North Avenue Pier, Chicago (June 2025)

I am a fast walker, and I walk a lot.

One of my friends used to remind me that every time we would go walk the park, her Apple Watch would say, “It seems you are out for a run.” Would you like me to track your distance?”

A fast walker indeed.

When I am choosing a new neighborhood, one of the musts for me is walkability. I spent years driving clients around searching for homes and would daydream about being carless someday, like I am now. Everywhere I go on a regular basis is walkable. My feet are my primary form of transportation. I love it.

With that, there are times when the way I walk isn’t a match when someone says, “Do you want to go for a walk?”

Shortly after I came out as gay in 2016, I went on many back-to-back dates. Looking back, I see how challenging it was to navigate because of how much context I was missing. (Dear Nate, it’s me, autism).

One particular match in our first conversation, instead of asking me to meet at a bar, asked me if I wanted to meet and go for a walk. “Me!? A walk?!?!” (Que Whitney Houston, “And IIIIIII will always love youuu).”

When we met, I noticed he was a bit dressier than me. I was wearing sweatpants, tennis shoes, and a lack of self-awareness on what to do on dates. He had on boots, a heavy sweater, and reflective sunglasses, his hair neatly styled in place. Off we go.

On multiple occasions during our walk, he would pause, reach for my arm, and with panting breath say, “Do you mind if we slow down?” “Oh yeah, sure.” I would say. At the slower pace I felt out of sorts. Is he ill? Do his legs hurt? It felt like we were almost standing still.

When we got to the end of the park and were next to his jeep, I was sweating and said, “That was a good walk.” He seemed perplexed and tired. For him a walk in the park was engaging. For me, it was exercise. In my truest fashion, I, The Roadrunner, misunderstood his invitation to walk was meant to be a leisurely stroll.

What I know now about being autistic, carrying cPTSD and needing to walk fast:

1). Any type of movement with my body is releasing energy at a rate and speed that is hard to manage. If I am moving in a confined space (a small gym), I feel restricted, fearful even, and find myself talking a lot because I am processing the energy moving about.

2). I hate crowds. I am at my weakest in a public space when there is no easy exit. A slow walk in a crowded space feels like I am being asked to hold a secret I didn’t want to hear. The combination of feeling like I am in an unknown transition and trapped does not bode well.

When I moved to Chicago, someone left a message once that said, “I just know you are walking around the city and brightening people’s day with your beautiful smile.” I felt guilty for how disappointed that person would feel if they observed me in public, ravishly making my way to yoga, so I tried to walk slower that day and smile at people. It didn’t work.

The more I have learned about how my brain works, the more access I have had to other stories and behaviors that, I assume, have seemed harder for others to understand. While I can appreciate that autism restricts my ability to relax in transition, I have also noticed there is a particular sting when I am unable to make my way through a crowd swiftly.

The best walk for me is a familiar one. The same loop, over and over. The playlist in my headphones that has the song that matches the intensity vibrating off my body. Sometimes, that is soothing acoustic, and sometimes it’s Eminem explaining to the world why he and I make sense and everyone who doesn’t understand us can F*ck right off, because we don’t need them! Side note: I don’t mean it near as much as he does.

There was a particular walk that spoke to me not long after I had been diagnosed as autistic. I appreciated there being a name to an experience I had every day, all day, my whole life, and how by learning more, I would find myself feeling less lost. But autisitc, or not, this one walk was touching something different in me. While I could not get around the family of three, my anger was not justified. I knew, through a gentle pause, that something else was being touched.

If an elderly person is having difficulty on the sidewalk, I am the first to offer aid. I can’t not help.

If someone with a disability needs any type of assistance, I rush to clear the path.

But, in this particular setting, it was a family, strolling, the three of them, and somehow my body experienced that similar emotion it always does that felt like they were taunting me with their togetherness. As if they came out of their beautiful dinner together, saw me, and said, “Let’s make sure he sees us together,” to remind him how often he feels out of place while making his way through the crowd.”

That moment changed my perception of how I walk in public. There was no way for me to deny that what I was experiencing was jealousy, grief, and anger. It was like standing on a sidewalk in November and someone saying “Merry Christmas” and meaning it, and me begging them not to do that, because Christmas was not merry and I just needed to get through November before I braced myself for what was to come the next month.

Estrangement is a bitch. I have never met a person who was excited to say goodbye to their family without having a complex path of seeking many other solutions first.

There are two parts to this that I wish were understood about those of us who are estranged.

1). Chosen family does not always sound good. Too often, there is this idea that by having chosen family, it takes away the grief and sting of what your biological family did. I have never wanted someone to replace what I have lost through estrangement. I have wanted them to accept that those people can’t be replaced. They can only be grieved. I do not wish to replace people. I wish to accept my reality and have an honest grip on what I long for most and what I need to be understood in any relationship going forward.

2). While estrangement is often necessary, it is also traumatic. We are biologically wired to be dependent on our family. To get to a place where you have to work against that wiring in order to trust something else will be sustaining is a complicated path for any person who wants to feel like they belong.

After estrangement, after healing, after change, we often find ourselves looking around at the people closest to us and saying, “But, do you see me?” “No, really, do you understand what my mind and body have gone through?”

As much as we trust that another person has that capacity, the reality is sometimes, we don’t even know. We do what we can with what we have and find ourselves, years later, being hurt on sidewalks because a family of three is walking together in front of us. They are taking up space there, and I want to believe I am being inconvenienced when what is really happening is their joy is touching my grief and pulling it to the surface.

No wonder the predictable walk feels less threatening. If anything, there may be someone on roller blades who speeds by, an occasional jogger who breathes hard, but I am able to keep moving and let my grief stay in its hidden compartment.

When I am moving about and forced to slow down and pause while having to observe someone who has access to something I don’t, it feels like they have all the power.

There are a few steps I have taken to offer myself grace in these moments:

1). Breathe deep and trust that there are many like-minded people that, if they knew this story, would come to my aid in a heartbeat to try and offer relief.

2). Allowing the younger version of me the space to bring whatever he needs to bring me.

3). Be so grateful that there are kids that have the security, balance, and safety that they need to be well-rounded adults. Yes, there is still a young part of me that aches by having to see it, but there is a grown part of me that appreciates the place for gratitude for witnessing something so beautiful be played out in real time.

The transition started when I no longer had to protect my grief. Instead, I was able to welcome it and let it tell me about what it has gripped tightly and why that makes me ache. Over time, that grief is able to nudge, rather than yell, and that allows me to accept what is actually happening in real time vs. experiencing shame for thinking I should just not go out in public.

There are so many people around you in survival mode. There are people with unprocessed traumatic stories, hard pasts, and unpsoken fears. And yet, we are all walking around trying to protect those things because of the vulnerability of feeling them be provoked by something beautiful.

I believe the barrier jealousy plays between our grief and someone else’s normal is fragile because we’re not sure if people know what they have to be grateful for. If they truly are aware of what they have access to and how much that would mean to a person who has had to rebuild a different life on their own.

The conclusion I have come to is that I am going to be honest with those responses from whatever part of my body reacts. On some days, it may feel lonelier, and on others, I may choose to express gratitude for bearing witness to the beauty of a young boy in the middle of holding both his parents’ hands. The only way I am able to do that is by allowing the younger version of me to show me his grief and help him process that in real time.

