Adena M'lynn's Voice

Before she even understands her anatomy, she  understands its power. Not as freedom—but as leverage. From an early age, many girls are taught that their bodies are not truly theirs. Long before they can name their parts, they know how the world reacts to them. Not with reverence—but with entitlement. With evaluation. With control. She learns that her body can be a tool. A trade. A weapon. A game. She picks it up subtly at first—in how grown men look too long, in how adults scold her for being “too grown” rather than asking why someone was looking. She notices how beauty is praised, while boundary-setting is labeled rude. She learns that a soft voice gets her further than a strong one, and that modesty i sn’t about dignity—it’s about safety. She watches as the women around her navigate the same system. Some play the game well, using their looks to gain access, affection, or approval. Others lose for refusing to play at all. The lesson sticks, her worth will be measured not by who sh...

by Adena M’lynn Life is nothing more than strings of moments threaded like popcorn on a Christmas tree— fragile, uneven, handmade. Some pieces are sweet, coated in sugar like laughter shared under July stars. Others are burnt, bitter— words we wish we hadn’t said but still string up anyway. We pass each other like hands threading the next kernel, not knowing if we’re adding to something beautiful or just trying to keep the thread from breaking. People come and go— but like ornaments packed away each year, some return with new cracks, different colors, the same name. And still, the garland grows. Changing, but never really changing. Memory is sticky like sap— you can’t touch someone without carrying a piece of them with you. Love is the space between the knots, grief is the popcorn that falls off unnoticed, and forgiveness is tying the thread again even when your fingers shake. We hang each year like it’s the last, hoping the lights still work, knowing some bulbs have burned out, but tr...

She used to believe she was broken beyond repair. Too many stories, too many scars, too many versions of herself fighting for space in the same body. She thought healing meant becoming someone new, someone better. Someone whole. But she was never just one person, and yet she was. She was a mosaic of every version that got her through this life.  And now, she finally understood—wholeness doesn’t mean untouched.  It means integrated.  It means still breathing. It means here. The girl who dissociated to survive still lived inside her, no longer buried, but held gently. The angry one. The seductive one. The scared one. The quiet one who used to write notes on napkins. None of them disappeared. They evolved quickly once she finally had the words to express her grief, love, joy, and all her other feelings. They came home.  She is stopping the fighting her identities and started listening to them. What they needed. What they feared. What they were still healing from. It has...

Before I begin, I want to be clear — I’m not a pastor, and I didn’t grow up with formal religious training. I’m not here to be your spiritual authority, and I never want to be the reason someone gets lost in the wilderness. Like many, I did grow up in church. And I’m deeply grateful for parents who taught us what it meant to serve others, to seek justice, and to believe that each of us holds responsibility in the world around us. My childhood was far from perfect, but one thing stayed constant: faith in God. That faith carries me and has carried me through some of the hardest chapters of my life — including incarceration and extended stays in psychiatric hospitals. Through it all, faith became the most sacred thing I held on to. It gave me peace in prison, and it revealed the sacredness of sisterhood. What I’m sharing today isn’t about having all the answers. It’s simply what I’ve gathered — from scripture, from prayer, from watching how Jesus treated people. I’ve learned from the Bibl...

She never thought homelessness would happen that way.  It wasn’t drugs, or laziness, or even a fight—just a letter. A knock. A warning. She knew the FBI would come pick her up. No timeline. No answers. Just, “Don’t leave.” In the meantime, everything froze. Her accounts. Her job, gone. No income. No help. No one to call. She was in legal limbo—and then, just like that, she was on the street. Three months. She lived like a ghost with an expiration date. Waiting for the government to come claim her, while the world just…moved on.  Outside libraries. Laundry mats. In emergency rooms just long enough to stay warm before security kicked her out. She applied for shelters, but the waitlists were months long and the beds filled fast.  She was given pamphlets, advice, and nothing she could actually use. And no one really understood. Because in their eyes, she wasn’t just homeless—she was waiting to be arrested.  What do you say when someone asks what you do for work and the t...

There were only three clear lies she ever remembered—ones that made her stomach turn when they surfaced. But even calling them lies didn’t quite sit right anymore. Most of what she once labeled as dishonest were actually fragments. Responses. Stories told by different parts of her, shaped by trauma she hadn’t yet faced, or voices inside her she didn’t even know were hers. Some weren’t lies at all. They were memories from other alters—parts of her that took over when she couldn’t. Parts that stepped in to survive.  Other times, she’d make up something small to join a conversation or avoid suspicion. She wasn’t trying to deceive anyone. She was trying to exist. But this one?  This one still haunted her. She had accused a detective.  She didn’t know which part of her told the story—only that it wasn’t true. And for nearly twenty years, she carried it like a stone hidden in her chest. He hadn’t deserved that. She knew that. Even back then. But DID doesn’t ask for permission. ...