Every city has a haunted house. Mine is all of downtown Bellingham. The bars, the alleys, the breakfast tables, the blocked contacts, the empty chairs. I changed my name, got sober, lost almost everyone I knew, and I still have to walk through all of it. Here’s what it looks like when your whole former…
For months the past kept showing up uninvited. Mind games. Hypervigilance. Plans I changed out of dread. I almost let it work. But recently something crystallized, I finally saw clearly what I was dealing with, and something in my nervous system just released. This is what seeing the light actually looks like. Not a dramatic…
I was handed addiction, trauma, and loss before I ever had a choice, and I’ve spent my life cleaning up wreckage I didn’t create. This is a reflection on sobriety, accountability, grief, and the brutal resilience required to keep choosing yourself after everything falls apart. I’m still here. Still standing. Still moving forward, one honest…
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.…
Three years ago, I publicly declared I was thriving—healthier than ever, fewer meds, solid friendships, my kids doing better. Four days later, I was drunk, high, manic, suicidal, psychotic, and locked in a psychiatric ward. That cycle repeated until I finally told myself the truth: sobriety wasn’t a preference, it was the only way forward.…