I remind myself that while that was a long time ago, I rebuilt a life that didn’t allow room for honest emotions for quite some time. That by lessening the impact of complicated relationships, I was able to turn my view to hurt parts of me and say, “Your pain is too much. We have to heal this.”

The firsts are the hardest with honesty like this. How dare we admit we’re jealous? Who on earth would be honest about what they wish they had out loud? Gratitude? For someone else getting what you needed?

There is a process that pulls that pain in and breathes new life into old stories. In the beginning of this process, it will feel like it is too much, until you sense a past part of you find relief. It’s not a subtle change. It’s an exhale that can only be invited in by honest context and a safe invitation. It’s like pausing on the sidewalk when faced with a beautiful family and seeing how that provokes your story and comforting yourself there.

This process, healing, alignment—it is a lot. But finding the path to peace gets easier when you trust yourself to say new things out loud. The complex things that people usually want to grab at a surface level and say, “You should…” or “You just need to…” and instead of sharing them with others, you treat them like gold. You hold them closely and realize their weight does not feel good, and the reason for that is because something about it needs to be carried differently.

We are complex. We live under umbrellas called psychology and psychiatry and therapy, and still, they sometimes don’t touch on what it means to need to be given permission to be honest without being interrupted.

If you’ve been a host of complex trauma, there is sometimes a shift needed that stops asking permission to move that trauma out of your body. That, for some, means big personal changes, estrangement, a name for a story, or a ferocious hunger to bite into something more. It can also mean a simple pause on your walk to understand what is being touched in you and how your touch can offer more than the trigger.

There are so many people walking around with these kinds of stories. There are different paces and postures, and each person will have a different outcome. Healing for me has been accepting what is real for me in that moment. Allowing a past part of me to interrupt my pace so a new layer of something old can be exhaled. It has been accepting that there is no pace fast enough to get me to a destination that resolves pain without naming it.

It does not have to be poetic. There is no such thing as perfect. But this is your gentle reminder that there is no one more powerful than you to meet a hurting part of you and be the person that helps them find relief.

I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

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If you’re needing a supportive space, my online community offers connection, privacy, and a lot of context to healing. Interesting fact: 60% of people in the group are strictly observers. They are there to learn. They are there to take in the content and preserve their space. And the more vocal people in the group are some of the most compassionate folks you will meet. There are many options, no matter what you need. You can get the details and sign up here.

Truly, truly. I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

Gaspar Hernandez, Dominican Republic

January 2026

Several years ago, I bought a home that needed remodeling. It was a condo that was outdated and not functional. When people tell you how stressful a remodel is, listen.

The peak of stress came on the day the appliance company (I would never name names, but it was Best Buy) delivered the appliances and installed them. I was living in a rental property a ways away, and the HOA called yelling that my kitchen had flooded my downstairs neighbor. I rushed over, and no one from the appliance company (Best Buy in San Diego) would return my call.

I rushed to the condo to find my contractor telling me, “They didn’t attach the water valve.” They installed the dishwasher, and the water valve was never attached. They turned the dishwasher on to run a test cycle and left.

Hence, the flood. And it was a flood that came one day after the new wood floors had been installed.

That day my body ached. My eyes hurt with sharp, burning pain. With all the phone calls and driving back and forth (to Best Buy in Mission Valley on Mission Center Rd) I could not get my nervous system to settle.

Later that evening I went to the water and stared for hours. I wasn’t sure that it was safe to think consciously and be present. I needed the impact of something numbing because the reality of what was done and what was to come was too much.

I had one of the biggest epiphanies of my life that day. I was jealous.

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I could not imagine what it was like to be so careless to make such a huge mistake and not have abusive repercussions.

I could not imagine what it was like to be so dismissive that you ignore someone’s call over a significant mess that you made without having catastrophic pain inflicted.

I could not imagine not feeling overly responsible for everyone around me and telling them I will take care of everything and make sure everyone is satisfied in the end (which is what I said to my downstairs neighbor).

Is it just jealousy? No. It’s also grief. Grief that, as childhood trauma survivors we have had to rebuild our lives with so much responsibility that we often let go of what we want and need, because it feels out of reach.

We grieve over other people walking around in a world where we know they have never endured the kind of pain that changed them in an instant.

We grieve the time that was meant to be spent holding us close and teaching us about safety, and how we had no choice but to be in survival mode instead.

That is a heavy grief. And that grief deserves to be processed in a way that shows respect to the losses, as well as the intense feelings towards others who seem to not have any idea how hard life has been.

Is that their fault? No. And it is not our place to teach them. But in grief’s purest form it creates this beautiful pathway for us to not feel trapped by aches and instead have a larger spectrum of feelings towards our experience, like gratitude for words that heal and relief that we are learning to get answers to hard questions.

There is much more that could be added to this. There is no shame in the jealousy or the grief. These are normal responses that need space for processing, time, understanding, and peace. You deserve that. And, I think the critical eye of others fades when we take out the sting in ourselves from where it started and what it has cost.

In closing:

The stress of childhood trauma is hard. As we navigate life and people, we must have a grounded respect for our experience. We must have compassion for what has come from that pain. We must have space for deep, deep self-love and allow that to be where we are rooted and where we see the rest of the world.

I’m glad you’re here!

Nate

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I have a few spots left for private (1:1) life mapping calls in September (and one timeslot left in August). You can schedule that here.

My online group is continuing a series on “Healing from The Scapegoat Role. This week we are doing an in-depth look at what happens when those we’ve loved (tried to love, wanted love from) continually cross boundaries, making healing feel that much more out of reach. If this is a topic you’d benefit from, please grab a spot in my group here.

Truly, truly. I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

I never connected with the book “The Body Keeps the Score.” I understand it helped a large audience understand things and have new language around trauma, but each time I attempted to move my way through the book, I felt, for me, it didn’t allow breathing room to digest the magnitude of what the score was.

I appreciate that this book opened the door for many conversations that helped hurting people find relief. I resent that when someone who has carried complex trauma for years attempts to share they’re suffering, they are now often met with, “Well, the body keeps the score.”

But he’s right. The body definitely keeps the score. And one of the ways I have seen that in my life was every early May, when the Mother’s Day ads would start playing, reminding me how abnormal and out of place I am.

Can you imagine if estrangement from an abusive mother were mainstream and Hallmark tried to capitalize on it? They start offering cards that say, “Your mother may not have done the best she could.” And then you open the card, and it says, “But you can. Happy no-Mother’s Day.” And the card is $8.99, but the envelope is an extra .99 but if you want adhesive ON the envelope where it actually seals all the way, that’s another .39.

“Anyway, we’re praying for you unless you’re also doing the non-religious thing, and in that case we are sending love, light, and positivity.”

Sincerely,

Hallmark.

No sooner than I clinch my jaw to get through Mother’s Day, is it over, and within a couple of weeks, my dad’s birthday arrives. The sting doesn’t feel as strong as the Mother’s Day aches. Mostly it’s because there isn’t a holiday called “Nate’s estranged dad’s birthday,” where everyone is talking about how great a day it is and how to make sure I was responsible to make him feel special. But still, the calendar shows me the date in May, and there is always a stir, at least awareness, that my story, our story, does not coincide with how birthdays for a father are meant to feel.

