Origin Story

The fire that started it all.

Note from Vienna:
This was once my About Me. It was the first thing I ever wrote for this space. I’ve grown since then. I’ve healed. But this? This still holds the heat of everything that broke me, and the voice that came roaring out of the ash. This is where it begins.

It’s the version of me that rose from silence and shadows.
The version that no longer tiptoes around the truth.
This space is where the healing begins—and I mean all of it.

My story starts when I was a child.
I experienced trauma in my youth—events that shaped the way I saw myself, the way I trusted others, and the way I learned to survive.
I’ll share more of those moments, when and where it feels right, throughout this blog.
But know this: those early wounds laid the foundation for how I reacted to pain, betrayal, and abandonment later in life.

So when betrayal came again in 2012—this time in the form of infidelity—it didn’t just shatter a marriage.
It reopened every buried wound I thought I had already survived.

The person I loved most—my husband—was falling apart.
Not just in the “midlife crisis” kind of way people like to joke about.
He was a combat veteran, recently retired after 23 years of active-duty service as a paratrooper and infantryman.
He had spent his entire adult life—from the age of 18 to 41—living inside the military machine.
Structure. Chain of command. Purpose. Brotherhood. Identity.

And then it all ended.
Suddenly, there was no mission. No orders. No soldiers depending on him.
He went from hero to zero—in his words, not mine.
He was lost, drowning under the weight of PTSD, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, and a crushing sense of purposelessness in the civilian world.
He was spiraling emotionally. Mentally unraveling.
And instead of facing that pain head-on, instead of seeking real help, he cracked the door open—and someone vile slithered right through.

She didn’t see a man who needed support.
She saw a man in freefall and thought, Perfect. I’ll catch him. Then he’ll be mine.
She didn’t care about healing him. She wasn’t interested in helping him up.
She wanted a front row seat to his collapse so she could crawl over his wreckage and claim what was never hers.

She was a fraud wrapped in fake affection.
A liar who packaged herself as understanding.
She slithered her way into his mind, whispering that blowing up his life was not just okay—it was brave.
And he, so fractured, believed her.
She told him what he wanted to hear.
She fed his ego, stroked his delusions, and offered herself as a cheap replacement for something real.
She knew he was broken. She. Did. Not. Care.

She exploited him for her own pathetic validation.
She wanted to win a game I wasn’t even playing.
I was the villain in her story. She was the savior.
It was fiction. It was manipulation. It was sick.
And for a moment… he chose the lie.

Ah, but here’s the thing about underestimating a woman who’s walked through fire—
She doesn’t just rise.
She brings the whole damn storm with her.
And karma?
She always shows—just in time for the mother-fucking reckoning.

Here’s what no one saw coming:
I stayed.
Not to beg.
Not to suffer.
Not to be anyone’s doormat.

I stayed to destroy the narrative.

I stayed because I’ve survived deeper wounds, darker nights, and colder betrayals than this one ever could deliver.
I stayed because I’ve crawled out of graves they tried to bury me in—again and again.
I stayed because my silence was never consent, and my endurance is not their redemption.

I stayed… to reclaim every fucking piece of myself they tried to erase.

And now?
I’m not whispering.
I’m not softening.
I’m not tucking in my rage to make anyone comfortable.

This isn’t just a blog.
This is a declaration of war.

On betrayal.
On secrecy.
On fake friends and cowardly family who stood in the shadows when I burned.

This is MY story.
Told in my voice. In my time. On my terms.
No more shame.
No more silence.
No more protecting the people who should’ve protected me.

I said what the fuck I said.
And I’ll say it again. Louder. Clearer. Burned into digital stone.

Welcome to The Burn Diaries.
This isn’t healing wrapped in pretty bows.
This is healing with scars showing.
This is truth—blistered, beautiful, and burning.

This is where I rise.
This is where it ends for them.
And begins—finally—for me.