fast. She didn’t ask for a sibling, and she sure as hell was NOT OKAY with having a little brother.

She didn’t ask for me to be pregnant and emotionally overwhelmed. Yet, she stuck with me. Even through the eye rolls, slammed doors, and long silences, she stayed. That girl has always had a fire in her—a fierce loyalty underneath the frustration. While I didn’t always get it right with her (I got a lot wrong), I see now how much strength it took for her to navigate all that change. She kept showing up as my daughter while I was still learning how to show up as her mom.

The Chaotic Relationship

The relationship I had with my son’s dad, let’s call him “R,” was… WHEW! Fun. Exciting. Magical. And also intense, toxic, and chaotic. It was passionate and painful all at once. We were mirrors for each other’s deepest wounds, and it showed. We loved hard and fought harder. It was the kind of relationship that forces you to grow, whether you’re ready or not.

We started going to church together, and slowly, we began to feel something shift. It felt like peace was trying to find its way in—like maybe, just maybe, we could rewrite the story. But peace doesn’t always stick when you’ve never truly known how to hold it. Life would happen. Triggers would flare.

We’d drift from church—not because we stopped believing, but because we hadn’t built the inner foundation to carry the healing we were searching for. So the cycle continued: better, worse, better again. A whole emotional rollercoaster. And then one day, the rollercoaster abruptly stopped. Not because one of us stepped off, but because God pulled R off.

The Loss of R

After ten years of chaos, healing, love, dysfunction, laughter, breakdowns, and breakthroughs… R was gone. Just… gone. What broke me the most wasn’t just losing R. It was watching my kids lose him. My son and R were inseparable. They did everything together. He was R’s mini-me—same smile, same stubbornness, same big ol’ heart. Their bond was soul-deep, written into both of their DNA. God, he was such a good dad!

And my daughter? Her connection with him was just as undeniable. Even when R and I were rocky, she still confided in him like he was her biological dad. He showed up for her in ways no one else had. He saw her, accepted her, loved her. When he died, their worlds shattered. My son was only 6. My daughter, 18, had just moved away to college, an hour from home.

And me? I barely knew my head from my ass. I honestly don’t remember much from that first year. It's mostly a blur. I was floating through life in a fog so thick it felt like I was sleepwalking through my own body. But what I do remember is this: I would never be the same. None of us would.

The Impact of Grief

Grief makes people do wild things. Sometimes ugly things. Sometimes unforgivable things. It twists reality. It distorts judgment. It leaves people scrambling to find someone—anyone—to blame for the pain they don’t know how to hold. Unfortunately, for a lot of people in our lives then, I became that person.

R’s family, who had known and loved our son and watched R love and care for him effortlessly, stood in front of a courtroom and said they didn’t believe R was his biological father. Let that sink in. A child they held. A child they celebrated birthdays with. A child R claimed, loved, protected, and raised. Suddenly, they didn’t believe he was R’s son… like... What the actual fuck?

I know they were grieving too. I know their world had just been rocked. But that kind of accusation? That wasn’t grief. That was cruelty. What made it worse? R and I had tried for over a year to get pregnant. This child wasn’t some “maybe.” He was wanted. He was ours. He was our prayer in physical form.

But apparently, hurting me gave them something to hold on to in their pain. It was easier to make me the villain than face the gaping hole that R left behind. So I did what they wanted me to do. I shrank myself again and gave into their bullshit. I ordered and paid for the DNA test. I used R’s mother’s DNA to prove what I already knew.

The Aftermath of Betrayal

After I handed them that proof, still nothing changed. No apology. No ownership. No welcome back into the family. Just silence. Cold. Dismissive. Wounding. My son didn’t know why we had to swab his cheek. I told him it was a COVID test. Because how do you explain to a six-year-old that the people who once called him family now questioned if he even belonged? It broke something in me I didn’t even know was still holding on.

The grief. The betrayal. The pressure to stay strong for my kids. The complete erasure of the life I thought we were building. I didn’t have tools. I didn’t have language. I didn’t have a nervous system that could regulate the chaos inside of me. So I did what I’d always done when it got too loud in my head—I numbed it. I drank. And drank. And drank.

Not because I didn’t love my kids. Not because I wanted to die. But because I didn’t know how to live in this version of reality. The one where R was gone. Where my daughter was broken. Where my son was confused and grieving. And where I was the villain in a story I didn’t ask to be written into.

The Darkest Moments

I spiraled into a place so dark, so hollow, that I convinced myself the only way out of the pain was to not wake up at all. I didn’t write a note. I didn’t announce it. I didn’t make a scene. I just… gave up. Quietly. Internally. With a bottle in one hand and a thousand unanswered prayers in the other. I slipped into silence. I wasn’t planning a dramatic exit. I didn’t want attention. I just… didn’t want to exist in this pain anymore.