When his birthday ends, the countdown to Father’s Day quickly follows. It usually lands 2-3 weeks behind, and again, it does not feel as heavy or commercialized as the pressure to embrace Mother’s Day, but it is another day that my body reacts to because there is a social norm attached to it that I am unable to adapt to.

Mother’s Day, his birthday, and Father’s Day are all capped off with my mother’s birthday trailing the other three. These four events happen in about 7 weeks’ time, and each year I’ve felt like someone had a magnifying glass on my shame showing the world how small I felt by being a person who wanted these days and dates to go away. Stupid, stupid score.

From the perspective of abuse recovery, the context I think that is often missing is the depth and width needed to hold the stories of people who carry complex trauma. It feels to me that there is often little room to allow that person to breathe out their truths in order for them to experience an energy that tells them, by sharing that truth, they are now beginning a new journey towards restoration. If anything, it’s as if they identify something in them that feels like a fully loaded scoresheet, and when they attempt to reveal that scoresheet, they are told to learn to accept the score, embrace the score, turn the score into a great memory for other people, or use the score to get stronger.

By the way, I am no longer referencing the book but just the term “score” based on my experience (professional and personal) in healing spaces.

These memories, these anniversaries, these things we’re meant to somehow know how to make better, have a gritty complexity in how they show up in our minds and bodies.

Imagine if someone is coming to terms with being a survivor of abuse from a parent. They have spent their adulthood returning to that parent trying to make them see their worth, because they believed there may have been something about them that deserved that abuse. They’ve established a life based on this identity. Oftentimes, they become an overachiever to outpace the shame or an underachiever because they think that keeps them hidden—under the radar. And they are freshly coming to terms with words they have never heard like “trauma,” “scapegoat,” and “neglect.”

And no sooner than they say those words, then a regular date on the calendar that happens every year feels different after they’ve shared their scoresheet. The random event, holiday, or routine is requiring a little more from them in order for it to remain regular.

The score is often revealed to people when they are going through big life change–divorce, loss, addiction, rock bottom, burnout, depression, and the many other paths to people learning they have a body and it has a score. This is when life is giving them much of that gritty complexity. If drinking from a firehouse is the analogy of getting too much information too fast, then the beginning of healing is drinking from a firehouse but only being given a straw (the paper ones, that collapse).

When you begin to understand what the score is, it is imperative to begin building a relationship with your body that allows it to speak about how it perceives your thoughts of it, your movement in it, and your view of the things that impact it most.

Acknowledging that score, with or without those who made the score, is critical in learning to embrace those gritty stories and begin to take their sting away.

I want to tell you two things I wish every person heard the moment they hear the words like “Do the work” or “That is Trauma” or even “You have cPTSD.”

1). Your relationship with your body is going to confuse the fuck out of you. When people tell you that “Your gut doesn’t lie,” they are not understanding how much you’ve had to do to appease people who were hurting you. It’s not that your gut is trying to lie or confuse you, but that it is tied to a nervous system that needed to survive in an environment that did not make sense to them.

Your gut may be buried under layers of hypervigilance and fear, and if you can’t hear it or don’t trust it, that makes sense. But, if you can take on the role of director of what messages help your body release vs. which messages shut it down, you will be able to see, much quicker, what healing in real time looks like for a body with complex trauma. You will see the impacts of certain people, environments, and energies that may have been family, community, or your norm and realize that your body is attempting to find a way to release the gritty complexity that it was not prepared for.

This will lead to your body feeling more like home. This will take time. This will be foreign if you’ve experienced trauma. This is doable and does not need to be on someone else’s terms.

2). Believing you need to change, alter, or improve your body before you can embrace it fully is, in itself, another belief that can feel as turbulent as a trauma anniversary. This belief slaps another label on it, without seeing the width and depth needed for it to find relief. This does not mean you can’t work towards goals, but if those goals are set with the assumption that it makes your body more worthy, you are on a slippery slope of treating it like a checklist item rather than the sacred resource it is.

If this made you bristle, consider next time your body asking for a pause or rest, that you pushing it further, is the equivalent of saying, “Just be more positive.”

I wish I was sharing these ideas from a place of expertise. This is coming from someone who has swung the pendulum from eating discorders to smoking a pack a day to excessive exercising until injury.

And while I am not an expert in this part of my life, I can assure you I am really proud of what I have learned to do with my body. Slowing down included.

I will turn 49 on Tuesday. As you know, these dates are complex too. The life I continue to build increases its peace year after year. That path has been unexpected and curvy, had steep drop-offs, but continues to bring me back to my body.

I have a couple close friends whose birthdays are the week before mine. I often put extra calendar alerts for myself while gathering memes, quotes, or ideas that I want to send to them. To make them feel seen. To make sure they know how much they matter.

This year, there was a disconnect. A bit of a panic. I felt off and kept revisiting my calendar, assuming I had done something wrong. I would look at my phone and then my laptop, wondering why I kept putting this pressure on myself when their birthdays aren’t here yet.

Again and again, last week I had this pang of something, a nudge asking me to take inventory. Asking me to look at the score sheet.

One more pause. One much-needed glance to appease my body. What is this? What is it trying to say? I had not forgotten my friends’ birthdays. I had forgotten my trauma anniversaries.

I remembered Mother’s Day, and I taught a class about it. Father’s Day too. I saw those words on the calendar, and I noticed the numbers for their birthdays in real time. I didn’t neglect the trauma anniversaries because I was afraid of what was to come. My body and I were busy. Specifically, I was writing. I was reading. I was cooking one of three delicious meals those days, as I do each day. I went for a walk. I texted with friends. I fell asleep with a book cracked open.

I didn’t try not to remember what has continually made me feel out of place. I stopped fighting those external voices that told me how I was supposed to feel and started having more conversations with my body. In the beginning, I treated it like a circus animal that needed to be tamed. As if I would allow it to take center stage if it proved its prowess.

That led to more time loss. When the dates would pop up, my body was not only reminding me of the painful reminders but also how much more painful those reminders are when I am not giving it room to speak.

I didn’t forget the trauma anniversaries because I am lying to myself. I forgot them because there is no longer loss for me on those days. Walk at the park. Breakfast. Book. Writing. Gentle breeze through soft white drapes.

The score has been erased. Not because I did it right or well, but because I surrendered to my body and gave it the time and attention it deserved.

May we all heal.

I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

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My online group meets weekly. This week we are doing a deep dive on Healing From The Scapegoat Role. You can register for the group here.

I have a few spots left for private (1:1) life mapping calls in September (and one timeslot left in August). You can schedule that here.

Truly, truly. I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

I’ve noticed a lot of stories in my comments around traumatic therapy lately. I am going to expand this beyond potential therapists and share considerations for any type of new connection below based on everything I wish I knew thirty years ago.

To be clear, I am not sharing this from a place of expertise from things I did well, but a place of deep pain, not knowing, and learned knowledge that helped me understand the vulnerability in asking for and needing professional help.

Specifically for therapists:

1). What made you want to become a therapist?

There isn’t a right answer to look for. This is more for you to get a sense of whether or not this is someone that feels like you would want to connect with in a deep way. If their answer does not resonate with you, it is best to consider what that would feel like to share personal details about in the areas you are needing help and guidance.

