This is what bacterial wilt can do to a healthy cucumber plant in a few days. Erwinia tracheiphila is a bacterium that affects the cucurbit family: squash, cucumbers, zucchini, and melons. It is spread mostly by cucumber beetles. The bacteria block the transport of water, thus causing dramatic leaf wilt. There is no cure. You have to just cut your losses, cut the plants out, and destroy them. Some varieties are more susceptible than others. These were lemon cucumbers and the only plants affected—yet.

Old me would have been devastated when I saw this. I probably would have chalked it up to my own incompetence and berated myself over this perceived failure. If I didn’t, someone else would have done it for me, so at least I could beat them to the point—masochism dressed up as my own warped version of autonomy. I may have turned around, shut the garden gate, and never looked back. Because going back to the garden would have been too painful. The illusion of perfection is destroyed, and if it’s all not perfect, even if no one else knows, then it is all crap—every single last bit of it. The only option would have been to leave it all to rot and ruin, imagine that it never existed, and move on to the next thing. You might be laughing now because that seems like such an extreme response for such a minor issue. Trust me I also know how ridiculous that sounds, but you can’t logic your way around a trauma response in the moment.

Cognitive blocks are wild like that and one of the hardest things I’ve had to work through in my healing journey. You can’t overcome cognitive blocks if you can’t build a new cognitive pathway—a new way forward. In order to build those new pathways, you have to foster and leverage neuroplasticity, and that is a tall order for a middle-aged autistic woman with decades of trauma. However, I have never been one to run from a challenge or hard work, and once I understood what I needed to achieve, I was able to formulate a plan to recovery. I just needed the right kind of medicine.

Shadow work is strong medicine. EMDR is strong medicine. Touching the earth, connecting with nature, holding space for yourself—all are strong medicine. Actual medication never helped me overcome anything. It may have helped with the fallout, but the underlying issues were never resolved. Even worse, is the fact that I thought I needed to take medication so I could tolerate the problematic and abusive behaviors of others, instead of setting healthy boundaries and leaving harmful situations—situations that I am still working to heal from today.

This version of me, the healing version, spent the evening snipping the runners and untangling them from the healthy plants. I did not feel that immense pressure, shame, and urgency that has plagued me for so many years. I did not feel defeated and I did not feel like throwing it all away. Instead, I felt focused, determined, and motivated to develop a better prevention plan for next season.

But it’s only July, so I planted a few new seeds because nature always finds a way, life goes on, and I didn’t really like those lemon cucumbers anyway.

Follow along on Facebook and Instagram for regular garden updates and more unusual nonsense.

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Where we struggle as gardeners and as human beings is our ability to accept the state of transition. We have a tendency to try to hang on to what has completed its natural life cycle and served its purpose. We become frustrated, not with the transitions themselves, but with the fact that we can’t exert our own will over the nature of change.

The dill has bolted, and the flavor isn’t the same—but left in the garden, it serves as food for the caterpillars that will soon begin their transformation into black swallowtail butterflies. The borage and chamomile are nearly spent, but the yarrow, comfrey, and blue vervain are at their peak. The asparagus is in deep fern, but the strawberries are still in bloom.

The garden mirrors the cycles of our lives. There are beginnings and endings, comings and goings, takings and leavings. Sometimes we have to take account of what is crowding the rest of the life out of your garden, and sometimes we have to release what no longer serves us. Maybe it is an unruly zucchini, maybe it is our job or a relationship; but the accounting has to be done if we want productive gardens and lives.

I am a creature of habit and ritual, so I have always struggled with change and transitions. I stay too long and hold on till the last ember is extinguished. But I am getting better, because of what the garden has taught me.

Right now our garden, our family, our home, and myself are in a state of transition. Things are probably going to get a bit wild and weird before we see all the blooms and fruits of our labors.

This time though it’s a bit different, because I’m okay with it.

I sat at the table and stared at the crinkled magazine clipping as my father sat in his recliner drinking beer and raging about how we were all incompetent, worthless, and would never achieve anything. I shook colorful sprinkles over the cake, despite the tears running down my cheeks, as he yelled about how we were an embarrassment to him and were lacking gumption. My sister, three years my junior, sat still as stone in the dining room chair, staring into space.

It was the night before Easter. We should have been excited about all the candy and treats we would get in the morning. We should have been giddy about the frilly, pastel dresses we had picked out to wear to church the next morning. Not this Easter though, because we had failed and we were not deserving of a simple moment of childhood joy.

