Breaking Mending Becoming

The story of my journey.

An excerpt from my new book based on this blog: "Breaking Mending Becoming" - by Vanessa Ghigliotty

My name is Vanessa. I’m a 51-year-old Puerto Rican Scorpio, born and raised in the Bronx. I’m divorced, raising twin teenage daughters, and I’ve lived with depression for as long as I can remember.

Last year, that depression nearly killed me. I spiraled into a suicidal crisis that left me broken, hopeless, and convinced my daughters would be better off without me. But with the love and blunt honesty of my family and friends, I made the hardest choice I’ve ever had to make: to stay. I checked myself into a mental health and addiction treatment center. And that decision saved my life.

In treatment, I was met with a community of misfits from every corner of the world, people just like me. Broken but trying. We cried. We laughed. We challenged each other. We learned that survival skills become self-destructive if you never stop to update them. And most importantly, we learned that no matter how many times you fall apart, you can put yourself back together.

This book isn’t just about my journey. It’s about the tools, insights, and hard-won lessons that got me from the brink of death to the messy, beautiful work of rebuilding. You’ll find pieces of my story, but also practical skills rooted in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), trauma healing, and radical self-compassion.

I hope this book feels like sitting down with someone who gets it. Someone who isn’t here to sugarcoat anything but, also, isn’t going to let you drown in it.  Together, we can learn how to heal what hurts. How to sit with what feels unbearable. How to stop abandoning ourselves, and, instead, begin the slow, courageous work of rebuilding a life worth living when we choose to stay.

To My Daughters, With Love

This isn’t just my story. It’s yours too.

It’s the story of how I tried, failed, learned, and tried again.

The story of how I came back to life. Not as the mother I once hoped to be,

but as the mother who is still growing, still learning, still loving with everything she has.

And althouth I can’t promise I’ll always get it right, I promise I’ll never stop trying.

Love, Forever and Always,

Mama

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