Kelsey Bigelow is a poet, a published author, and an experienced speaker but the words she writes and the stories she shares aren’t works of fiction. The emotions that make up each line of her poetry are a reaction to the volatile environments of her childhood, and the relationships, or lack thereof, she had with the family members she shared them with. As she coped with mental health struggles at a young age, she found poetry as an outlet. Over 15 years later poetry has served as a validating force in her life, helped her find her voice, and is now her career. But becoming the motivational speaker and prominent member of the Des Moines poetry scene she is today took years of hard work. Not just on her craft, but also to understand the CPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), eating disorder, anxiety, and dissociation she has grappled with for much of her life. Behind the title of her newest book of poetry, ‘Far From Broken’, is the story of Kelsey’s persistence through struggle, and endless pursuit to understand even the darkest corners of her mental health.

Kelsey was born in Illinois and moved to Wisconsin at a young age. Throughout her childhood, her family life was tumultuous to say the least. This is where much of her mental health struggles began.

“I grew up in two homes because my parents were divorced. In my dad’s home I felt safer than my mom’s, but there was still a fend for yourself mentality. I know it was unintentional but there was more emotional abuse happening in that house. I didn't ever feel good enough and I couldn't feel heard or seen without angering somebody. I learned to tone myself down in that house.”

Despite the struggles she experienced at her dad’s house, she still preferred it to her mom’s, where she says most of the traumatic events she experienced happened. Her mom wanted to be the “fun party parent” in the divorce, and as a result, Kelsey and her siblings were left in an unsafe environment, not suitable for children.

“There was always drugs and alcohol and sex. A lot of horrible things that shouldn't have been happening. My stepdad was a violent man and there was also emotional and verbal abuse happening. It was never clean, and I had to sleep in the basement on an old couch that was infested. It was not a good environment, I hated being there, I would always cry when my dad had to take me there.”

Kelsey noted the financial struggles that existed along with the abuse she endured. Both of her parents experienced health troubles, having cancer multiple times throughout their lives, which contributed to the financial distress. This led to Kelsey getting a job at a young age to cover her own financial needs and taking on the role of emotional caretaker for herself and younger siblings. As the peacekeeper and mediator, Kelsey says, her feelings became secondary, and she rarely had someone to talk to as a child to help her process her emotions. This time in her life, and these experiences, are the roots of the issues she has battled through in adulthood.

“CPTSD happens when you spend your crucial developmental years not having your needs met and not learning how to express emotions or self-regulate. That's when you spend those developmental years in a high stress, volatile, and in my case often violent, environment,” she said. “That’s where you just have to cope. That causes the other symptoms of it, like my dissociation. I had to separate myself from the verbal, physical, and sexual abuse that was happening around me. I had to separate from my emotions to be strong for everyone else. That caused me to do that for 15 plus years and not realize it.”

Kelsey described dissociation as “auto piloting through life”, separated from her emotions. Only experiencing one emotion at a time, if anything. While she would go undiagnosed most of her life, she recognizes now that much of her mental health struggles began when she was 15, it was also when she discovered poetry.

“I hated poetry when I first discovered what it was.” she said. Her introduction came in her 6th grade English class, amid the most difficult times of her childhood. That first impression would fade eventually. By 8th grade, she had found writing on a page to be an easier way to navigate through the clutter of her head. When no one else would listen, she could turn to her notebook.

“I didn’t know what I was thinking or feeling until I wrote it down,” Kelsey explained. “Poetry often felt like a more accurate way to describe what I was thinking and feeling.” This relationship with poetry as a mediator to her struggles would continue from high school into college where it became a key tool in her efforts to process the loss of her mother her sophomore year. Poetry became about channeling and understanding the grief she experienced from the loss of a parent.

During this time, she took her first creative writing class where she subjected her most intimate thoughts in her poetry to peer review. “I was handing my grief to my classmates on a page for them to tear apart.” she said. But the reaction from her peers served as a powerful validation of her experiences and her writing. “I didn’t know there was a way to say that, or I didn’t know someone else felt that.” they said to her.

She would go on to graduate from UW-Platteville with a degree in professional writing and with that, she moved to Des Moines and began her career as an editor at a local marketing agency.

Kelsey then dove headfirst into the Des Moines poetry scene, attending the Des Moines Poetry Slam, where the organizer pushed her to sign up to participate instead of sitting in the crowd. Reluctant and terrified, Kelsey walked on stage and shared some of her personal writing. When she finished, she was asked how it felt, and something clicked in her head. “That was absolutely terrifying, and I am going to do that for the rest of my life,” she said.