What prompted this most recent outrage? What had we done so grievous to push my father to this level of anger? That’s a simple enough answer—we did not meet his expectations at the local Easter egg hunt that morning.

Families had gathered at the local park, where the lawn was littered with brightly colored candy eggs. The official blew the whistle, and children ran forward in the melee. We were jostled about in the swirling mass of excited children. My sister squatted down to pick up an egg at her feet and froze. She would not budge; she would rather be trampled under their feet than take another step forward. She simply could not.

I knew this was not an acceptable option. I understood the expectation. I surged forward several yards, navigating my way through the mob of kids to grab some eggs for us both. I told myself to block it all out, put one foot in front of the other. If I just kept my eyes on the ground at my feet and didn’t look up, I would be okay.

I had gathered a few when I tripped and spilled the contents of my basket. I quickly threw them back in the basket and looked around. I had completely lost my bearings. Where was I? Which way did I have to go to find my sister or my parents? I turned in circles over and over, and panicked because I was sure that I was well and truly lost. I sat down in the grass and put my head in my lap until the hunt had finished and the chaos around me had subsided.

I staggered off the lawn like a battle-weary soldier and found my family; but I did not receive comfort and reassurance. My father was yelling, and my sister was clinging to my mother’s leg, crying, her other hand clutching the basket containing the single egg she had found. What was wrong with us? Why would we behave that way and embarrass him? Why didn’t we just run and pick up eggs like the other kids? You just have to run and grab the eggs, that’s all. It’s such a simple thing. This surely meant that we would fail at everything in life.

It wasn’t that we did not want to please our father. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to enjoy the things we saw our peers doing. We simply could not because we were not like the other children. It was all too much, too loud, too crowded, too vulnerable, and too scary. I was six years old when I became acutely aware that I was different than other children, and it was not acceptable. So, I did my best to assimilate, but it would take me decades to finally understand why.

I still hate Easter. I have never taken my kids to a public Easter egg hunt, and if I saw one of those candy-coated marshmallow eggs, it would probably make me physically ill.

I’ve had enough of the incessant tapping of keys and words blinking across screens.

I have an old soul and an analogue brain.

I detest cruise control, microwave ovens, surface-level thinking, and the status quo. My soul, my brain, and my nervous system weren’t built for the noise and chaos of the 21st century.

Perhaps in my past lives, I was a 1st-century priestess of Brigid, a 9th-century cunning woman, and a 19th-century naturalist.

But how will I be defined by my 21st-century life?

How does an old soul with an analogue brain not only survive but thrive in this tumultuous, hyper-digitized world?

I am a million shards, an amalgam of souls
Held together with plastic wrap and bubble gum
And still you hand me your broken pieces

As if I were not already unraveling.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth

When I was a young girl, my greatest aspiration was to attend a prestigious, historic university like Harvard, Yale, or Oxford—but especially Oxford. I didn’t even know what I wanted to study. I just knew that was where I needed to be; shuttered away in those exquisite specimens of Gothic architecture and surrounded by knowledge, where no one would expect or demand anything of me other than learning. I could literally smell those old libraries and see myself wandering the labyrinth of stacks or studying at a massive, old table in a dimly lit corner. The very idea of it seemed magical. It still does.

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same

The spring of my childhood quickly faded into the harsh summer of adolescence. Things got immensely harder for me at home, trauma started to accumulate, and my focus had to shift. My dreams of being buried in the world of academia were abandoned for realistic goals—I didn’t have the privilege of dreaming when I was fighting just to survive. I had to choose a career path that would provide me with financial stability and independence relatively quickly. My father valued education, but only in certain fields of study. If I wanted any illusion of support from him, I would have to go into science or engineering. I excelled in math and science, but they were never my passion. Just thinking about a career in engineering caused my eyes to glaze over and my stomach to turn. I loved art, literature, history, nature—whimsy most of all—but none of those paths promised a stable income in the next year or two.

My mother often said she wished she had gone to nursing school, and I did like helping people. Nursing seemed like a reasonable compromise—scientific, practical, employable, and respectable. I thought this choice would please my father.

Plot twist: it did not.

Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that it was what I had wanted all along, but really I just wanted the freedom that came with a steady paycheck. Now, I think that choice was also influenced by my eternal quest to feel loved and needed. Unfortunately, no one told me that nurses more often receive abuse than love.