If the fit does not align, it does not mean they are a bad therapist or that you have unrealistic needs. It means you are being diligent. A good therapist will have respect for that.

2). What does trauma-informed mean to you?

There is a right answer here. The term trauma-informed has different meanings, and according to google, everyone has a different interpretation. I am sharing mine from a survivor’s perspective.

• Trauma-informed means there is a consideration of the impacts to the mind and body in the therapy session when sharing traumatic memories. There is a grounded approach to help understand, revisit, reprocess said trauma. These modalities can be EMDR, IFS, Somatic Experiencing, and several others. (In my opinion, these modalities should never be done until there is a solid foundation built where the client feels empowered and enlightened to move forward).

• There is a disconnect with a therapist calling themselves “trauma-informed” and only offering talk therapy. Talk therapy is ideal for laying a foundation for helping a client reprocess said memories later, but continually talking about traumatic memories without reprocessing (having the energy moved out/intensity lessened) can be (and often is) retraumatizing.

• I believe someone who has done other work can experience healing from talk therapy. But, I think the risk is far greater (especially if there is present day activation) of the person experiencing further stress by talking about it over and over without a process to eliminate its pull.

3). How do you handle rupture and repair?

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This is a bold question to ask a therapist on the front end, but it helps give you a unique view on the front end that you made need later. You may be coming from a place where you don’t know how you handle it, much less someone else. If that is the case, this is a terrific learning opportunity. Here are a few signs to look for:

• Rupture and repair is normal in therapy. If it is happening on a regular basis, I would question if it is the right fit. The point of therapy is to be therapeutic (the process that helps relieve stress, anxiety, worry). That is hard to experience if there is a constant need for you or a therapist to continue to discuss your dynamic vs. what you are trying to heal.

• What each person needs during rupture and repair is going to be different. For me, I would need to know the therapist has a genuine desire to know how I experienced that. If that is not an option, and I am having to re-explain it often to attempt to help us recalibrate, it is centering the therapist’s needs over my own.

• Rupture and repair can be quite healing. I have had moments of this with every good therapist I have had, and each time brought a sense of clarity and understanding. It makes the therapist human, and the reminder that pulling two people together in a space, looking for resolve, can only happen if they are on the same page about how to repair an unexpected disconnect.

While the above questions and responses are for seeking therapy, I wanted to add this piece for those in that vulnerable space of seeking new people in general.

The most important traits I look for are:

1). Self-awareness: When someone is self-aware, they’re able to receive feedback when something they are doing creates instability in you, and they are able to offer feedback when you are doing things that create chaos for them. When a person has done little to no self-reflection, they tend to believe everything is on their terms and there is little to no room for logical conversation about change. They don’t consider how other people are impacted by their actions, and they lack the ability to take ownership in order to make changes that bring them closer to others.

My experience (for the most part), has been people who’ve carried complex trauma tend to be self-conscious rather than self-aware. When you have a history of complex trauma, it often comes with feeling like you are a walking apology, and need to mold yourself to make other people never feel discomfort. Becoming self-aware, means you are taking up the appropriate space, and allowing yourself to feel the discomfort of being seen.

I know, I know. But, please know there is risk in that self-consciousness. Becoming self-aware also relieves you from being distracted from glittery fakes, and grounds you to what you know continues to be relevant to your health (mind, body, soul).

2). Transparency: There are no games that need to be played in order for two people to have a genuine and safe connection. The amount of information that teaches people how to manipulate in order to get what they want (or think they want, but often don’t know because they are not self-aware), is concerning.

Transparency is built and takes time. And, by taking the time, it helps build a secure foundation underneath you, where you are not afraid to ask for clarity.

Someone telling you graphic and personal details the day you meet, is not the transparency you want to receive or give. You want the transparency that ebbs and flows in a natural way that allows one piece of the foundation to be built at a time.

Please trust me when I tell you that taking the long route saves you a lot of uncertainty and heartache. The few bricks you lay by taking your time will be much more established than the multitude forced in too soon. They will crack soon enough from not being laid properly and given room to settle.

3). Kindness/compassion: Another thing with survivors is how often their kindness and compassion is used against them. I believe there are people who walk the earth that have no desire to do good, and no conversation, accountability, or level of compassion will get them to change their mind. Who did they seek out? The most compassionate. Why? Because they see the beauty in compassion and kindness, and rather reflect on why they are not received that way, they look to take it away from others.

I am not saying we are survivors because we are kind and compassionate. I am saying there is beauty in your kindness and compassion, and it is only meant to be nurtured by those who share that reflection.

My hope for humanity is we build conversations that help those who are isolated have something to hold on to. For those who feel lost, to have a connecting point where they read words that reach them at their most tender part, and that we scare off those who choose to manipulate others to take what isn’t offered.

This process takes time. If you could trust that you are far more valuable than what you realize, it will help guide your next steps in pursuit of therapy, dating, friends, community. Approaching each from a place of self-respect and compassion, knowing you don’t need to have all the answers to accept you are meant to be loved.

May you witness your reflection in something beautiful this week.

I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

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I have opened a few spots for private (1:1) life mapping calls in September. You can grab a spot for one here.

My online group meets weekly. This week we are doing a deep dive on Healing From The Scapegoat Role. You can register for the group here.

Truly, truly. I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

Buenos Aires sunset. July, 2026

In the past six years, I’ve had the pleasure of working with thousands of people on understanding the pain they are in in order for them to find peace.

There are three narratives that tend to exist for most (if not all) complex trauma survivors:

1). The original trauma is often not able to be dealt with because of how much additional trauma they endured from attempting to ask for help.

2). It was necessary to depend on, adapt to, or appease a person who has hurt them.

3). They’ve been told statements that, regardless of intent, suggested the impacts of their experience weren’t real and that their reality didn’t matter.

“Time heals all wounds.”

“They were hurt too.”

“Have you forgiven them?”

“But forgiveness is for you.”

“But, they’re your family.”

“Hurt people. Hurt people.”

“But it made you stronger.”

“But it made you who you are today.”

“God will use this to help others.”

And the list goes on….

Today, I want to address “It gets better.”

I’d say “It gets better” is in the lesser reactive category, because while the other statements tend to push a hurt person to feel someone else’s unnecessary projection, “It gets better” allows the focus to remain on the survivor.

Another common thread I have seen from my coaching has been how often someone shares a heartbreaking story around childhood sexual abuse or severe neglect, but they use the same tone and expression as if they are saying, “I am out of milk” or “I have to be at work at 9.”

The life of a complex trauma survivor is often fueled by hypervigilance and survival mode. That means that while someone who does not know this kind of trauma enjoys fresh air, someone who has complex trauma has a heightened sense of everything. While fresh air is valuable for a moment, the immediate relief the fresh air offers a survivor is then hijacked by hypervigilance that says “ThIs iS nOt sAFe!!!”

Survival mode has taught a survivor to restrict access. The trauma itself makes the survivors’ world smaller by making them less accessible. The more the walls close in, the less access (or opportunity) there is for an additional trauma to happen.

This feels safe. Fresh air expands those walls, even for a brief moment, and that sends a threat to the lives we build when we are trying to keep ourselves safe.

