She Didn’t Break Me | My Story, My Healing, My Becoming

In this deeply personal episode, I open up about the story behind the strength.

I share my childhood filled with both love and disappointment, the lessons that shaped me, family distance, grief after losing my father, and the healing that came through forgiveness.

I also speak honestly about relationships, how I once searched for missing love in the wrong places, and what it took to finally choose myself differently.

This episode also honors my daughter, Samariyanna — the one who made me a mother first. I share how loss changed me, deepened me, and taught me a new kind of unconditional love.

Most of all, this is a conversation about becoming.

The version of me that doubted herself had to die so the woman I am now could rise.

If you are healing, grieving, rebuilding, or learning to love yourself in a new way… this episode is for you.

🦋 You are not broken.

🦋 You are becoming.

#healing #selfgrowth #griefjourney #podcastforwomen #personaldevelopment #becomingher

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, welcome back to Butterfly Collective Podcast. This is your girl Deanna, aka Butterfly. This is episode five. It's called She Didn't Break Me. My story, my healing, my becoming. So this episode gets a little more personal, a little more detailed on why I created the space I created for other women like me. I'm not just sharing a topic, I'm sharing me. The woman behind the voice, the story behind the healing, the pain behind the strength, and the becoming behind everything you hear today. This episode is called She Didn't Break Me. And that title means more than people may realize. Because there were many moments in my life that could have broken me. Moments of disappointment, moments of grief, moments where I felt unseen. Moments where I questioned my worth, but I'm still here. And not only am I still here, I'm becoming. So today I want to open my heart a little deeper. Not for sympathy, not for attention, but because somebody listening may need to know that pain does not get the final say. Take a deep breath with me. In through your nose and slowly release it.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

What did you ever do?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Let's begin. When I think about my childhood, the first word that come to mind are happy, sad, happy, sad. It wasn't all bad and it wasn't all easy. It was a mixture of love, lessons, disappointment, and responsibility. I lived with my grandma until I was about 13, 14. Yeah, she was strict, very strict. Back then it felt hard. I spent a lot of time cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, going to school, and helping with my little brother and my nieces. It felt like responsibility came to me early. While other kids may have just been kids, I was learning how to carry things, how to handle things, how to show up, and how to do what needed to be done. And if I'm honest, there were times I resented it. There were times I wanted more freedom, more softness, more room to just be young and be a kid. Eventually, I ran away. At that age, I only knew what what I felt in that moment. I felt controlled. I felt restricted. I felt ready to escape. But healing has a way of changing how you see your story. Because now that I'm older, I can also see what that season gave me. It gave me discipline, life skills, knowledge, and it gave me strength. A lot of what makes the women who we are today was built in years of what we went through when we were younger. So even when I think about the hard part, I also hold gratitude because sometimes the place that stretched us also shaped us. And that's a complicated kind of truth. You can be hurt by something and still honor what it taught you. Maybe somebody listening understands that feeling. Maybe your past wasn't simple either. Maybe it holds both pain and gratitude. Maybe you're still learning how to honor your story without pretending it didn't hurt. That's real. Two truths can exist at once. When it comes to family, that part of my story is layered too. I'm distant with my family. But distant doesn't mean I don't love them. Because I do deeply. Sometimes people think distance means bitterness. That's not the case. Sometimes people think silence means you stop caring. But that's not always true. Sometimes distant simply means the connection you want isn't being met the way you hope. I would love deeper relationships with my family. I would love stronger bonds. I would love more closeness with my siblings. But one thing I learned is you can't force a connection. You can't force a bond. You can't make people meet you where they're not ready to meet you. And that lesson right there, that shit hurt. Because love doesn't always guarantee the same energy return. Want and connection doesn't always create connections. And maturity is realizing when to stop chasing what has to be mutual. It simply means I'm learning not to abandon myself while hoping other choose me like I chose them. And that lesson alone changed me. So this goes into a story about me and my father's relationship. Wound, forgiveness, and grief. Questions like, why not me? Why wasn't I enough to stay for? What did I do wrong? Even when we know logically it wasn't our fault. These wounds can still live inside us. So later in life, when he got sick with cancer, we got very close. And that closeness mattered. It mattered because healing doesn't always come in the timeline we expected. Sometimes it comes later, sometimes it comes right before goodbye. I forgave him. Because forgiveness gave me peace, not perfection, not erase the pain, but peace. He passed in 2022, and I still miss him. Grief is strange like that. You can heal and still miss somebody. You can forgive and still hurt. You can understand and still feel the loss.