Since 2018, Kelsey has become a mainstay in the local poetry scene. She founded the Des Moines Poetry Workshop, a space where writers can come together to critique each other's work and improve their skills by collaborating with other local writers. She belongs to all major poetry organizations that host frequent events including Poetry Palooza, which welcomes poets from across the country to perform, and she has met and worked with countless local artists that inspire her to better her craft. Some of which have become pillars of support for her in dealing with her mental illness, like close friend Caleb “The Negro Artist” Rainey, a fellow poet from Iowa City.

While she made new connections in Des Moines and became ingrained in the local poetry scene, she became disillusioned with her career trajectory and with writing for marketing purposes. Amid struggles in her personal and professional life she found herself in a dark place.

“It got to the point where I was really struggling because I wasn’t getting a promotion I deserved and my personal life was going up in flames too, so I was really depressed, to the point of not being here anymore,” she said. “I had already been doing poetry on the side for several years at that point, so I just had to take the leap [to being a full-time poet], it was either that or not be here.”

Kelsey took that leap amid other major life events. While she was attempting to start her new career as a poet she also got divorced, moved, graduated with her master’s degree, and lost her grandmother. “The last year and a half was a big life change, and poetry was how I processed that,” she said. But the transition has been worth it, “I’m paying my bills with poetry, this is insane,” Kelsey joked.

Now on the other side of these major life changes, Kelsey has been able to address and understand some of her mental health struggles with the help of her therapist. In the past year, she has identified her mental illnesses and dissociation, and has begun the process of coming out of that “autopilot” state she has lived in since middle school. While worthwhile, it hasn’t been without cost. “After I have exited my dissociation, since September (2023), I’ve had at least one panic attack a week, because I have been overwhelmed. But I feel it, I recognize it, then after, I take note. What were the things that calmed me, putting my feet on the ground, taking a breath, taking a sip of water.”

She now notes the importance of sitting in our emotions and allowing ourselves to be human.

“I never did, and looking back at my life now and realizing I was dissociating through so much of that, I can see how much joy I missed out on,” Kelsey said.

“I recognized I spent so much of my life not present, which didn’t actually save me from the hurt, it kept me from the good things.” A sentiment she captures in an excerpt from her book ‘Far From Broken’; “But I’ve learned this numbness shows itself more as a lack of joy, than a lack of sorrow.”

Now making progress with her mental health, she reflected on her family, especially forgiving those that had a hand in the trauma she experienced at a young age.

“I have forgiven my parents, but I think it's okay to forgive and still be angry and grieve the life you had and didn’t get. I think the biggest thing for me was recognizing my parents love me and still do and that they were just doing the best they could with what they had. They were young parents. They were still growing up with us. I have a lot of grace for that but that doesn’t mean I don't also get to be upset at the way their parenting impacted me.” she said.

While she has forgiven her parents, she notes that she is still working on doing the same for her brothers.

“I think there was a part of me that always knew my parents weren’t gonna nail it. Weren’t gonna do a great job but I knew that they loved me and they were still there. But my brothers abandoned me, and for most of my life told me that they did not see me as a sister. That is where I recognize that siblings are supposed to be the ones you lean on when your parents are not great. But my brothers just were not there for me.”

Now, as a survivor of this 30-year journey, Kelsey shares advice for others grappling with mental illness.

“Feel it. Feel it but then work through it. Don’t stay in it.” she says. To survivors of trauma, she stressed that there is a life past survival mode. “You can make your life happen for yourself. You are a victim, but you don’t have to stay there. The hurt may not have been your fault, but healing from it is your responsibility.”

That responsibility is one Kelsey has taken seriously, and one she has been working towards for decades. Recovering from her experiences, she notes, would not have been possible without that 6th grade English class, and all the poems she has written since then. When no one would listen, and her emotions didn’t make sense in her head, they did on paper.

“This is so cliche and I hate it as a poet, but poetry has saved my life.” she joked. “Poetry has helped me understand myself. It’s how I have found my voice and validated my own experiences.”

This relationship between her trauma, her writing, and who she is today had its groundwork laid years ago when as a student she created a time capsule with letters from her parents that she couldn’t read until high school graduation. She read that letter from her dad again in the Summer of 2023 and she realized he had unintentionally given her the title for her next book of poetry back in 2008.

“You have already been faced with some challenges that many people will never face. You come from what society calls a broken family, yet you are far from broken.” he wrote.