Through the Broken Mirror

How trauma shatters identity—and how art helps rebuild it

Once upon a time, I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the woman staring back.

Her eyes were familiar, but dulled. Her mouth remembered how to smile, but forgot how to mean it.

Her voice had been left somewhere behind the locked doors of silence.

This is what trauma does. It doesn’t just hurt you—it unthreads you.

Piece by piece, it makes you question what parts of you are yours

and what were shaped by fear, survival, or someone else’s control.

You begin to wonder:

“Was I ever whole? Or was I always broken and didn’t know it?”

But that question…

That’s the lie trauma wants you to believe.

The truth?

You were never broken.

You were shattered—yes. But not destroyed.

And there’s a world of difference between the two.

Rebuilding with Art

I didn’t know, at first, that I was rebuilding myself when I picked up a paintbrush.

I wasn’t trying to be brave. I was trying to breathe.

At the time, I wasn’t painting art.

I was painting grief. Memory. Fragments of a self I missed so badly, it ached.

 And somehow… with every stroke, a piece of her came back.

Not the same as before, no.

But stronger. Softer. Wiser.

More mine.

Art didn’t fix me.

It found me—beneath the debris, beneath the shame, beneath the story someone else tried to write over my own.

Every color I chose was an act of rebellion.

Every canvas was a mirror I built myself.

One I could finally stand in front of without flinching.

Down the Rabbit Hole and Back

 If you’re reading this, you might be standing at the edge of your own broken mirror.

Maybe you’re wondering who you are now.

Maybe you’re scared of what you’ll find.

 Let me tell you: it’s okay to be unsure.

It’s okay to be unfinished.

Healing is not about returning to who you were.

It’s about meeting who you’ve become.

In Wonderland, mirrors distort, bend, and reveal.

But they also reflect.

And when you create—even if it’s messy, even if no one sees it but you—you begin to reflect yourself.

Not the version they tried to erase.

Not the version that’s palatable or pretty.

The version that survived. The version that chooses to keep becoming.

An Invitation

 If you’re holding pieces right now, I want you to know:

You’re not alone in the rebuilding.

This space—Tales from Alice—is for the women who’ve walked through fire and want to paint with its ashes.

It’s for the brave, the weary, the curious, and the healing.

You don’t have to be an artist.

You just have to be willing to see what’s still possible.

Your reflection is waiting.