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

So the little girl whose closest companions were Poe, Dickinson, Shakespeare, and Homer grew up, got serious, abandoned whimsy, and enrolled in nursing at the local community college. I graduated at the top of my class and was a registered nurse before I was old enough to buy a beer. I then spent ten years in critical care. I was competent. I was steady. I even excelled, but I was not fulfilled. My patients were the sickest of the sick, and death was not an exception — it was routine. I was fighting a constant uphill battle in the unending war against death. Every day I grew more cynical, and every night I left with a little less of my soul.

Burnout crept in quietly, then all at once.

So I did what all disillusioned critical care nurses do: I went back to graduate school. I believed that as a nurse practitioner, I would finally find what I had been searching for — the chance to keep people well instead of trying to pull them back from the brink of death. Most of all, I thought that I would feel respected in this role—maybe even loved.

I was wrong about that, too.

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The healthcare industry is not what it was twenty years ago. If it was flawed then, it is fractured now. It has become an over-corporatized, over-capitalized monstrosity where patients become numbers and statistics—it’s not much different for providers either. To the industry, to our employer, our worth is reduced to tally marks on a page—measuring productivity, not the quality of care we provide, and never the pieces of our soul we leave behind. Insurance companies dictate the care our patients receive, not evidence-based guidelines, and keeping up with the constant policy changes and documentation requirements is dizzying. Add to that a political climate that has turned public health into a battleground, and most days I feel like the little Dutch boy with his finger pressed futilely against the leaking dike.

A colleague once described modern healthcare as “death by a thousand cuts.” I have never heard a more accurate analogy.

I have been a nurse for twenty-two years now. It has provided me with stability, opportunity, and a comfortable life for my family. However, I find myself asking more and more if this work is my true calling, if I am fulfilled by it, if it makes my soul sing. The answer to that question is more and more often a resounding no.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

So I find myself at the quiet crossroads of middle age, thinking about paths not taken and lives not lived.

What if my childhood had been different, one that didn’t send me searching for escape — and for love?

Where would I be now if I had entered the world of academia instead of healthcare?

Would I ever have married or had children—would I even have felt the need to?

I may have never left the university and those library stacks. Maybe I would be teaching philosophy to undergrads, studying Marcus Aurelius’ words in a Roman archive, or in Ireland researching ancient Celtic civilizations.

Maybe my life would be slower, quieter, less chaotic, and less demanding. Maybe that life would be gentler on my nervous system, better suited to my brain.

Mostly, I find myself asking how — as a wife and mother in the rural Midwest — I can begin creating the life I am meant to live instead of continuing the one I built simply to survive.

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She was accused of crimes against the church, humanity, and of course the King himself. One of these crimes was the bold act of providing pain relief to women in labor. The audacity of her! How dare she go against the church and God’s own design by offering succor to a fellow human in agony? The church believed that women must bear the pain of childbirth as payment for Eve’s original sin in the garden of Eden—but what about Adam’s sins?

It was especially convenient for King James that Euphame was from an esteemed family and the only heir to her late father’s estate. In fact, when she married her husband, Patrick, he took her surname to preserve the MacCalzean line. Euphame was a titled landowner in her own right and despite the fact that she had a husband and heirs of her own, King James seized her lands and home in Edinburgh to bestow as gifts upon his favored courtiers.

The patriarchy has always used religion as a means to oppress women. When women became a threat to the status quo, a force of opposition, a roadblock to whims of man, they were branded as witches, brutally tortured to false confession, and executed violently and publicly—as a lesson.

To this day, whenever women attempt to exist on their own terms, live outside of the margins, or raise their voice in dissent, a target is placed on their back. Fortunately, we are not executing anyone for administering epidurals to laboring women, but this system of patriarchal persecution and oppression still exists. Modern-day witch hunts are alive and well in this country and cleverly disguised as political commentary and legislation—if anything, they are becoming more common.

So save us all from this current discourse around Muslim-Americans and the threat to women from Sharia law; because a woman’s right to exist equally in this country is under far greater threat from Christian Nationalism than from Islam.

We’ve become a society of non-thinkers. My generation and the generation before have yet to produce a great philosopher. I’m sure there are some great thinkers out there, but like me, their voices have been silenced. No one cares to read or listen to our discourse. They don’t see any value in our words and lived experiences. They roll their eyes and scroll on to another distasteful meme; they turn their ears off and change the subject. Mindless scrolling, mindless talking; they’ve become zombies searching for the next quick hit of dopamine. Empty husks driven from task to task until they lay down to sleep and think of the next day’s tasks. Tasks, tasks, tasks; nothing but robots driven to repetition. So we stop talking.

