What doesn't kill you makes you stronger,they say, like trauma is a gym membership,like pain is just resistance trainingfor the soul. Like we should thankthe things that almost ended usfor the muscle they built.Let me show you my strength:
Scar One: Location, left wrist.Origin: seventeen and convincedthe world would be subtraction improved.Strength gained: ability to recognizethe specific weight of wanting to leave,to spot it in others at twenty paces,to say "I see you" in the precise tonethat makes them stay another day.
Scar Two: Location, credit score.Origin: the bankruptcy from medical billsthe insurance wouldn't cover.Strength gained: shamelessness about money,the superpower of buying generic,of saying "I can't afford that"without the apology. Knowingthe difference between poorand worthless.
Scar Three: Location, everywhere invisible.Origin: the hands that took what wasn't offered,the night I learned my bodywas just geography to conquer.Strength gained: still calculating.Some days it's boundaries like electric fences.Some days it's the inability to be touchedwithout mapping exit strategies.Strong? Sure. Also broken. Both.
The registry grows: the miscarriagethat strengthened my ability to grieve.The abandonment that strengthenedmy capacity for loneliness.The addiction that strengthenedmy relationship with shame.So strong now. So fucking strong.Can bench press my own baggage,run marathons in my trauma responses.
Here's what they mean when they saywhat doesn't kill you makes you stronger:You survived. That's it. That's the strength—not some mystical enhancement,not gratitude for the breaking,just the dumb luck and stubborn biologythat kept you breathing when breathingwas the hardest thing.
We're not stronger FOR what happened.We're stronger IN SPITE of it.Stronger like scar tissue—thick, protective,less flexible than what came before.Stronger like a tree that grows aroundthe fence someone built through it.Still growing, but different now.Still alive, but altered.
What doesn't kill you doesn't kill you.That's all. That's enough.The rest is just survivaldoing its everyday drag show,dressed up as strengthwhen really it's justthe magnificent stubbornnessof a heart that refusesto stop.