From Surviving to Becoming
My introduction. My truth. My beginning.
My name is Lisa E. Devivo, and for the first time in my life, I’m choosing to tell my story in my own words.
I didn’t arrive here easily. My life has been shaped by domestic and violent abuse, trauma that left deep marks, years of insecurity, and long stretches of instability that made it hard to breathe, let alone dream. I’ve known what it feels like to lose myself inside someone else’s control. I’ve known fear, silence, and the kind of loneliness that makes you question your worth.
But I’ve also known love–especially the fierce, protective love that comes with motherhood. Becoming a mother changed me. It gave me purpose, strength, and a reason to keep fighting even when everything around me was falling apart. And when the divorce came, it brought its own kind of heartbreak, but it also opened the door to rediscovering who I am outside of survival.
I’ve walked through chapters that tried to break me. Some did. But every time, I found a way to stand back up–sometimes shaky, sometimes angry, sometimes exhausted, but always determined.
Today I am still growing. I’m still healing. I’m still learning how to trust myself, how to build stability, how to speak up, and how to believe that I deserve peace. I’m not writing from a place of perfection. I’m writing from the middle–the messy, honest, unfinished middle- because that’s where most of us actually live.
This blog is my space to share the truth behind the strength people see. It’s for the women who have been silenced, dismissed, or made to feel small. It’s for the ones who are still fighting their way out, or rebuilding from the ground up, or trying to remember who they were before the world hurt them.
If my story helps even one woman feel less alone, then every word is worth it.
I’m Lisa. I’ve survived a lot. I’m still becoming who I’m meant to be. And finally ready to speak.