We watch mindless drivel on TV—the newest reality show or some other bastardization of what they call entertainment. If we read, it’s not philosophy or deep, thought-provoking works of fiction; we pick up the newest trending book off the shelf at Walmart. The stories are all the same; the authors are just different. It’s not literature; it’s copy and paste with a few edits.

We’ve become a society where originality and authenticity are mocked and shamed. Free thought is a relic of the past, not in this century. I doubt many have had an original thought in years. We regurgitate what we’ve seen in endless hours of scrolling, never seeking answers or truth. We don’t know where to look if we do decide to seek. There’s no new thought; we try to solve problems that have been solved for decades, even centuries, because we can’t accept solutions that don’t fit our narrative.

Deep thought and free thought are uncomfortable because they raise questions. They make us doubt ourselves and our conditioned beliefs, leading us to question the world around us. They challenge societal norms and expectations, which makes them dangerous. In a society that shuns knowledge, where educated and wise individuals are ostracized for asking questions and sharing valuable information, deep thought puts a target on your back.

Societal demands and herd mentality have driven us to this state of affairs—this is intentional—When we collectively lose the ability to free think, we become easy targets for any authority that gains power. We’ve become a society of lemmings.

Lemmings marching off the cliff into the abyss.

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Over the next few days, I found myself constantly thinking about this orchid—frankly, I was a bit obsessed with it. I couldn’t figure out why, but something about this plant was speaking to me. What was it trying to tell me? Then I remembered one of my favorite quotes by Thoreau. In Walden, Thoreau states, “If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.” Ding, ding, ding—that’s it. That’s the point. So then I began to think about how this related to myself and society as a whole.

If you attempted to cultivate this orchid in a different environment, it would likely die. Even if you could keep it alive by attempting to replicate its natural habitat, it would have stunted growth and never bloom. One might be tempted to label it as a failed species due to its lack of adaptability. However, I do not think that is a fair assumption, because it not only survives but thrives in its native habitat along the dunes, where little else grows due to poor soil quality and lack of nutrients. This species has adapted to life in a microclimate that most plants would find inhospitable. One can hardly call that a failing. Endangered, yes—but not failing.

Assimilate or die

We have the ability to recognize the importance of diversity in the world of flora and fauna—we even celebrate it—yet we struggle to embrace diversity in our own species. We are curious and enthusiastic about rare plants and quirky animals. If a plant or animal species is endangered due to changes in its habitat or food chain disruptions, we make preservation attempts because we understand that it is unlikely to survive outside its native habitat and has a valuable role in our ecosystem. With our fellow humans, though, we fall short, and throughout the course of history the expectation for humans has been assimilation or death. We praise adaptability as a prestigious trait because conformity has become the goal. We can thank Darwin and his evolutionary theories for this. Darwin was a smart fellow, but he unknowingly opened a can of worms here. His theories are not wrong, but they were misconstrued to pave the way for eugenics, which ultimately led to the Holocaust—assimilate or die.

I understand this well because I have spent a great deal of my life attempting to adapt and conform. I could not live as my authentic self because I had to live according to the rules and expectations of others. Blending in became the goal because the alternative did not feel safe. The result was years of clinical depression and crippling anxiety. I was alive, but my growth was stunted, my leaves withered, and I most certainly never bloomed. I was the Lindisfarne Helleborine, plucked out of my natural habitat and desperately attempting to adapt to a world where my most basic needs were not being met. But there was always that little nagging voice in my head whispering—assimilate or die. However, I was finally able to start living authentically, and I not only thrived, but I started to bloom—profusely. I am the Lindisfarne Helleborine, and many of you are too.

What is that little nagging voice telling some of us to assimilate, to hide our true selves, to blend in? For some of us, it is our own personal trauma that we carry. We have been misjudged, criticized, bullied, ostracized, and oppressed for our differences. Then there is inherited trauma that has literally been encoded in our DNA. We have ancestors who were persecuted, oppressed, displaced, enslaved, incarcerated, and executed for their differences. All of that weight—all that trauma, fear, and desperation—has been passed down from generation to generation. Our ancestors whisper in our ears—assimilate or die.

Adaptability isn’t just a coveted trait of the human species, but a privilege. Individuals who are adaptable can assimilate with ease. Conformity may feel quite natural for them. Of course, assimilation is not an option if you are viewed as different or “weak” due to race, gender, disability, or—in my case—neurodivergence. For me, conformity felt like a slow, withering death. Assimilation was not only painful, but impractical and unproductive.