“It gets better.”

What does?

How?

What is the first step?

How will I know I am doing it correctly?

What if I don’t know the next step after the first?

How much will this cost?

How long will this take?

Will I still be me?

Will I have new relationships?

When I left to go travel earlier this year, I went through a purge of old documents and different things I no longer needed. It felt good to do that, so I did the same thing on my phone with screenshots of goals that are unreachable, saved videos of recipes that I will never cook, and travel destinations I will never go to. For years I stored these things, and none were productive but were taking up space.

In that process I found a screenshot of an early post from an interview I had done years ago. It reads:

This took years to accomplish, especially no longer pausing for people’s opinions and loving the guy who fought so hard. Along the way to that breakthrough was a person who was lost just enough that he did not listen to himself when it mattered and was just healthy enough to understand that if he stuck with this process, he would find peace.

“It gets better.”

Coping. Relationships. Money. Job. Move. Relationships. Religion. Spirituality. Growth. Relationships.

What will get better? When? How? What do I do between now and then?

If you know my story, you know I returned to the people and places that caused cPTSD and spent years trying to be close to them. I have overextended myself emotionally and financially and adapted to roles they laid out for me to play to get their time and attention.

While going through the healing process, I would have breaks from how small my world felt in their presence. I would imagine there was a way to exist in my life, my body, and my mind and not think about the 12-point-to-do list that molds me to be loved by them.

But, when I would return to them, their feedback, their lack of willingness to meet me where I was, made my healing world feel less accessible, and the walls around me, once again, start to close in.

But, “It gets better?”

What….does?

While I believe healing from complex trauma is in fact complex, I also believe it can be simplified if everyone was honest.

Imagine the layers we could peel through if we could know:

“Are you going to stand by me when I speak my truth?”

“Are you going to say things that help me feel seen and acknowledge what I am trying to overcome?”

“Are you going to help me find resources that make the traumas not rule my life so much, or are you going to keep provoking that pain with your words?”

Survivors who break the cycle are often the first to offer this kind of support, and the last to receive it.

“It……….gets………better…..”

The one thing I wish I knew on day one of healing: The most important relationship you need to heal is the one with yourself. There is no parent, partner, or best friend who can do this work or heal you. There is no amount of consistency, safety, or care that is going to heal the relationship you have with your past self, the way your consistency, safety, and care can.

I am not downplaying the importance of their support. It makes a significant difference, but I don’t work with many people who have, or have ever had, that support. And all of those things, while sacred parts of the human experience and healing process, are also ever-changing.

People who are overcoming the darkness of trauma are instructed to mend relationships, have a positive outlook, and hold space for the people who caused their need to heal. This is what many hurting people are presented as their first step.

At no fault of their own, they embrace these ideas because they are desperate to get the voices in their heads to say something kinder and to get the tightness in their bodies to help them exhale.

Imagine the moment, or general timeframe, where you understood you needed help. There was a new word, or comment, something that told you what was going on with you, the pain you were in, had a name.

1). Today, let’s acknowledge that pain was inside of you.

2). Let’s name how you felt at that time.

3). On a scale of 1-10, where was your pain level emotionally?

It is important to pause and consider what any person needs in that moment; that chapter of discovery is hopeful for a clear map with clear directions.

Now, imagine:

1). What role did other people play in helping you find yourself?

2). What role did you play?

There is not a right or wrong answer here, only the answer that is the truth about your specific path towards growth and healing.

“It gets better?”

There are many external factors that survivors face. The range varies from having to create boundaries from your family to needing to escape them. From needing to take a break from your job to heal to working two jobs to pay your bills while healing.

These are real factors.

They play a pivotal role in how a person finds access to releasing the energy, that is, trauma from their body.

When someone says “It gets better,” it is hard to embrace that when you don’t have access to the things that would bring you relief.

The words of people have tremendous power when you’re trying to get the energy from trauma to dissolve. We know there is something inside of us asking to be named and to be tamed. It rears its head at random times but is ever so present when someone makes a statement that does not acknowledge its truth. It’s like the past version of you who experienced sexual assault hears, “Have you forgiven them?” and that past version of you tightens your chest because of how disgusted they feel in that person’s presence.

Those words are like throwing heavy wet rags on a body that only heals from being dry.

“It gets better.”

I want to tell you the ways things have gotten better for me. And I want you to hold these loosely and just let your body respond to anything it resonates with, and then consider what your next step may be.

When I allowed honesty to speak louder than denial. That meant raising my hands at what, at times, was an unsafe environment and then being shamed for aiming for transparency.

It meant taking inventory at the loss involved and realizing I was going to be called selfish by choosing to heal and heal anyway.

It meant drowning the external voices and marching bands that carry banners about who I am and what I am supposed to do to meet their standard that has nothing to do with me feeling whole.

It meant allowing people to be disappointed in me not reacting to their manipulation, knowing they were going to increase their tactics, and that meant I would have to increase my resistance.

It meant knowing what battles to choose because there was healing involved for me and knowing what was going to cause me to have more to heal from.

“It gets better.”

Not always.

There are a lot of people born into families and systems that are so fucking oppressive that they’re reminded that they were fed and clothed by abusive parents and meant to be grateful for that.

“It gets better.”

So often, survivors don’t realize they are being tought to adapt better to the dysfunction, rather than retaliate it against it.

So often, survivors are manipulated into believing things like “Their story made them stronger” or “God made it happen so they could help others” and they don’t know how to get that gross wet rag off their back.

So often, it really does not get better, but we do—the survivors breaking the cycle.

The ones who’ve had their childhoods used against them and learned to return to that child and whisper the gentle words they’ve needed.

The ones who survived the unthinkable and refused to adapt to numbness as a way of life.

The ones who crave more than what is being offered and start to question if there are other ways to live.

The ones who had to start over after starting over, because they believed that movement would finally bring them peace.

It does not always get better. The systems. The weird religions. The political corruption. The abuse of power. The unwell and victimized parent.

But we do.

We learn to navigate our relationship with the things and people that are never going to offer peace or acknowledge truth and start placing our energy and focus on what will.

We grow in our ability to be in spaces that are meant for us and no longer allow unwanted feedback to shape our being there.

We identify what provokes pleasure in us, and we start pursuing those things, because they feel like fresh air that is safe to breathe in for long periods of time.

We rebuild a foundation that looks nothing like what we were told health, or wealth, or lovable looks like, and we feel human and alive there.

We mend. Oh, we mend. The fractures between today and all the times we took our past self on a leash, with vulnerability wanting someone to help us change them. And instead, we learn to sit with them as they are. We hold space for their ache, their grief, their rage, and we block out the marching bands and pursuit of being chosen.

And after some time, we have an experience, perhaps an encounter with an estranged ghost from our past, and we realize we are different in their presence. That ghost lifts a heavy wet rag, and when they go to throw it on us, their arm collapses.

They have lost their strength. We have lost interest.

I spent so much time trying to make sure “it gets better” that I forgot to do what I could for myself. Not to adapt better to dysfunction or injustice, but to know who I am in its presence.

I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

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=================================

I have opened a few spots for private (1:1) life mapping calls in September. You can grab a spot for one here.

My online group meets weekly. This month we are doing a deep dive on Healing From The Scapegoat Role. You can register for the group here.

