What It Means to Stay

For most of my life, staying wasn’t an option.

Staying meant danger. Staying meant silence. Staying meant absorbing things no one should have to carry. So I learned to leave—physically when I could, emotionally when I couldn’t. I learned how to disappear inside myself while still being present enough to survive.

That skill followed me into adulthood.

I could leave conversations. Leave relationships. Leave my body. Leave moments that asked too much of me. I didn’t always recognize it as leaving. Sometimes it looked like compliance. Sometimes, like productivity. Sometimes, like strength.

Healing has asked me to reconsider what it means to stay.

Do not stay in harm's way. Don't stay in what breaks me. But stay with myself—especially when things get uncomfortable, especially when my instinct is to check out.

Staying can look like sitting with a feeling instead of distracting myself. Letting a wave of grief move through instead of swallowing it down. Naming that something hurts without immediately trying to fix it or justify it.

Staying doesn’t mean forcing myself through overwhelm. It means noticing the edge and responding with care. Sometimes staying means stepping back, slowing down, or asking for help—things survival never allowed.

There are days when staying feels like an act of defiance.

In a world that rewards numbing, rushing, and pretending, staying present is countercultural. It doesn’t earn applause. It doesn’t make a good highlight reel. It’s quiet. Internal. Often invisible.

But it’s where trust begins.

Every time I stay—really stay—I teach my nervous system that I’m not abandoning myself anymore. That I’m listening now, that I’ll respond differently than in the past demanded.

I still leave sometimes. Old habits don’t vanish overnight. But now, when I notice myself drifting away, I don’t punish that instinct. I gently call myself back.

I’m here, I tell myself. You don’t have to disappear.

And little by little, that promise is starting to land.

CTA: Unbroken: Life Outside the Lines tells the story of what it costs to survive—and what it takes to stay. If you haven’t read it yet, you can find it at every major book retailer beginning March 17, 2026.