The plague of intolerance

Collectively, as a species, humans are rather intolerant of differences. We extract them from an individual, hold them up to the light, and declare them weaknesses or faults. We devalue people based on that assumption while ignoring the fact that those differences are actually strengths in the right setting or environment. If you are reading this and thinking that you do not possess this fault because you consider yourself an open-minded individual, then I challenge you to dig deeper—because even the best of us will struggle with intolerance at one time or another. However, intolerance is not an inherent trait of our species, but a learned one, and that is good news—that means we can facilitate change.

The results of intolerance are written in every history book and engraved on many headstones: persecution, oppression, slavery, genocide, and war. Intolerance only leads to pain and suffering for the human race as a whole. So what leads to intolerance, and why do we continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over? The answer is simple—fear and greed. Unlike intolerance, fear and greed are inherent traits of our species. Although these are natural-born traits, it is important to recognize that they are base, animalistic emotions. When we let fear and greed rule, we lose our humanity, and it is our humanity that sets us apart from the beasts.

For millenia, greedy humans in positions of power have understood that fear can be weaponized as a means of controlling the populace. A fearful population can be driven to extremes—to abandon empathy, to abandon their humanity, and to commit atrocities. If one takes a good dose of fear and adds in some intolerance, you create a raging case of xenophobia—and a rabid militia ready to do your bidding. Hitler understood this, and it became a powerful weapon in his hands, one that led to the loss of millions of lives. The German-Swiss poet Hermann Hesse once said, “You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.” After Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, he also wrote that “it is the duty of spiritual types to stand alongside the spirit and not to sing along when the people start belting out the patriotic songs their leaders have ordered them to sing.” It is not surprising that the Nazis eventually banned his work.

On humanity

So how do we preserve our humanity in the face of fear and greed? We start by bringing compassion and empathy to the forefront. We stop classifying people by their perceived societal value or their ability to conform. We embrace the diversity of humans in the same way we embrace the diversity of flora and fauna. We nurture the Lindisfarne Helleborines of our own species and protect their habitats so they may thrive as well. Finally, we start controlling our fear instead of letting it control us. Then—and only then—will we cease to be pawns in the games played by the powerful and greedy. We can put the power back in the hands of the populace—a little reallocation of assets could do a world of good.

If you ever want to see the Lindisfarne Helleborine, you will need to head to Northumberland in late June to early July and make the trek across the causeway at low tide to Lindisfarne. But please stay off the dunes and let this beauty be. You can’t bring a piece of her back with you, for she won’t survive if she cannot live according to her nature.

Thank you for reading. Please leave a like or comment with your thoughts, and don’t forget to hit subscribe.

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Special thanks to James Common for the beautiful photos of the Lindisfarne Helleborine. If you love nature as much as I do then you should head over to his page, Common By Nature.

If you want to read the story that inspired my ramblings grab a copy of Tales of Occult Britain here.

Every review and rating was five stars—except for one. There it was: a single-star rating and a review titled “𝐍𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐒𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐞”. I had to blink—once, twice, three times—before I could read further. The author was not upset with the book quality, but with the actual content. I thought they must be reviewing the wrong set of books, because who hates Peter Rabbit, other than Mr. McGregor? They proceeded to lambast not only the literature but also the people who purchase or read the books, stating that they were not for children but for “adult scholars of Victorian literature with an unhealthy interest in antique textiles and pre-decimal currency.” They then complained about words used in the books, such as 𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐚𝐭 and 𝐭𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞. They went on to assert that “there are zero children… who actually open, read, and enjoy these books,” and that this is just “something you display to look like a nostalgic, upper-class parent.”

At first, I was a bit angry that anyone would make such broad assumptions and be so critical of others for purchasing and reading these books. Then I was amused that anyone could be so vexed by Peter Rabbit, other than Mr. McGregor, that they would take the time to write such a lengthy and critical review. Finally, though, I landed on pity—because one has to pity a person who cannot find joy in something as beautiful and innocent as the world of Beatrix Potter. I cannot fault them for their opinion of the books. Everyone enjoys different things; that is what makes humans such a diverse and interesting species. The problem here is not personal taste, but the criticism and intolerance of others for purchasing and enjoying the books. I do not enjoy reading science fiction, but I am not out there throwing shade on Amazon at people who read Andy Weir.

