26/09/2025
PowerStory No. 12: Breaking The Cycle – Chapter 2
When the weight of silence became too heavy, someone close to her suggested a step she never thought she’d take. Would this be the turning point she needed?
Read Chapter 2: Healing The Child Within here 👇
Her husband was the one who urged her to seek help. “Try the program,” he said gently. “Your company’s EAP provider has counselors who can support you. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
Jazmine hesitated. Asking for help felt like weakness. But deep down, she knew her daughter deserved more than this, and her work was hanging by a thread.
The first EAP counseling session was awkward. She talked too much, too fast, apologizing every few minutes. But the counselor didn’t interrupt. She listened. She nodded. She understood. For the first time in years, Jazmine felt heard.
By the third session, a breakthrough came. The counselor asked, “When you feel anger rising, who does it remind you of?”
The answer hit her like lightning. It wasn’t just her daughter she was angry at, it was her mother. The mother who only called to talk about money. The mother who refused to stay with her after she gave birth, saying her sister needed her more. The mother who, even from miles away, made Jazmine feel invisible.
She realized the truth: she wasn’t failing because she was a bad mother. She was repeating the hurt she had carried for decades.
The realization broke her open. But in that breaking, something new grew – compassion. She began to see her mother not just as the one who left, but as a woman who sacrificed her own life so her daughters could have a better future. That perspective didn’t erase the pain, but it softened it. Forgiveness, slow and tentative, began to take root.
At work, small changes followed. Instead of dreading meetings, she found herself listening with more patience. Her concentration returned, and so did her reliability. Colleagues who once avoided her now lingered by her desk again.
At home, she started setting boundaries, making time for her daughter, not just chores. One afternoon, instead of snapping, she sat on the floor and built a puzzle with her little girl. Her daughter’s smile, uncertain at first, then full, was proof that healing was possible.
She began to take care of herself too. A haircut. A walk in the park. Small rituals of self-care that reminded her she was more than her struggles.
One evening, she told her husband, “I want to be the woman you first fell in love with, not perfect, but present.” He took her hand, and for the first time in a long while, she felt hope.
Most of all, she made a vow: to be the kind of mother she never had and to raise her daughter with love instead of fear, presence instead of absence.
