A personal reflection on survival, trauma, and reclaiming connection
Have you ever felt like something — or someone — is still quietly connected to you, even if they’re no longer in your life?
Maybe you’ve heard of the Invisible String Theory — the belief that people who are destined to meet, help, or love each other are connected by unseen threads. These threads may stretch or tangle, but they never truly break.
It’s a comforting idea.
But when you’ve lived through abuse — years of coercion, control, and trauma — “connection” can feel complicated.
Because some of the strings we held weren’t soft. They weren’t sacred.
They were elastic — snapping us back into trauma, just when we thought we’d found safety.
When Strings Don’t Just Stretch — They Snap
I know what it’s like to try and move forward only to be yanked back by trauma.
For years, I lived with a man who weaponized every string — every connection — to control me and manipulate our children. Even now, long after I left, some of those strings remain.
Not because I want them to.
Not because I feel bound to him.
But because I cannot sever the threads my children share with their father.
They are tethered by blood, by biology, by something older than choice.
But I can do this:
I can knot his threads.
I can twist them tightly, restrict the reach.
I can place boundaries so tight that his access no longer becomes his power.
And I can hold the strings of my children with gentle, steady hands — reminding them that love does not control, love does not hurt, love does not demand silence.
Elastic Strings and Snapbacks from the Past
I’ve spent years thinking I was finally safe, finally free, only for one text, one letter, one court motion to pull me back into the past.
Even now, I’ll be making dinner, folding laundry, or listening to my daughter laugh — and suddenly, I’m not in the present anymore.
I’m back in the past being screamed at.
I’m back on the phone, trying to explain to a lawyer why daily access would destroy my child.
I’m back walking into the police station, AGAIN, my knees weak, wondering if this will be the time no one believes me.
But even climbing ropes, once fallen on too many times, have to be retired.
They carry damage you cannot see — just like us.
They may look intact, but the integrity is gone.
And so it is with the ties that once held me.
It’s okay to cut the ropes that once caught you — if they also once choked you.
The Reality of My Survival
This isn’t just theory for me.
It’s lived.
- I’ve stood in a courtroom and argued for my daughter’s right to travel, while her father tried to use her as a pawn to regain power over me.
- I’ve sat in silence while my lawyer played my distressed voicemails back to me — not to support me, but to criticize me for being “too emotional.”
- I’ve spent nights hunched over spreadsheets, bank statements, and court documents because my ex refused to pay his share of the mortgage, child expenses, and even took the child support monies back out of the bank account for his own use.
- I’ve wiped tears from my teenage daughter’s face after she threatened suicide if she had to see her father again.
- I’ve stood at my front door, shaking, when police arrived because a friend was concerned this was the time he would kill me.
- I’ve held my youngest daughter through her panic attacks, knowing she was reliving things she should never have seen, never have heard.
And still, I fight.
Not just in courtrooms, but in living rooms, bathrooms, school meetings, and in the quiet of the night — where trauma often whispers loudest.
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
— Maya Angelou
Relearning What Connection Feels Like
Even through all of this — I’ve found new strings.
Threads that feel different.
Threads that don’t pull — they support.
- The friend who showed up with British candy and hid it from my kids so I’d have something sweet just for me.
- The moment I stood in court alone — composed, informed, and unapologetic — and the judge granted my daughter permission to fly.
- The way my daughter whispers “thank you” after therapy, even though she still calls it a “bad word.”
- The people who reached out after I shared pieces of my story and said, “You gave me the courage to speak too.”
“Some people arrive and make such a beautiful impact on your life, you can barely remember what life was like without them.”
— Anna Taylor
Reweaving What Was Torn
This isn’t about pretending the past didn’t happen.
It’s about choosing different strings now.
“The strongest threads are spun from struggle — and the most beautiful tapestries are woven with pain and survival.”
I didn’t get to choose the beginning of this story.
But I am choosing the ending.
When You Feel Yourself Falling Back
Even now, there are days where my healing feels fragile.
Where the past pulls at the edges.
That’s when I remember:
“One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through. And it will be someone else’s survival guide.”
— Brené Brown
So here I am — telling mine.
Not polished. Not perfect. But real.
And maybe, just maybe, one of the strings that brought you here is the same one that pulled me through.
Dear Survivor,
If you’re still tangled in fear, in shame, in guilt — please know this:
- You are allowed to stay no contact.
- You are allowed to protect your children, even when the system doesn’t.
- You are allowed to cry in the bathroom and then walk into the courtroom anyway.
- You are allowed to hold onto the invisible strings that remind you who you are.
You don’t owe anyone your silence.
You don’t owe anyone access.
You don’t owe anyone your peace.
You don’t have to sever every string from your past —
but you can absolutely tie them in knots so they can’t hurt you anymore.
A Final Thought
Maybe we never fully untangle from the people who harmed us.
Maybe we carry threads of memory, fear, and grief forever.
But we also carry threads of power, resistance, courage, and hope.
And maybe the most powerful string of all —
Is the one that ties you to the version of yourself you’re becoming.
You’re not broken.
You’re being rewoven.
And you are not alone.