The world is a cruel place. Our country is filled with civil unrest and on the brink of ruin. Every day we wake up to a new horrific news headline. Our social media feeds are inundated with AI-generated content and propaganda. Beatrix Potter’s books are something real, something substantial, something valuable in a world that is starting to feel all too unreal—too manufactured. Maybe some of us want to give our children the gift of a softer kind of world, one filled with talking bunnies, whimsical cottage gardens, and gentle lessons. Maybe we want to lose ourselves in this world a bit, too. Perhaps the change that our country needs most is a generation of children raised on Beatrix Potter, Aesop’s Fables, and Mr. Rogers.

I honestly have to thank Mr. McGregor for writing that review, because they have provided me with an excellent introduction for my treatise, 𝑨𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒐𝒓 𝑻𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆: 𝑨 𝑳𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒊𝒏 𝑫𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒇𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒆 𝑯𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒃𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒆, in which I discuss the importance of diversity, the dangers of intolerance, and how we retain our humanity in a world turned upside down.

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The murder of Renee Good is an unjustifiable tragedy. And make no mistake about it, cold blood murder is what it was. It could’ve have been me it could be you.

The only thing worse than seeing the videos is reading the comment sections on social media. How have we reached this place? How have we allowed the normalization of senseless loss of life? The dehumanization, the coldness, the callousness is stunning. When as a nation did we lose our humanity? How do we recover?

Donald Trump is a man who has been accused of sexual assault by dozens of women, is a serial adulterer, an adjudicated rapist, and an abject misogynist who has made countless disparaging remarks about women—including his own daughter. Perhaps it was female intuition, but I disliked him from the first time I saw him on The Apprentice. He always struck me as an unserious character—something cartoonish, gaudy, even vulgar. He seemed like someone who belonged in the Playboy Mansion, not sitting behind the Resolute desk.

Every time a new moral controversy involving him emerges, I think, This must be it. This must finally be the line for them. And every single time, I am proven wrong. I have watched people twist themselves into human pretzels, abandoning their own ethics to defend a man who possesses none.

The MAGA movement has been fueled by moral panic and rage. The morals are selective and capricious; the rage is often untethered from reality: LGBTQ people, critical race theory, immigrants, DEI, reproductive freedom, ANTIFA—and let us not forget the viral “Save the Children” campaign of 2020, where QAnon conspiracy theorists claimed that a cannibalistic cabal of elite Democrats was running a child-trafficking ring out of a pizza parlor, and that Trump alone would end these atrocities. Now, it appears the call was coming from inside the house all along.

Trump has tried for years to distance himself from Epstein, despite their well-documented relationship. Epstein was a regular guest at Mar-a-Lago, and there are countless photos of them together. Yet Epstein returns to haunt him like the Ghost of Christmas Past. Trump campaigned on promises to release the “Epstein files,” and MAGA swallowed it whole. The files were reportedly on Pam Bondi’s desk—until they weren’t. Then suddenly there was no list at all. Meanwhile, the administration has worked tirelessly to block their release, even warning Republican lawmakers that voting to disclose them would be considered “a hostile act against the administration,” and delaying the swearing-in of Congresswoman Adelita Grivalja for seven weeks. They have insisted that Trump’s sexually explicit birthday missive to Epstein in 2003 was a forgery, though his signature, artfully placed to resemble pubic hair, appears authentic.

This past week, a large cache of emails was released from Epstein’s estate, some referencing Trump. Three of them stand out: they suggest Trump spent hours with one of Epstein’s victims, had visited Epstein’s house and island, and was aware of the sexual abuse and trafficking. One would think this would be the straw that broke the MAGA camel’s back—that supporters would finally have to reconcile their conscience and denounce Trump for what he is: an abuser of women. But that is not happening.

True to form, the administration responded with an aggressive defense, insisting the emails are a Democratic hoax and even calling for the DOJ to investigate prominent Democrats and their relationship with Epstein. MAGA supporters themselves cannot settle on a unified message. I can excuse those claiming the emails are fabricated—they seem ignorant of the facts or simply delusional. What I cannot excuse are the people who accept the emails as legitimate but try to create a new narrative, one that is even more damaging to women. And I especially cannot excuse the women doing so.

One theme I’ve seen is the attempt to paint Trump as a hero because one email said, “of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop” They argue that if he told her to stop, then he is innocent. This is Olympic-level mental gymnastics. If he knew about the sexual abuse and trafficking of minors and failed to report it, then he is absolutely complicit—whether or not he directly participated. There is no alternate argument, and I am shocked to see people make this claim publicly as it is damaging to their own character.

