The past several years have been hard—an emotional storm I’ve had to weather. Grieving my mother’s death while coming to terms with her part in the pain I endured has been a journey with no map. Yet, through it all, I’ve continued working on my memoirs, making more progress now than I ever have before.
I felt it was time to share this here—for those who’ve followed this path with me—to offer some insight into past posts and provide context around my memoirs.
In the final years of her life, my mother knew I had a deep passion and drive to write about my experiences. That fire was fueled by many things. First, I find myself teaching others every day—using stories from my own life—to show that even after trauma, even after my overdose, life can get better. For a long time, I didn’t realize that moment, that overdose, was my turning point.
It was the darkest, most hopeless chapter of my life—and my greatest regret. Yes, I had been hurt by others, but the deepest wound was the one I inflicted on myself. In those early days of seeking professional help, I kept my truth locked away, afraid it might find its way back to my mother and break her heart all over again. So I stayed silent. I denied.
But healing doesn’t thrive in silence.
Over time, I realized that this journey wasn’t just for me. Yes, I needed to heal for myself—but also for those who love me. My family. My friends. My community.
My mother knew how much my memoirs meant to me, but she was afraid of how the world might judge her. She feared being seen as a bad mother—which, to me, she never was. Of the two parents I had, she was the one who tried. My aim in writing has never been to shame her, but to tell the truth with compassion and purpose.
These books are about transformation—about how all people are capable of both cruelty and greatness. They’re about surviving, not just suffering.
I write to bear witness. To bring awareness. To show the world what it looks like from the inside—from the eyes of someone who was once a victim and now stands as a survivor. In therapy, I learned how unusually self-aware and emotionally intelligent I was, even as a child. That awareness helped me navigate and mentally survive what should have broken me.
It also gave me a lens—one that allowed me to watch, in chilling detail, as one of my abusers transformed into the adult they would become. These are not stories we see often, and when we do, they’re often glamorized. But this is not fiction. It’s not entertainment. It’s a call for conversation. A spotlight on what society, both here and around the world, still fails to address seriously: mental health.
Mental health matters. Deeply. And in the healing process, you start doing difficult things. You cut people out. You set boundaries—and you don’t move them. You educate yourself, and in doing so, you start seeing people differently. Not as monsters, but as broken souls carrying their own sadness and pain.
This drive to help others has always burned inside me.
My memoirs will also include testimonies from other survivors—voices rising from the shadows of domestic violence, post-traumatic aftermath, and the fallout from untreated mental illness. These stories are raw, real, and necessary.
Before my mother passed, we spoke about this. She eventually came to peace with my decision. She gave me her blessing. Her own journal entries will be included in these works—because her voice matters too. She was a survivor. And her story deserves to be heard.
I want the world to see the one I was raised in—and the one my mother, too, had to endure. There is hope, yes—but hope, unchecked, can also be dangerous. My mother always hoped: that my abusers would change, that time would heal them, that God would fix everything.
We clashed often in my adult years, but our conflict didn’t begin there. My father and I argued from the moment I had the words to stand up to him. He too was shaped by abuse, and so the cycle continued.
Generational trauma isn’t just a theory. It’s a legacy handed down until someone—somewhere—says, “Not me. Not my children. Not anymore.”
My father was a homophobic, racist, and emotionally volatile man. He was often described as “difficult,” even a “hard-ass,” and people didn’t like him. Still, for all his cruelty, I need readers to understand: monsters are made, not born. Hate is a taught behavior—learned in fear, shaped in pain.
I’ve consulted with legal professionals to ensure I move forward safely and ethically with these memoirs. One of my abusers is still alive. That’s not melodrama; that’s a reality I live with. These memoirs, in many ways, are the most dangerous thing I will ever write.
But I’m not afraid. And I’m not suicidal—not anymore. My love for life has grown roots, deep and strong. I’m more grounded in it every single day. I love my life, and the people in it. I could never again imagine hurting myself the way I did when I was sixteen.
Some of you have come to know me over the past decade as an emotional writer. That’s because emotion is the thread that connects us all. The situations differ—but the feelings? The ache, the rage, the joy, the hope? That’s where we meet as human beings.
You’ll see that in my work. You’ll feel it. And I hope, in some way, it heals something in you too.
