Reclaiming My Voice: From Shame to Truth

Trigger Warning: This blog discusses themes of sexual assault, trauma, substance use, and mental health struggles. Please take care while reading and engage only if you feel safe to do so.

Reclaiming My Voice: From Shame to Truth

For a long time, I felt trapped in the chaotic void of my own existence, numbing myself with whatever I could find—substances, relationships, and distractions that promised temporary relief. I felt numb, dissociated, and disconnected from myself, using anything I could find to escape my mind and feelings. Drugs, alcohol, and sex became my coping mechanisms. I’d wake up each day, smoke weed from morning until night, and sometimes take Valium to completely suppress my nervous system. It was easier to numb out than to face the confusion, the pain, and the stories I was telling myself. 

My mind was a battlefield, where one story played on an endless loop: I’m too much. And in the same breath, I’m not enough. This paradox—of being both too much and not enough—was a singular, jagged wound. A wound that I believed was uniquely mine. But in therapy, I discovered that this wound was shared by so many, and at its core lay a deep and painful shame.

I began to realise something important: shame is not something that sprouted within me. It’s not inherent. Shame is a spore that is seeded into us by the outside world. It grows in the cracks of our vulnerabilities, whispering falsehoods that keep us disconnected from our true selves. It convinces us to play in the shadows of our pain, looping narratives of victimhood like a broken record.

And sometimes, that pain becomes a place of twisted comfort. There’s something almost kinky about playing in the pain of the victim. I would spin stories for myself, trying to make sense of the ache: I’m too loud, too emotional, too needy. Or on the flip side: I’m not strong enough, not lovable enough, not worthy enough.

In therapy, I started to see these stories for what they really were—defences. Layers of protection I had built to shield my core self, my voice, my truth. When I peeled them back, beneath the rubble, I found a spark of something real. A desire to reconnect. A whisper of a voice I thought I had lost.

Reclaiming my voice meant confronting those stories. It meant standing in front of the mirror of my mind and saying, I am neither too much nor not enough—I simply am. It meant recognising that my worth is not determined by external perceptions but by the truth I carry within.

Therapy was one of the first turning points for me. It wasn’t a magical fix or a smooth path. It was raw, brutal, and deeply transformative. In those sessions, I confronted the memories I had buried and the experiences I had normalised. Piece by piece, the fog of dissociation lifted, and I came face-to-face with the truth of my past.

One of the most shattering realisations came when I acknowledged that I had been sexually assaulted— hundreds of times. This truth hit me like a tidal wave. The numbness I had lived in was suddenly illuminated by a deep, searing rage. Rage that I had suppressed for years. Rage at what had been done to me. Rage at how I had been gaslit into believing that my pain wasn’t valid.

Therapy gave me the space to grieve, to mourn the parts of myself I had lost to shame and survival. It allowed me to see that the experiences I had once normalised were, in fact, violations of my being. And it was through that rage, that mourning, that I began to reconnect with my voice.

This journey wasn’t clean. It was messy, filled with grief, rage, and moments of despair. But each step took me closer to wholeness. I realised that healing wasn’t about silencing my voice to fit the world’s expectations. It was about amplifying it, even if it quivered, even if it roared.

Reclaiming my voice meant reclaiming my truth. It meant peeling back the layers of shame and false narratives, and finally saying: No more. No more hiding. No more numbing. No more denying myself the right to be seen and heard.

I learned to sit with the discomfort, the grief, and the anger. I let myself feel. And in feeling, I began to heal. The stories of too much and not enough began to lose their grip. I saw them for what they were—lies designed to keep me silent.

As I reconnected with my voice, I also reconnected with a desire for more—for a life that felt full, free, and authentic. A life where I could honour my worth, not measured by anyone else’s standards but by the truth within me.

To anyone reading this who feels trapped between too much and not enough, know this: Both are lies born from the same wound. Your voice matters. Your truth matters. Shame can only grow if you keep your light hidden. Let yourself be seen. Let yourself be heard.

Because in the end, you are enough, just as you are.

To the Woman Who Survived

i see you.

the way you held it all in,

like a reservoir brimming,

waiting to break

waiting for someone to say,

you’re allowed to break.

you swallowed silence

like it was medicine,

let shame thread itself

through your bones,

until your body

didn’t feel like home

anymore.

but somewhere inside,

a spark flickered —

small, defiant.

a whisper beneath the numb:

not this. not forever.

you thought you were too much.

you thought you were not enough.

but those were not your words,

those were not your truths.

those were cages

built by other people’s hands.

when you finally screamed,

it wasn’t ugly.

it was beautiful —

a birth cry,

a storm,

a declaration

of life.

the rage was holy.

the grief was sacred.

you mourned,

you shattered,

you rebuilt.

each piece of you —

raw, jagged, real —

a mosaic of survival,

a testament to the voice

they tried to erase.

but here you are,

unbound,

voice rising

like fire flicking through the cracks.

no longer asking permission

to exist.

no longer dimming

to fit the room.

you are not too much.

you are not too little.

you are exactly enough.

and your voice,

wild and free,

is finally yours.

A note of gratitude and honour to India D'Scarlett and all of the women on the call with me this morning in India's beautiful coaching container, thank you for sharing your voice, your wisdom and your truth, you all have shaped and inspired these words and given me the courage to share them.