Others are attempting to downplay the severity of Epstein’s crimes now that distancing Trump from him is no longer viable. Former Fox News personality Megyn Kelly made this attempt on her podcast, suggesting Epstein wasn’t “really” a pedophile because there is a moral difference between abusing a fifteen-year-old and an eight-year-old. There is not. She even said, “He was into the barely legal type,” which is categorically incorrect. “Barely legal” refers to a young woman who is of legal age but appears young. And even if it did not, the distinction would be meaningless—abuse is abuse.

I was thirteen years old when a middle-aged man shoved his hands down my pants and told me I owed him access to my body because he had helped my mother change a deadbolt and snuck me a pack of KOOLs. It was not the first time he touched me, but it was the first time his intentions were glaringly obvious. Should I now believe that what happened to me wasn’t that traumatic because I was older than eight? Was he any less of a predator? The answer is a resounding no.

This type of rhetoric is inherently damaging to women. It disenfranchises survivors by suggesting their trauma is less valid depending on age, and reduces a woman’s value to her youth. One cannot ignore that MAGA’s continued defense of Trump debases American women.

One must consider whether the men defending Trump in the face of mounting evidence are themselves abusers of women or children. But how does one reconcile the women who do the same?

In Women Who Run With the Wolves, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés retells the story of Bluebeard and teaches that some women have abandoned their intuition entirely. Women who silence their intuition raise daughters without it—sending them into the world as easy prey for abusers like Bluebeard— or Epstein.

This leaves me thinking that MAGA women have either abandoned their intuition to gain acceptance or never possessed it to begin with. Perhaps the most tragic part is that they are raising daughters who will be without it as well—perpetuating a cycle of abuse. Maybe the incremental desensitization and debasement of women is the strategy. And if so…what is the end game?

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Today marks my fortieth trip around the sun — a milestone I’ve spent half my life dreading. This past year began rocky, to say the least, but ended up being incredibly transformative. I’ll forever remember my thirty-ninth year as the year of the Great Awakening

I have spent my life plagued by anxiety, wondering why I struggled with things that others did not. My peers seemed to handle day-to-day life with relative ease, while I usually felt like a wild animal caught in a trap. When I was younger, I chalked it up to age and told myself that things would get easier when I was older. Last year, I realized that I was almost forty — and that nothing was going to change, nothing was going to get easier, and nothing was going to get better. Instead, things were getting harder. That’s when the glass bottom fell out and shattered into a million shards. My brain and I were at an impasse; it was time to try something different. So I started seeing a therapist, and two things came to light that would change my entire life.

I was already well aware that I was carrying loads of trauma from my childhood, as well as from past sexual and domestic abuse. However, I didn’t realize how pervasive this trauma was within my psyche — nor how much it was affecting my daily life, mental health, and physical well-being. Even worse, I had no idea how to heal from it. My entire life, I had just been shoving it down deep inside and piling more on top until there was no room for anything else. We started by identifying the major triggers and negative self-beliefs, then worked through them in EMDR therapy, which has proven very beneficial for me.

I also knew that I had ADHD, but in the process of finally managing it appropriately and working through past trauma, something else became evident. Neither ADHD nor CPTSD could fully account for my lived experiences from early childhood onward. One day, I told my therapist that I was confident both my father and sister had been autistic. She challenged me to think on that further — perhaps it wasn’t just them who were.

I made lists and flowcharts of my symptoms and struggles, categorizing them diagnostically and analyzing them for weeks, only to find that the majority of what I found troublesome could be attributed to autism. After that, everything clicked, and my entire life started to make sense. I stopped constantly wondering what was wrong with me or why I felt things so differently than others. However, once you let that cat out of the box — Schrödinger’s or otherwise — you can never put her back in.

I was formally diagnosed with autism in June. No one really talks about the grieving process that follows a late diagnosis — not grieving the diagnosis itself, but grieving the years you lost and who you could have been if you had known sooner. At the same time, I felt immense relief. I was finally free to be myself, unapologetically.

All these years, I had been trying to make my brain work like a neurotypical one, and in the process, I was stunting my actual strengths and innate abilities. I constantly suppressed my need to stim, refused to make accommodations for myself, kept my special interests hidden, and felt ashamed of my fleeting hyperfixations. My brain works so much better now that I allow it to function the way it was designed to. Before, I always felt like I was trying to eat a bowl of soup through a straw while wearing a straitjacket — I got the job done, but it wasn’t efficient or enjoyable.