And then—headlights. A car came flying into my driveway. Fast. Unannounced. Reckless. For a second, I thought someone was coming to confront me. Maybe kick my ass. Maybe arrest me. Maybe punish me for something I couldn’t even name. But instead… God showed up. In the form of R’s and my pastor (D) and his wife (J).

To this day, I still don’t know how they knew. I don’t remember calling them. I don’t think anyone else did either. But there they were. Right when I was in the final minutes of what I genuinely believed would be my last night on this earth. They didn’t bring a sermon. They didn’t quote scripture or tell me to “just have faith.” They didn’t shame me for being drunk, messy, or ugly in my pain.

The Turning Point

They sat with me. They held me. They held my pain like it was theirs. Their presence, their stillness, their refusal to look away from the wreckage of me—that saved my life. It didn’t fix everything. It didn’t instantly snap me back into joy. But it cracked something open. A crack big enough for the smallest sliver of light to get in.

I surrendered—finally. I let Jesus take the wheel. For real this time. I remember praying... begging... for His love to wrap around me so tightly that I wouldn’t have to feel anything. Not the grief. Not the shame. Not the ache of everything I had lost. I knew the drinking was killing me. Not just physically, but spiritually, emotionally, and energetically. It was pulling me further and further from my truth, from my purpose, from God.

I asked Him, really asked Him, to help me quit. I didn’t say “take this away.” I said, “Make it easy. I don’t want to fight with it anymore.” While it wasn’t easy, it was simple.

December 26, 2020. I put down the bottle. And I haven’t picked it up since. Looking back, I barely recognize that version of me. The one who drowned sacred parts of her soul in Michelob Ultra and wasn't allowed to take shots at the bar because "shots made me violent." The one who wore shame like skin. Who sobbed silently into pillows at night, wondering if maybe the world would be better without her. Who convinced herself she was too far gone to ever be found.

A New Beginning

I had to un-know her. Un-meet her. Un-become her. I had to bury that broken, bleeding version of me. Not out of hate, but because I was finally ready to resurrect the woman underneath. The one who still believed in healing. The one who still had a pulse beneath the pain. The one God refused to let go.

And in doing so, I started meeting someone else… A version of me I had buried under all the coping, chaos, and conditioning. That choice—sobriety—was the beginning of everything. It slingshotted me into a whole new relationship with God. A whole new understanding of what healing could feel like.

I started to realize that the connection I had always longed for wasn’t “out there.” It had been within me the whole time. Shortly after, I enrolled in Bible college to study Christian Counseling. At the time, I thought I was chasing a credential. Looking back, I see I was chasing connection. Craving safety. Searching for truth. Wanting to understand God, not just learn about Him.

The Shift in Spirituality

That season cracked open a new kind of awareness. My relationship with God began to evolve—less about rules and religion, and more about intimacy and energy. It was the beginning of a shift I didn’t even know was happening. A shift from fundamentalism to faith. From shame to self-responsibility. From fear to reverence. From performance to presence.

While I was still enrolled in Bible College studying Christian Counseling, something inside me started to shift. My relationship with God was evolving—moving away from rigid rules and religious performance toward something deeper, more personal, and more spiritual. I felt myself craving more than just scripture and theology. I wanted to understand people—really understand them. The trauma. The pain. The patterns.

The Journey to Understanding

Why we do the things we do. Why we sabotage, avoid, attach, shut down, explode, collapse… So I transferred out of Bible College and into a different university to continue studying psychology. Not just because I was curious, but because I needed to make sense of the emotional wreckage I had lived through and the patterns I saw repeating in others.

If I’m honest, I also thought I needed the damn credentials. The degrees. The validation. The official stamp of approval society uses to say, “Okay, now you’re allowed to speak on this.” So I chased the qualifications. Because that’s what society tells us gives us “authority.” It’s how we’re taught to find our identity and worth.

To be clear—I don’t discredit those who’ve earned them. That takes commitment, grit, and a whole lot of work. But for me? It became another mask I was chasing. So I chased that too. I was already in that psychology program when R died. I didn’t consciously choose to leave school. Life just unraveled. Grief swallowed me whole. And everything else faded to black.

The Awakening

But even in that darkness, something had already been awakened. Psychology gave me a lens to start understanding the patterns. To recognize that most “broken” behavior is just pain in disguise. That trauma responses are not character flaws. That healing isn’t about being perfect; it’s about being honest. And that realization became a breadcrumb on my path back to myself.

Because somewhere between the textbooks and the tears… God started whispering: "There’s more!"

And little did I know, that remembering would become my life’s work.