Truly, truly. I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

Trigger warning: Mentions of rape and sexual assault.

I grew up in the south. The hot south. The religious south. The “bless your heart” south.

We were upper-lower class. We mostly always had food. We always had electricity. We rarely had extra anything, and there was shame in asking or wanting for things out loud.

As a young boy, when I saw movies with cities that had snowy backdrops, I fantasized about what the people were like who lived there. The TV screen would show snowflakes drizzling in the dim light on the top of streetlamps and then move to the sidewalk where people are bundled in their thick coats and warm hats.

These people say things like “You guys” instead of “Y’all.”

It seemed they knew a life that people like me didn’t.

I had come to believe the way they talked, and living in cooler climates meant they were rich.

After spending 15 years of my adulthood in the south, I started making my way out. I moved to California in 2010 after my first round of healing at a treatment center for a nervous breakdown.

My life was quiet on the West Coast. A lot of the time, it was more quiet than I wanted. I was struggling to understand who I was, what I believed, and how my next chapters would come together, based on the Southern and religious life I had lived.

I do not believe the South is wrong. But it was wrong for me, as was religion.

The year I moved was when we came to know what was known as the first Slut March in Boston. A Toronto police official had made a statement to university students claiming that if they did not want to experience rape, they needed to stop dressing like sluts.

Activists took to the streets and marched in defense of survivors. They dressed unapologetically in what was deemed “slutty” and retaliated against the idea that a rape survivor has any responsibility in this situation.

I stood, staring at the TV screen, not sure why I had more of a reaction than I normally had. I was understanding the gravity of stories like these for the first time. Not because I had never seen or heard them before, but because the way I viewed these stories had changed.

Year 2000 Nate would not have paid attention to this story and most likely would not have thought anything was wrong with what the officer said.

Year 2010 Nate had just had his first experience with authentic healing. He had his first therapy experience that had nothing to do with Christian counseling. He had gone through his first cycle of EMDR, where the rules about bodies and traumas were being rearranged. In his healing process, his religious beliefs started to feel predatory in how he sought freedom for himself.

So, when the slut march news came to him, he paused but didn’t quite have the tools to process what it meant. Until…

Someone I knew well who had a large ministry platform made her way to a national news broadcast and explained that while the officer could have used different language, she agreed that women who dress provocatively are triggering men. She trailed off to tout a mantra: “Modest is hottest.”

“No!” I thought. “NO!”

It was not the Toronto officer’s statement that alarmed me (the way it would now).

It was not the slut march that made me pause (the way it would now).

It was seeing my close friend, who I had just spent a weekend with in NYC for our birthdays two years prior, go on national news and say something in a Christian way that was ignorant and extraordinarily harmful to survivors.

This was one of my first awakenings to how twisted my upbringing was. While many debated what they felt was an extreme act by these women marching in their undergarments, I look back now and wonder how many of them marching had experienced sexual assault at some point and knew to stop apologizing to a sick society—they knew their bodies and how they dressed were not the problem.

I had heard plenty of assault stories in my life.

I had comforted many friends (as far back as high school) as they would share details that, in some way, we all thought were normal but hard to deal with.

I experienced my first child sexual assault at 5. My last at 13.

________________________________________________

After years of therapy, I would return to my family and crave conversations about what I was learning and how I was impacted by our family. When I started hearing about things like boundaries, trauma, scapegoats, and dysfunction, I had a language that was reaching something in me that nothing else could.

Having spent years as the kid who, by far extremes, got the brunt of both parents’ abuse, I thought these conversations would make me feel close to my family the way other families seemed to be. Especially those who lived in towns with snowy winters, dimlit streetlamps, and a house where the bills were paid.

I thought there was a way I could deliver this information that not only helped me adapt better to our family dynamics but also helped them see me as more likable. More tolerable too.

On a recent podcast interview with my friend Max, I talked about how his story brought up a memory for me, where my older sister explained in detail to others the way she assumed her friend had sexually abused me as a kid. She told the story in front of me yet never addressed me.

I noticed through my healing process as an adult that I worked particularly hard to get this sister to see my growth. The way she talked about my experiences in front of me left me believing I needed to prove something to her in order for her to understand that I had more value than having this abuse discussed in front of me. As if I were a thing to be talked about with no regard to the impacts of what was done then and how it was being discussed now.

Each attempt to connect with her, to be seen by her, was met with statements like “Oh, so you think you’re better than me now?”

___________________________________________

I started therapy thirty years ago this year. Therapy that took me down twisted turns and uphill battles that would give me more to heal from. Therapy that never helped me find relief. Really dumb fucking therapy.

I have reconnected with a childhood friend this year, who reminded me of when I was wrongfully diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 19 years old. My mother would meet these quacks through religious groups and set the stage with them before we met. I eagerly went to these meetings, and by the way they talked to me, I could see they had met with her first. She had painted a picture of how problematic I was and ensured that no person who came my way would see good in me. Good that would shine light on the crazy shit she had done to me.

If you are reading this, I am guessing you see part of your own story here. You have gone through some similar battle, where the levels of grief, pain, and memories have done too much, and you’re trying to find your way to something different—something new.

And you read stories like these and think about what you did and did not know and why. Stories about you, about others, how you’ve been influenced to fight against yourself at times, and how you’ve worked hard to gain approval from people who have no interest in you feeling safe.

Safe.

Seen.

Heard.

One of the things about trauma that complicates healing is when it came from someone you believed loved you or you were trying to love; it puts barbed wire in the place of what should be a safe connection with your mind and body.

We then spend so much time attempting to be seen or heard by the very people who want us feeling invisible, because us feeling secure or aware will lead us to things like boundaries and healing and being the spotlight that shines on their darkness.

It can’t be all them, can it?

It can. And it can also be some of us too. And it can sometimes be all us that are needing to make change and pay closer attention to behaviors that we are hurting others with. There isn’t a hard-and-fast rule that applies to all people in pain. There are consequences, though.

“You’ve changed.”

Yes, I have. We’re supposed to. Thank god I have, because at one numb point in my life, I heard about things like someone being sexually assaulted, and my ignorant self may have thought things like, “But, what was she wearing?” This was coming from a person who had never named his own sexual assault…as…a…child.

“You’ve changed.”

Yes, yes, yes. Thank goodness you see it, because I know at some point you thought you were going to have access to me so you could replay the crazy shit you said to me when I was a kid and think I would still believe it.

“You’ve changed.”

Yep. This is not going to stop either. So when you try to bring me beliefs that I outgrew when I got serious about healing, you are going to be confused by how lonely you feel in my presence, because I won’t hold you in your denial anymore.

For many complex trauma survivors, the first big change they remember is something that was done to them that changed their reality.

That something changed the way they think, the way they feel, and how they experience their world.

That change is often riddled with other people’s stories, their denial, and their nasty claws in your back hoping to keep you committed to them, downplaying those stories so they can remain unchanged.

“You’ve changed.”

I have. And it bothers you, because you haven’t.

I look back to grieve at how often I was committed to my own unknowing. Enough religious fluff to distract me from any sense of reality, and enough dysfunction to make me not look for something more.

Change did come, though. And with it was the sacrifice of accepting how few would change with me. It does not mean that I am a better person because I chose to change. It does mean I chose the change over them, and they will continue to fight that battle without me.