I spent my entire life masking, performing, and suppressing myself. I crammed into spaces where I didn’t fit, compartmentalized my life, and forced myself to do things that were inherently uncomfortable for me. Masking had become a survival skill, and I was so adept at it that I even masked from myself. I had no idea who I truly was anymore; I was living a perfectly curated life that I had created — but loathed. Perhaps I hated myself even more for that.

I had to begin the long process of deconstruction, and the hardest part was reaching a place where I felt safe enough to do so. The idea was terrifying, but the alternative was no longer sustainable. Through peeling back the layers, I’ve found the woman I was twenty years ago — before she let the world tell her she was too much, too weird, too difficult, and not enough. The most surprising part is that I think she’s pretty amazing — and I actually love her.

Recently, I haven’t been dreading this birthday at all; in fact, I’ve been looking forward to celebrating it for months. I’ve spent my entire life being who others expected me to be and doing what others expected me to do. When I was young, I set very specific goals for my life — and I’m happy to say that, despite taking some detours, I’ve achieved them all. The work has been done, so this moment right here is when the fun begins. From now on, I’m going to focus on living my life intentionally, authentically, and on my own terms. I’m setting boundaries, slowing down, and doing things that bring me joy.

I’m not entirely sure what direction my life will take in the next few years, but I do know it will look very different from the last twenty. I’d like to focus more of my time on writing. I’ll be focusing on mental health, neurodivergence, and female empowerment — with some philosophy, history, and folklore thrown in to keep things interesting. My goal is to start working on a book, though I have a bit more healing to do before I’m ready to tackle that.

This year has been a long road full of introspection, discovery, and a great deal of healing. It began as one of the darkest times in my life and ended as one of the brightest. Without the support of my husband, friends, and a phenomenal therapist, I wouldn’t be writing this today.

I’m sure some will read this and wonder why I would choose to put all of myself out here like this. The answer is simple: because. Because we need to talk about mental health and neurodivergence without shame or fear of judgment. Because reading this memoir might help someone else. And because, most of all, I have one heck of a story to tell — and I’m just getting started.

Everyone, even neurotypical individuals, masks to some extent. However, masking as a neurodivergent woman is on a whole different level. It can become all consuming and mentally exhausting.

I had been heavily masking for so many years that I completely lost my sense of self. I even masked in my own home with my children and spouse. Masking consumed so much of my energy that I reached a deep state of burnout that took me a whole year to recover from. I felt that no one knew who I really was, not even my husband. Well, how could they? I was quite skilled at hiding the messy and weird parts, even from myself.

Why did I mask so hard and heavy? It wasn't for fun. It wasn't just because I thought I needed to. It wasn’t to be deceitful.

I masked for survival, because I had been show time and time again that being myself wasn’t safe. Unfortunately, most of the individuals who taught me that should have been my safest people. Ahah...this is where that tricky, little cPTSD component comes in and mucks everything up.

When I first started going to therapy last year, I told my therapist that my biggest problem was the rage I felt all the time. It was eating me alive. I felt like wolf with their leg caught in a trap; wild eyed, hackles up, spinning in circles with barred teeth, gnashing their jaws and lashing out at anything that comes near. I could not understand why I constantly felt this way and I hated myself for it. She suggested that the reason why I felt so much rage was because I was forcing myself to be someone I'm not. She was right. I was constantly masking, fawning, minimizing, and people pleasing through gritted teeth and clenched hands, while the real me was clawing underneath the surface trying to get out.

Masking behaviors might include:

• Forcing yourself to make eye contact, even when it is uncomfortable.

• Changing the way you speak or act around different people or groups to "fit in."

• Not setting healthy boundaries with others, or setting them but repeatedly allowing others to cross them.

• Hiding whole parts of yourself from others, even those close to you.

• Engaging in activities or events that you have no interest in because you want to appear sociable, or because it is what everyone else is doing.

• Making statements that you don't really believe or agree with, just to avoid standing out.

• Being overly rigid with your physical appearance and dress to always appear "put together" or "normal."

• Scripting and rehearsing entire conversations, sometimes for hours or days, before you have to speak with someone or make a phone call.

• Suppressing the urge to stim when not in private or adopting covert ways to meet that need.

• Constantly monitoring the tone and inflection of your speech.

• Hiding your special interests and hyperfixations from others because they wouldn't understand or might be judgmental.