unknown 10:04

Oh my soul, you feel how you didn't have my soul and turn.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Now, me and my mom's relationship is unbreakable. And that bond means a lot to me. No, the past can't always be rewritten. No one can replace Miss Years. But the love now, that's what matters. Consistency now, that's what matters. Showing up now, that's what matters. And I plan on protecting the bond that we have because when real love is present, you value it, you nurture it, you don't take it lightly. Sometimes healing isn't about getting a perfect past. Sometimes it's about receiving genuine love in the present. And letting that count too. My childhood shaped me. My family stretched me. My losses changed me, but none of it ended me. If anything, it introduced me to the woman I was becoming. Part two. I'm going a little deeper. We're talking about relationships, looking for love in the wrong places, the loss that made me a mother first, and the version of me that had to die. So this version could raw. Take a breath. Listen to the rest of this song. And I'll meet you guys there. Looking for what I missed. When it comes to relationships, that's a chapter of my life that hurt. And for a long time, I didn't fully understand why it hurt so deeply. I thought it was just choosing the wrong people. I thought it was just loving too hard. I thought I was just unlucky in love. But healing teaches you to look deeper than the surface. And when I look deeper, I realized something powerful. I was searching for the love I didn't get from my father. Inside the people I dated. I was looking for consistency, reassurance, looking for the kind of love that stayed, looking for something to heal a wound that never belonged to them in the first place. And when we asked people to feel wounds they didn't create, that shit hurt even more. Because they were never meant to become the answer to pain that started long before them. So every disappointment felt heavier, every rejection felt deeper. Every heartbreak touched something older than the relationship itself. And what hurt the most was giving the love I never received back. Giving care, giving loyalty, giving softness, giving effort, and not receiving it the same way. That kind of pain changes you. So all my girls out there, if you in a relationship, and if you basing that relationship off of the love and the emptiness that you felt when you was younger, it's gonna be hard to love somebody the same way that you look for love in a person who abandoned you, whether it was your mom, whether it was your dad, anybody. So what changed in love? Because now I love without looking for what I missed. The one shift changed everything. Now love is not a rescue mission, it's not begging to be chosen, it's not me trying to earn what should be freely given. Now that love feels different, healthier, and more honest. And if I'm honest, sometimes that kind of love can feel scary too. But listen, peace can feel unfamiliar where chaos was once normal. But unfamiliar doesn't mean wrong. Sometimes it means you heal. So with that being said, ladies, y'all got this. Keep y'all head up and continue healing. Motherhood. The one who made me a mother first. Before I talk about any current situations or any current family, I need to honor the one who made me a mother first. It's Mariana. My baby girl left me January 4th, 2021. And I'll never forget that day. Some dates don't leave your body, they live in you, they return in silence, they echo in memory. When I first heard her heartbeat, I knew love was real. I knew God was real. That moment changed me. Even before I held her, I loved her. Even before I met her, she mattered. I was so ready to meet her. So ready for the next chapter. So ready to become what I thought motherhood would look like. But life had unexpected changes. And God called her back home. There are pains in life that don't fit into need words. This is one of them. At first, I blame myself. I keep replaying it over and over and over. I question everything. I carry guilt that didn't know where to go. But healing asked me to tell the truth. And the truth was I was grieving. The truth was I was hurting. The truth was loss is not always caused by failure. And over time, I also realized something else. Mentally and emotionally. I wasn't ready for a child then. That truth does not erase the love, it does not erase the loss, and it does not erase what she meant to me, but it gave me perspective. Some souls come into our lives for a moment and still change us forever. And Samariana, she did that. Becoming a mother, even through loss, changed my mindset. It made me think deeper. It made me have more patience, love more unconditionally, and understand care in a new way. Motherhood is bigger than what people see. Sometimes it begins just with that little small heartbeat. Sometimes it lives in memory. Sometimes it teaches you to just be patient. To just love more. And no matter how the story unfolds, love always still counts. So to all my mothers out there, whether the child is here physically, whether they're in heaven, celebrate them like they're still here. Because in reality, they are they are still here. In spirit. She graduating left to right. She's just getting it all together. And I'm gonna continue to try for her and my daddy and my grandma.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Everybody clapping ain't proxy me win. Pain tell me some those got a those in my face.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

The version of me that had to die. There was a version of me that had to die. The version that died of herself. The version that loved everybody before loving herself. The version that accepted less than she deserved. The version that Kept shrinking to make others comfortable. And I honor her because she survived with the two she had. But she cannot come with me into this next season. The version of me I'm becoming now is different. She is firm in what she stands on. She is clear about her boundaries. She no longer negotiates her words. She no longer allows people to treat her any kind of way. She understands that the same energy should be returned. Nobody gets more than they get. And nobody gets more than they give. She is more seen, more heard, more rooted, more grounded, more aligned, and she is becoming the woman she was always meant to be. She didn't break me, she revealed me.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

So better things are finally me. Pain told me stop begging folks to understand me. Everybody can't go with God taking me. Pain told me side has got more power than proving. I used to take things.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Still allowed to heal. And still allowed to become more than what you are now. Still allowed to become more than what hurt you. Thank you for holding space for my story today. Thank you for hearing me. Thank you for allowing truth to live here. This episode was personal, but if it touched you, then maybe that's why I needed to be shared. Remember this. You can carry grief and still grow. You can have wounds and still love well. You can come from pain and still become powerful. And whatever trying to break you may be the very thing that introduces you to your strength. Until next time, move gently. Trust yourself and remember you still become trust the higher plan.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

I don't trust a lot of people. Just to show you what to do.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

I love y'all. See y'all for episode six.