Writing Indestructible: Finding Strength in the Story I Tried to Forget

By Rose Barroso

Not all of us have a dream childhood that we love to share with others or even talk about. Not all of us grew up behind a white picket fence, with bedtime stories and warm hugs waiting at the end of every day. Some of us grew up learning to survive before we even had a chance to learn to dream.

I always knew my childhood was different. I knew it had been difficult and sad, but I never thought about putting it into words. Not until my husband told me, “You have a story to tell.”

At first, I laughed it off and though nothing of it. I was too busy working on my career; busy raising my family; and busy running from the ghosts of the past that I thought I had already buried. But his words stuck with me, and maybe it was because deep down, I knew he was right. My story wasn’t just about the pain I had tolerated; it was about what I had built from it all.

Writing Indestructible didn’t begin as a storybook ambition, it began as a therapy test run. There’s a strange irony in realizing that to really move forward, you sometimes have to look back. Even though you promised yourself you would never look back again because that part of your life was buried too deep to cause any influence in your present.

Revisiting my past was not easy. Some days, I could write for hours. Other days, I would sit at my desk and stare at a blank screen, paralyzed by the memories I had worked so hard to forget.

I learned quickly that writing a memoir isn’t just about remembering. It’s about reliving. And reliving means feeling. Feeling the loneliness, the fear, the anger, and the loss all over.

But there’s something altering about facing those moments head-on. As I wrote, I began to see patterns. Every hurdle that once tried to break me had, in fact, shaped me. The girl who once felt invisible became the woman who refused to be silenced.

When I first started writing, I didn’t know what Indestructible was going to develop into. I only knew that I wanted it to be authentic. I didn’t want to paint over the pain or make the story prettier than it was. I wanted to write something that felt raw and real, something that someone out there could read and say, “That’s me. I’ve been there too.”

Writing for me, was essentially a balancing act between vulnerability and strength. I wanted to be honest, but not cruel. Transparent, but not unfair. That was one of the hardest lessons: learning that my story was mine to tell, even if it would make others uncomfortable.

As a woman who built her career in the male-dominated world of luxury home building and real estate, I am used to being strong, composed, and always in control. But writing this book forced me to be human, forced me to be imperfect, emotional, and, at times feel broken.

There were nights when I would cry after writing certain chapters. But there were also days of joy, when I would reread a passage and feel proud of how far I had come.

Indestructible became a story of survival; not in the sense of just making it through, but in sense of reclaiming power, identity, and a life’s purpose. It is about how the broken pieces of your life can become the foundation for something unstoppable.

I wanted and still want readers to see that hard lives can change. That resilience isn’t something you are born with, but it’s something you build, one decision at a time.

Writing this book also taught me the importance of kindness. Kindness toward others, yes, but especially toward myself. I had spent years being my own toughest critic, measuring my worth by how much I achieved or how little it all felt for me. Writing allowed me to see myself differently, not as a survivor defined by pain, but as a woman shaped by the obstacles I had surpassed.

Writing Indestructible allowed me to find pieces of myself that I didn’t even know I had lost so long ago, pieces that ultimately completed me.

For anyone thinking about writing their own story, my advice is simple: don’t wait until you’re “ready.” You never will be. The right time is when the silence starts to feel heavy.

Start small. Write one sentence, one memory, one truth. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it honestly just has to be yours.

When I finally wrote the last sentence of Indestructible, I sat in my chair in silence for a long time. Just staring at that very last page. Not because I didn’t know what to do next, but because I finally felt free (Unmasked).

For me, writing wasn’t just about telling my story. It was about retrieving my voice, my life, my soul; and in doing so, offering hope to others who are still finding theirs. And sometimes, the most powerful stories come from the places we tried hardest to forget.

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Rose Barroso is a Toronto-based luxury home builder, real estate broker, and founder of Posh-Haus Luxury Real Estate and Barroso Custom Homes. Known for her fearless leadership in a male-dominated industry, Rose brings the same determination and authenticity to her writing. Indestructible: How Survival Became My Path to Success, is a powerful story of resilience, transformation, and reclaiming strength after difficulty.

Indestructible: Transforming Survival Into Success

What defines you–the pain of your past or the strength of your survival?

Raised in a shattered family and abandoned by those meant to protect her, Rose Barroso learned early to build walls around her heart. But those walls couldn’t silence the echoes of self- doubt, fear, and rage that lingered long after the bruises faded. Her demons told her she wasn’t enough, wouldn’t succeed, and didn’t deserve happiness. But she refused to let them write her story.

In this gripping memoir, Rose rips the mask off a life built in defiance of deep trauma and invites readers into her world of rebellion, self-discovery, and reinvention. With raw vulnerability and unapologetic strength, she exposes the hidden scars of her childhood, revealing how pain shaped her, tested her, and ultimately forged her. Through sheer resilience and determination, Rose charts her rise as a self-made success in the competitive world of real estate development–an industry few women lead, and even fewer dominate.

From a young girl navigating a fractured family and suffering unimaginable abuse, to a tenacious woman conquering her inner demons, Indestructible is a battle cry for anyone whos ever been told they would amount to nothing. It’s a reminder that the strongest women are often built from the hardest truths, that the deepest wounds can produce the strongest spirits, and that healing doesn’t make you soft–it makes you unstoppable.

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing