After surviving rape, my body and life felt… dull. Numb. Heavy. Like someone had tried to erase parts of me, and for a while, I didn’t know how to get them back.

That’s when I started turning to color. Most of my tattoos are in bright, vivid ink. At first, I didn’t realize it consciously, but looking back, I see what I was doing: I was adding life back to my body, piece by piece. Each line, each splash of color, was a way of saying, “I am still here. I am still me. I can feel again.”

It didn’t stop there. I went to cosmetology school. Hair, nails, beauty work—another way to bring life and vitality back, this time not just to myself, but to others. Transforming someone’s look, giving them confidence, helping them feel alive in their skin—there’s a quiet power in that. Even before I fully healed, I was finding ways to reclaim life in a body that had been violated.

Looking back, I see a pattern: creativity as restoration, color as reclamation, beauty as a form of survival. I wasn’t fully healed yet, but I was already moving toward life again.

Trauma doesn’t just take—it can also spark ways of rebuilding that are deeply personal, bold, and beautiful. Tattoos, cosmetology, or any act of creation—they can all be acts of reclaiming your own life, even when you feel far from whole.

For anyone out there who’s experienced something similar: your choices to express yourself, reclaim your body, or create beauty are valid. They’re not just aesthetics—they’re survival. They’re life.