Lately I’ve had a quiet realization:Even without the DNA test… that family system was still going to collapse. It was structurally unsustainable. Too many secrets.Too much financial chaos.Too much emotional extraction.Too many rewritten stories.Too many rotating providers.Too many crises used as currency. That kind of system can’t stabilize. It doesn’t…
Financial abuse doesn’t always look like someone stealing from you. Sometimes it looks like: This is called a dependency cycle — and it often hides in families for decades without being named. What a Dependency Cycle Actually Is A dependency cycle forms when someone: Over time, this becomes identity. Not:“I’m…
I come from a family where faith runs deep. On my biological father’s side especially, Christianity isn’t just a belief — it’s a way of life. And like many people raised around Scripture, one verse came up again and again growing up: “Honor your father and mother.” — Exodus 20:12…
Sometimes healing doesn’t arrive as peace.Sometimes it arrives as a discovery that knocks the wind out of you. This was one of those moments. While my son and I were clearing out my mother’s hoarded Missouri house — digging through decades of accumulated chaos — we started finding things tucked…
After Thanksgiving dinner this year, sitting across from my sister and her husband, something landed in me that I hadn’t fully named before. I watched the way they moved around each other — the subtle ease, the quiet partnership, the shared language that only years of safety can build. And…
For most of my life, I thought gratitude only came after everything was healed, settled, and safe. Now I know better. Gratitude is what grows in the middle of the ashes — after the unmasking, after the collapse, after the truth burns everything down and you’re still standing. Today is…
Once Your Nervous System Has Tasted Safety, The Old Triggers Move at Relativistic Speeds For a long time, I couldn’t understand why re-engaging with my mother in 2019 hit me so much harder than it ever had before. I’d already survived decades with her.I’d already been through multiple recovery attempts.I’d…
There’s a part of the Missouri story I don’t talk about much — not because it’s dramatic or explosive, but because the shame around it lingered long after the dust settled. It’s the part where my daughter told me she was pregnant. November 13th, 2023. I remember where I was…
—a reflection on my first “accidental” no-contact break Most people assume my No Contact journey started in 2024, when the truth finally blew the doors off my life. But in reality, the first crack in the system happened years earlier—long before I knew what narcissism was, long before I had…
What It’s Like Talking to a Narcissistic Parent After You Finally See the Truth There’s a strange and disorienting phase that happens after the moment of “unmasking” — the point where the narcissistic parent you’ve known your entire life suddenly becomes transparent. For me, that moment arrived on Mother’s Day…