Chapter 1
Surviving with Cardboard Wings
A Journey Through Isolation
By Courtney Goetsch
There were days the silence was so loud it echoed. The kind of silence that isn’t peaceful—but watchful, sharp, like the calm before a hurricane. I lived in that silence for years, waiting for the next storm to roll in, never sure where it would hit.
But in that space, I found magic.
During the long stretch of isolation, tucked away in a place that felt more like a holding cell than a home, I learned how to wield cardboard like armor. My son Eivin and I would dress up as characters from his favorite show, Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom. He was Ben the Elf, and I, his sidekick, Nanny Plum Fairy. With cardboard wings strapped to my back and toy arrows in hand, we fought “Timber the Dragon”—our sweet, lumbering dog—until we had conquered the darkness for another afternoon.
He would shoot plastic arrows at the beast, his voice sharp with laughter, and I’d respond with a British accent I barely pulled off, congratulating him on saving our kingdom. The cardboard may have sagged in the Northern Maine summer heat, and my voice may have cracked with exhaustion, but the joy was real. That joy was everything. It was my resistance. It was his safety.
Social media was the only window I had to the outside world. My posts during that time still live quietly on my Instagram: grainy videos of tiny fish caught in a muddy pond, monster truck rallies built from real dirt on the living room floor, and Eivin bundled up on a snow-covered playground during winter, riding a plastic horse buried nearly to the saddle in snow. All moments suspended in time.
I never deleted them, even though some days I wanted to erase everything and vanish. But there was something about those posts—tiny time capsules of joy, laughter, resilience—that reminded me there was still a “me” underneath the fear. That maybe, someday, I could find my way back to her.
There’s one post that stands out more than the others.
We were six miles deep into the kind of hunger that doesn’t just live in your belly—it lives in your bones. It was one of those early June foggy mornings in isolation, the kind that wrapped the trees in silence and made the world feel far away. My son and I didn’t have much. The nearest store was a six-mile bike ride away, one way. I had him in my backpack carrier on my back , and we pedaled down the long road flanked by forest, wrapped in layers, determination, and survival.
The air was thin throughout the rolling steep hills , but he sang behind me the whole way, pointing out shapes in the clouds, pretending the cracks in the pavement were lava. I never let him see how tired I was. I never let him know we had no choice but to make that trip if we wanted to eat that night. That was the thing about trauma parenting: you build the world around your child so they never feel the cracks in it.
Along the dark gray long roadside ahead, I saw it: a single croton leaf lying on the ground, far from where it belonged. Crotons don’t grow in places like this. But there it was—vibrant, gold-rimmed, and full of life. My son pointing out “look mama!”. We took it home like a treasure and put it in a little cup of water, hoping it would grow roots. We didn’t know what it was then. Just that it was beautiful, and for some reason we couldn’t quite understand yet, this beautiful leaf gave us hope.
Months later, when we made it to Florida—my parents’ house, our safe haven—I saw them. Crotons. Lining the whole front of the house. Dozens of them. The leaf we had carried so long ago was a symbol I hadn’t understood yet. We had been holding onto a sign of home before we even knew where home would be. That leaf wasn’t just about survival. It was about faith. That beauty could grow even in the darkest places of life.That even the longest journeys might one day lead to safety.
In the world I had escaped, cleaning had been a form of servitude. Cooking wasn’t an act of love, but obligation—performative. I would smile and cook for men who never saw me, while I broke down in private. And now? Now I cook for my children with joy. I clean my home while my daughter wraps her arms around my waist and my son brings me his drawings. I’m still performing the same motions—but with a completely different meaning.
What once felt like a prison sentence has become a meditation. A celebration. A sacred ritual in the name of love.
My favorite memory—and the most bittersweet—is of Eivin at the door with the mailman. We were so isolated, so alone, that even the simple gesture of someone delivering a package felt monumental. I remember the mailman smiling as he handed the box to my son, Eivin’s eyes wide with excitement. He took a photo of us once, both of us dressed in cardboard costumes, laughing despite everything. That photo still makes me tear up.
Back then, I didn’t know we were surviving. I just knew we were pretending. Pretending we were elves. Pretending Timber was a dragon. Pretending life could be beautiful even when it wasn’t. And somehow, through all that pretending, we made something real.
I want other mothers—especially those still trapped in emotionally toxic or psychological situations—to know this: you don’t have to wait until it’s safe to start creating beauty. It doesn’t matter how small it is. A drawing. A photo. A moment. A homemade cardboard costume.
Make it. Document it. Keep it.
Because one day, when you finally get out, when you are sitting in the sunshine tracing the lines of a croton leaf with your children playing safely in the yard, you will look back and realize you were never weak. You were always the strongest one in the room.
You were building a kingdom of light while surrounded by darkness.
And now, you rule it.