The healing journey through complex trauma is not an easy one. May we all know peace.

I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

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Next month, my online group will be doing a deep dive into “Healing from The Scapegoat Role.” If you’d benefit from this experience, you can join the group here.

Truly, truly. I’m glad you’re here.

I will be 49 next month. I think about how life works differently for me now vs. when I was 39, 29, 19…or nine.

One theme that continues as I get older is my personal life becomes quieter. It doesn’t mean I don’t want people, but when you pursue healing, you have to relearn a lot of your relationship skills so you do not repeat old patterns. I have had to face the fear that I will once again feel overwhelmed by thinking I must prove I am worthy of a person’s care, rather than relax and believe they offer it because they want to. With age, there is a soft surrender that helps you recognize when you have more understanding to pursue new connections and when you’re too tired to try.

In my twenties, there was consistent feedback that I was moody. What we called “moody” then was someone who had no coping skills to deal with a dysregulated nervous system while experiencing trauma in real time and having never heard the word “trauma.”

I still don’t have answers about parts of my life then. I don’t know how I believed in the good in humanity. I don’t know how I functioned considering what was lying in my mind and body unaddressed and what was happening in real time.

What I do know:

When we are in toxic environments (homes, jobs, families, or communities), we find a way to neutralize their impact so we can survive it. That can be something that makes the fear of existing in it not be so frightening, like giving too much of yourself, doing what you’re told even though it feels harmful, and/or silently taking on shame’s message to not have to deal with more external tension from how people feel about you.

I recently read Cleo Wade’s ‘Where to Begin.’

“My friend Maud once said, ‘There are times when we must speak, not because you are going to change the other person, but because if you don’t speak, they have changed you.”

This truth hangs heavy for anyone who has been silenced or overwhelmed by too many demands, too much judgment, or too many circumstances that make silence seem like the safe option to remove the targets at the center of their hearts.

When that silence begins early on, it becomes a part of survival mode. Again, it is not just a quiet voice or an appeasing person, but a soul that is not existing freely because too much has already been done to it.

What happens to those? To the ones who hide their beauty, passion, compassion, and dreams? How far beneath the surface is their hope? What has to be seen, heard, and felt in order for them to feel their voice coming from their gut and living unapologetically without fear?

When you don’t have the tools and direction, silence makes sense. As does numbing, coping skills, and attempting to be invisible.

When I look back at the part of me that people called moody, I see a heavy smoker, an unbalanced but eager entrepreneur who worked 70-80 hours per week—someone willing, fearful, and doing what he could to become less moody for others.

What no one saw was the shame, the inner critic, the cPTSD, and the young man who was praised by strangers for things he accomplished and criticized for sharing those praises with those closest to him. I did not fit with those I longed for approval from most and never understood how to function better, like everyone else, no matter what I tried.

These messages shaped many future years. The moody title spread into difficult, too intense, and too much.

Until I found the right support and we named all those things cPTSD, autism, and dysregulation.

Suddenly, the parts of me who walked the world with a bowed head, knowing if I were genuinely myself it would often not go well, had a name for the reason he can’t show up the way he’d like in certain situations. The balance of what my body and brain know, combined with how my body and brain work, gives me access to listen to what helps, rather than adapt to what is expected by those who refuse to see the bigger picture.

One of the greatest threats we experience in childhood trauma is having an inner critic’s voice shaped by our abusers.

Like this experience:

As an adult, you ask for basic care from loved ones, and they explain why you don’t deserve that. There are names, accusations, and suggestions that deny your ability to live on equal ground with them.

Your inner critic has been alive since childhood when those meant to care for you started these narratives, so the inner critic gets louder as the years go by, amplifying this exact kind of message.

The harmful beliefs swirl together because when you had to depend on loved ones to get by, it was too much of a risk to believe what was happening was unjust. The inner critic was born to keep you silent to avoid more pain. They are loud to protect you. This is all they know.

Many of us lived like this for many years. The noise. The messages. The lack of space and distance from feeling like we can safely be above ground, equal, cared for, and maybe even, dare I say, loved.

The noise and narratives become part of our survival, shaping who we want approval from and why.

The noise and narratives keep us rooted in trying harder to find the winning combination to prove we were somehow misunderstood and deserved validation long ago when we got judgment instead.

The inner critic hears the judgment and shames the longing. Shames the desire. They hurriedly hire an orchestra to make their message fit in your world and sound safe and soft when you start to outgrow it.

I am amazed at how healing can happen, especially when we receive information we didn’t know to ask for.

A diagnosis, a definition around what a scapegoat is, how a nervous system works, understanding what narcissism looks like—all these things can bring layers of confusion together in a quick jolt.

I bought my first pair of noise-canceling headphones four years ago, mainly for when I was traveling full time. I used to brace myself for the pilot’s announcement on every flight. Without fail, when he would use that microphone that appeared to be installed inside his throat and nostrils and turned up to levels only pilots have access to to make announcements, I would jump and turn to the person next to me with a sheepish grin.

“Why are they so loud?”

Noise. Noise. Noise.

Moody. Moody. Moody.

Try harder. Try harder. Try harder.

Be better. Be better. Be better.

My headphones give me permission to remain in my body. They buffer the pitch, volume, and intensity that make my brain lose sight of its coping skills, especially by unexpected clamor.

I have worked hard to understand the messages that live in me. By naming things, getting educated, and dismissing unhelpful and dismissive feedback, I can continue to function in a way that honors autism rather than run from it because I am afraid someone will stigmatize me.

The beauty in naming what your mind and body have experienced (and continues to experience) is that it roots you in information that needs to be processed. I think of the inner critic again and again. The way they were born, the reasoning behind it, and their desire to keep you small and silent, all because taking up space as you are feels risky.

This is no way to live. The goal is not to silence the inner critic but to know it. To investigate why it believes what it does and why its messages are so shameful.

I want to tell you this truth:

When you stop trying the extremes in healing (HUGE push to change everything overnight and BE what others want), you start to find steps toward understanding.

When you stop ignoring the inner critic and shame and approach both with curiosity, they stop speaking so loudly.

When you uproot the messages that shame who you are, how you have responded to things, and what others have labeled you in times you were most vulnerable, you stop pursuing things that were going to hurt you again. This leads to peace being accessible.

I don’t know a single survivor who has not had a difficult relationship with shame. But I can tell you there are many ways to navigate that shame and use those messages for your healing and growth.

Is it easy? No. This past stuff has shaped a lot. But does it work? Holy shit–the peace!

• To be free to be honest with yourself and others without worrying if it was the right thing to say or the right way to say it.

• To take pleasure in things that you’ve done well, but you hear and see them differently because there is a baseline of peace from which you live.

• To connect with people in new ways that don’t feel risky because your inner critic is not shaping action steps for you to prove your worth. To just be in the other’s presence.

• To know shame’s sting is gone and you are building a life where it can’t come back the same way because your life is saturated with compassion and understanding.

It’s like having your own custom pair of shame-canceling headphones, where you remain in your mind and body, and what would normally cause you discomfort never has a chance to begin with.

While healing is complex, your value is not. May your fight in healing be to experience that value through the eyes of pleasure and peace.

I’m glad you are here.

