Allowing the Words to Come Out So I May Heal

I wanted to formally introduce myself.

My name is Hollie, and I am the owner of Rooted Soul Apothecary.

When I first started this page, it was created to build my business. But over time, it became so much more than that. It became part of my own journey. It has grown, shifted, and changed over the last few years—but so have I.

I am a survivor.

I have lived with so much complex PTSD throughout my life that, for a long time, I convinced myself that none of it had ever happened.

No one would allow things like that to happen.

No one would ever want to see someone endure so much pain.

I lost faith in everyone around me, but I also lost faith in myself.

I learned how to block out the pain and the images of what had happened. I learned how to disconnect from it so completely that, eventually, I became so dissociated that I didn’t even know what was happening around me.

I was beyond numb.

I lost myself.

I didn’t know who I was.

I sure as hell didn’t know it at the time, but as I sit here now and look back, I can see how much 2019 became a catalyst for the path I am on today.

That was the year I tried to continue living the same life I had always known, but life began making me uncomfortable.

And sometimes discomfort is where change begins.

Words aren’t always easy for me.

I have spent a lifetime not speaking them. Not only holding back my words, but holding back parts of myself along with them.

But not anymore.

I am learning to let the words come out.

I am learning to tell my story.

Not because I have everything figured out, and not because I have reached some perfect place on the other side of healing.

But because my story is mine.

And maybe allowing myself to speak about it is part of how I continue to heal.

This is the start of my story...