Some love doesn’t arrive loudly. It doesn’t come with speeches, grand gestures, or perfect endings. Sometimes love shows up quietly — in presence, in consistency, in the small moments that make a child feel seen and protected when the rest of the world feels unsafe. In this episode of Born Tired: Where Survival Meets Healing, I share the story of my godmother — my madrina — the woman who became my first experience of steady care in a childhood shaped by emotional neglect, dysfunction, and fear.

This episode is about the kind of love that doesn’t erase pain but stands beside you in it. The love that notices what others ignore. The love that fills the gaps left by absence. And the love that breaks silence when pretending would be easier. I reflect on how my godmother stepped in when danger became impossible to ignore, the cost of choosing truth over harmony, and how in families built on keeping the peace, honesty is often rewritten as betrayal. Because silence protects the system, but truth protects the child. And sometimes the bravest love is the one willing to risk relationships in order to keep someone safe.

This episode is for anyone who had one person who made them feel remembered, for those who grew up in emotional absence and learned to survive through hypervigilance, and for the cycle breakers who are learning that courage sometimes costs closeness, but saves lives. You can honor the people who protected you… without repeating what broke you.

This podcast is rooted in lived experience. In growing up in survival mode. In breaking generational patterns that were never meant to be carried forward. I speak openly about family trauma, estrangement, identity, C-PTSD, and the slow, intentional work of building a life that finally feels like yours after trauma. Every episode is created for those who carried too much, too early. For the ones who learned to stay quiet to stay safe. For the ones who became strong before they ever felt protected.

Born Tired is a space for cycle breakers, truth tellers, and anyone learning how to rest after a lifetime of bracing. A place where your story is not minimized, your experience is not questioned, and your voice is allowed to exist without explanation.
You don’t need to fix yourself to be here.

You don’t need the right words.
You just need to arrive as you are.

Your voice matters.
Your story matters.
And you are not alone.

Gentle Reminder:
This podcast includes conversations about trauma, family dynamics, mental health, estrangement, and lived experiences. Listener discretion is advised.

🤍 Support the podcast:
Buy Me a Coffee — https://buymeacoffee.com/mzd5yc89kkk

📌 Follow me:
Instagram: @borntiredpodcast
Threads: @borntiredpodcast
Substack: https://substack.com/@borntiredpodcast

Credits:
Written & narrated by Eirene Torres
Audio production by Carlos Torres
Original music by Carlos Torres

Disclaimer:
Born Tired is a personal storytelling podcast based on lived experience. This content is not a substitute for professional mental health care and does not provide medical or clinical advice. If you are struggling or in crisis, please consider reaching out to a qualified mental health professional or local support services.

There are women whose love is measured by how much they endure. Women who were taught that staying was strength, silence was loyalty, and keeping the peace mattered more than naming the pain. In this episode of Born Tired: Where Survival Meets Healing, I share the story of the women in my family who stayed — especially my paternal grandmother, the matriarch who held everyone together with warmth, devotion, and sacrifice. Her home was the center of our family: the laughter, the food, the gathering place that still felt like “family,” even when the truth underneath it was heavy.

This episode is about what happens when survival becomes the definition of love. When enabling is mistaken for compassion. When women are expected to endure harm quietly, and leaving — even when it means safety — is treated like betrayal. Because in families like mine, silence doesn’t only protect the men who cause harm… it also traps the women who carry it. And the truth is: love without accountability isn’t love, it’s survival. And survival, no matter how strong it looks on the outside, is not the same thing as peace.

This episode is for anyone who grew up watching women sacrifice themselves in the name of loyalty, for anyone who was taught to prove love through endurance, and for the daughters who are learning that strength doesn’t have to sound like silence. You can honor the women who stayed… without repeating what it cost them.

This podcast is rooted in lived experience. In growing up in survival mode. In breaking generational patterns that were never meant to be carried forward. I speak openly about family trauma, estrangement, identity, C-PTSD, and the slow, intentional work of building a life that finally feels like yours after trauma. Every episode is created for those who carried too much, too early. For the ones who learned to stay quiet to stay safe. For the ones who became strong before they ever felt protected.

Born Tired is a space for cycle breakers, truth tellers, and anyone learning how to rest after a lifetime of bracing. A place where your story is not minimized, your experience is not questioned, and your voice is allowed to exist without explanation.

You don’t need to fix yourself to be here.
You don’t need the right words.
You just need to arrive as you are.

Your voice matters.
Your story matters.
And you are not alone.

Gentle Reminder:
This podcast includes conversations about trauma, family dynamics, mental health, estrangement, and lived experiences. Listener discretion is advised.

🤍 Support the podcast:
Buy Me a Coffee — https://buymeacoffee.com/mzd5yc89kkk

📌 Follow me:
Instagram: @borntiredpodcast
Threads: @borntiredpodcast
Substack: https://substack.com/@borntiredpodcast

Credits:
Written & narrated by Eirene Torres
Audio production by Carlos Torres
Original music by Carlos Torres

Disclaimer:
Born Tired is a personal storytelling podcast based on lived experience. This content is not a substitute for professional mental health care and does not provide medical or clinical advice. If you are struggling or in crisis, please consider reaching out to a qualified mental health professional or local support services.

Silence doesn’t start with us, it echoes. In this episode of Born Tired: Where Survival Meets Healing, I share the story of the silence I was born into, the inherited silence that shaped the women in my family and taught generations how to endure pain without naming it. In my family, silence wasn’t a symptom. It was a tradition. A survival strategy. A belief system protected by fear, faith, shame, and reputation.

This episode is about what happens when women are taught that endurance is love, obedience is virtue, and silence is holiness, and what it looks like when one generation finally decides to break it. Because silence doesn’t just live in the words we never say. It lives in the body. In the throat. In the fear of being “too much.” In the instinct to shrink the truth before it ever leaves you.

And the truth is: the truth didn’t break us. The silence did.

This episode is for anyone who was raised to stay quiet, keep the peace, minimize harm, and carry pain that was never allowed to be named, and who is ready to live differently. You may have inherited the silence… but you don’t have to pass it on.

This podcast is rooted in lived experience. In growing up in survival mode. In breaking generational patterns that were never meant to be carried forward. I speak openly about family trauma, estrangement, identity, C-PTSD, and the slow, intentional work of building a life that finally feels like yours after trauma. Every episode is created for those who carried too much, too early. For the ones who learned to stay quiet to stay safe. For the ones who became strong before they ever felt protected.

Born Tired is a space for cycle breakers, truth tellers, and anyone learning how to rest after a lifetime of bracing. A place where your story is not minimized, your experience is not questioned, and your voice is allowed to exist without explanation.

You don’t need to fix yourself to be here.
You don’t need the right words.
You just need to arrive as you are.

Your voice matters.
Your story matters.
And you are not alone.

Gentle Reminder:
This podcast includes conversations about trauma, family dynamics, mental health, estrangement, and lived experiences. Listener discretion is advised.

🤍 Support the podcast:
Buy Me a Coffee — https://buymeacoffee.com/mzd5yc89kkk

📌 Follow me:
Instagram: @borntiredpodcast
Threads: @borntiredpodcast
Substack: https://substack.com/@borntiredpodcast

Credits:
Written & narrated by Eirene Torres
Audio production by Carlos Torres
Original music by Carlos Torres

Disclaimer:
Born Tired is a personal storytelling podcast based on lived experience. This content is not a substitute for professional mental health care and does not provide medical or clinical advice. If you are struggling or in crisis, please consider reaching out to a qualified mental health professional or local support services.