Tag: childhood trauma


  • The Note in the Empty Bedroom

    3.5 years. Two hospitalizations. One note that said “Get help” on an empty bedroom door. This is the story of my estrangement from my daughters, what I had to burn down to become someone worth coming back to, and how I found my way back to them. This is not a highlight reel. This is…

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  • I Beat the Shit Out of Things Today

    Today wasn’t about fixing anything — it was about feeling everything. I went offline and spent five hours in a grief lodge, moving anger, loss, and decades of trapped emotion through my body. What started as calm chanting turned into a powerful, collective release that cracked me wide open. I screamed, cried, and finally let…

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  • Goodbye 2025, Hello 2026

    2025 wasn’t just another year. It was the year I took my life back. I broke patterns that had been running me since childhood, stopped performing, and learned how to trust myself again. This wasn’t survival; it was reclamation. I found real freedom in boundaries, honesty, and showing up as my full self without apology.…

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  • Acceptance. And Uncertainty.

    Today, I hit a trailhead I couldn’t ignore: my fear of uncertainty. In IFS, it showed up as a very young part—quiet, tense, always bracing—using denial as protection. I’ve spent years fighting diagnoses, circumstances, and history, thinking resistance was strength. It isn’t. Acceptance doesn’t mean approval or giving up; it means stopping the exhausting war…

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  • From Fragmented to Whole: My Recovery Journey Since 2007

    I was diagnosed with Bipolar I in 2007, but the truth is my war with myself started long before that—shaped by childhood trauma, military exposure, toxic relationships, and years of survival-mode coping. I lost jobs, housing, stability, and nearly my sense of self. What changed wasn’t a miracle cure. It was ownership. I got sober.…

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