In this deeply honest and grounding episode of We Should Write, Lindsay Lawler sits down with writer, singer, and mother Kelly Jean Torres for a conversation about healing, creativity, and what it means to rewrite your story without being trapped by it.

Kelly shares her journey through foster care and childhood abuse—and how those experiences shaped her inner world. With courage and clarity, she opens up about surviving deep trauma, including a suicide attempt, while also reflecting on the profound work it took to heal, seek support, and choose a different future.

At the heart of this episode is Kelly’s memoir, Saving the Lost Girl, and the belief that while our stories matter, we don’t have to stay inside them forever. Together, Lindsay and Kelly explore writing as a path to healing, the difference between revisiting pain to integrate it versus reliving it, and how creativity can become a safe place to tell the truth—and then let it go.

This conversation holds space for both the hard and the hopeful—grief and gratitude, survival and self-authorship. Kelly reflects on becoming the mother she once needed, building a loving life in the present, and learning how to carry her younger self (and others) forward with compassion instead of fear.