From the Archives - April 24, 2026
Memories...
So yes, healing is hard, and it takes time. After all, you didn't get the way you were overnight. It takes everyone their entire childhood, and then some, to become the adults they later are. When that childhood development is robbed from you by abuse, you are simply getting a later start. It can be challenging to learn all the skills that make for a happy adult life and to overcome the fear that plagues us from our previous experiences.
Just because something is a challenge, though, doesn't mean it's impossible or not worth doing.
Sharing – Suicides make up majority of gun deaths, but remain overlooked in gun violence debate
Trying to take my life was a desperate attempt to escape my pain. It was not well thought out. It was something I hacked together late at night while sitting in my car along the Pacific Ocean, where I only had access to what was in the car with me, which turned out not to include any effective tools to take my own life. When it didn’t work, I started looking for other ways to escape the pain, landed in therapy, and eventually got to a better place.
If there had been a gun in my car that night, there’s a 90% chance these words would not be written.
None of us has the power to fix everything right now, or to even predict what is coming. That uncertainty is hard. But we all have things we can do, so let's focus on the small things we can do today, and maybe even some bigger things we can do going forward, instead of being overwhelmed by what we can't do or don't know.
Thanks for the Memories - Good and Bad
To put it bluntly, while I don't regret the healing that has taken place in my life and where I am now, I have to also acknowledge that getting here was messy. I'm not the same person I was in this photo. None of us is the same person we were back then, but for survivors, there is a particular challenge that comes with healing. You have to be willing to change, and if I know anything about change, I know it can be messy, too. Change requires us to leave behind things that are not good for us, which just so happen to be the things we've gotten quite comfortable with.
And to wrap things up for this run through the archives, I’ll share the photo from the post above of a much younger version of me, soulfully belting a Muppets tune.
Thanks for reading!