Nate

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My online group is doing a deep dive into the scapegoat role in August. If you’d like to join, you can do that here.

Truly, truly, I’m glad you’re here.

I’ve been roamin’ around, always lookin’ down at all I see
Painted faces fill the places I can’t reach
You know that I could use somebody

These are the lyrics from the Kings of Leon hit “I could Use Somebody.” An artist named Lachune slowed it down and sang her own version, and each time I listen to it, I feel connection to her. I lean into why it means so much to be soothed by someone else’s ability to name what often goes unnoticed.

I talk a lot about loneliness. I think people assume loneliness means a lack of people. It can. It often does. But it also means being in a place (with people) where you don’t feel seen or understood.

It seems like if you are lonely, then you are the one at fault. It falls on you, the self-professed lonely person, to address why you are lonely, and how you will fix yourself to have people inviting you to brunch and sharing their social calendar.

For those who wrestle with loneliness, there is often a war waged between allowing yourself to long for others and remembering who chose to walk away. Or those who rejected you when you said “We must make this healthy. This hurts too much (while often being willing to do more than your share of their work).”

When your pain is not enough to make someone change their behavior, that leaves you prey to all the ideas about what you must do, and who you must be in order to be UN-lonely.

I have often looked at the world and wondered how people navigate it with such ease when I felt like a walking apology. Easily blamed for shit I didn’t do, always willing to feel sorry for being someone who does not fit the mold of what others find desirable.

Someone like you and all you know and how you speak
Countless lovers under cover of the street
You know that I could use somebody

You know that I could use somebody.

The aftermath of childhood trauma (and its roots) leave us open to suggestions that are not meant for us. The innocence in a child who believes they are at fault for harm done to them translates over and over into these messages about who we are to others.

If the others are family members who have abused, neglected, allowed-strangers-to-hurt-and-not-defend, we then continue to find ways to exist in the world with the hopes of never feeling that pain again.

This often leaves us longing for someone (anyone) who is willing to stay. Someone to step down from their normalcy and deal with us and all our too-much-to-ask-for-desires, like being seen and heard.

There are two conversations happening in these relationships. One is the walking apology. The other is the abandonment of ourselves because we are the last people we want to be with. It’s almost like we agree when someone hurts us because we find us unequal too.

Off in the night, while you live it up, I’m off to sleep
Wagin’ wars to shape the poet and the beat
I hope it’s gonna make you notice
I hope it’s gonna make you notice

Someone like me

I tend to be a loner. Some of the people from my past would tell you otherwise, but if you asked them where I was on every holiday, and every weekend night, and during every meal, they would realize I was alone. I don’t bring attention to that, because the last thing I wanted was more questions. I also think people don’t like to think about how much others have hurt in front of them, when they didn’t know.

I have presented well. I have presented success, humor, and I have been a genuine friend with a genuine interest to listen and help. But I have also felt trapped by everything that went on in the early years of my life and felt like I have never known how to navigate people in a way where I was an equal and like I belonged without giving more than I had.

I did not know how much of that shaped the loneliness I felt later. The abuse from my dad began when I was around 5 years old. I was a cute kid. Kinda small. Quiet. Very much an observer.

Also, very sensitive. My dad was from the hills of West Virginia. Those hills and his upbringing never prepared him for fatherhood, much less for a tender-hearted kid who was plagued by empathy. He showed his distaste for me early on. There was a tug I had towards him, because I saw the way he enjoyed my brother, and I was desperate to get that kind of attention from him.

That tug is the one that still shows up now. Not necessarily in still longing to be with people, but longing to be understood. Wanting other people to imagine how the things they say really get to people and those who feel things deeply, listen, and observe, and take those words and hold them in a place that is full of want because they have not been seen as equal.

This sets us up for how we want for others.

This teaches us that other people have our answers and our self-acceptance. It’s a slippery and false acceptance that their approval is what makes us find relief from that inner turmoil of thinking we do not belong (if we work really hard for it.)

It is beautiful to have safe people. But, how rare for that to be the case for those who, like me, are still coming to terms with the fact that we have built an entire life out of survival and on a foundation with many cracks?

I think the want we have for others is innocent and necessary. But I think the expectation that they can meet those hurt parts of us where they need to be met, is not realistic.

As hard as it is to remember what was done to so many of us as kids, that is where our return and love and care and celebration-of-their-survival is needed most. To be the person who can touch that open wound with our words and our care—even the way we live our lives.

I walk in the cities I live in often. I love finding a row of park benches, where I can enjoy a book and sunset at the same time. Once I have picked the right spot, I settle with my book. I notice how nice it feels to be around people but have no obligation to talk to them. This distance is where I thrive best.

I read and read and read and think of the moments my dad read to me as a kid before his choices rearranged us. I used to reach my little hand over and place it on his forearm and with security knowing he was beside me; I would embrace the story he told.

I turn back to my book, and I feel the sun setting above me. I pause.

The wind flows on my face with kind warmth. It tells me I am home, and I need more memories like this.

In this moment, I only want to remember. I want to remember how this feels—the present escape of everything I don’t want to know. The proper distance from the healing to-do list, and the bliss of knowing I am doing something well.

As the wind picks up, with my eyes closed, I breathe in the way it rushes over my body, and I envision that wind taking off all the fears I had that day. The wind moves again, and while my face is tilted to the sunset, I exhale the unnecessary things I heard people say, and the fear I had from thinking I should be a different person or in a different place. Swiftly, the wind takes that away too.

And alas, I think of that little five-year-old boy. The one who was sorry for how he was made. The one who would face many more years of heartache, because the people who brought him into this world were not willing to love him as he was.

And I pledge to him: I remember what you have carried. I will give you room to speak. I will let new days with new memories move your old pain…to you—to us. You are here on this bench, and this next breath is for you…

Someone like me
Someone like me
Someone like me

Someone like you
Someone like you
Someone like you

I’ve been roamin’ around, always lookin’ down at all I see

I’m glad you’re here.
Nate

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Reflections:

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It took years to learn to speak to myself this way and mean it. To sort through the layers of chaos and dysfunction (denial too), and crave words and connections to and with myself, that could soften pain. If you are new to this, trust it takes time, but it’s coming. Allow yourself the space to be honest about your connection with your past, and your mind and body. These are valuable parts of you—often not able to find one another because their function shifted to survival. Again, patience, curiosity, compassion are things you want to pair that longing with.

This week in my online group, we will be talking about the connection to the body through the lens of the complex trauma survivor. If you’d like to join, you can do that here.

I hope today is good to you.

Truly, truly, I’m glad you’re here.

Dear community.

I want to share this here now, and I will post about this later in a note.

On Thursday, I shared with you my ten-year anniversary of when I came out as gay. That day, I helped a friend move, and between unpacking boxes and asking, “Where does this go?” I had these sudden pangs of angst hit my mind and body.

My post is up. My coming out post. I refuse to download Substack on my phone. So, this vulnerable story about one of my darkest chapters is public for all to see, and I am not managing it in real time.

I would pause, take a deep breath, and trust I would know how to address any drama or unwanted criticism when I got back to my computer.

On Thursday afternoon around 3pm, after returning home, I slid my coat off my back, flipped the top of my laptop open, and dove in.

What I was prepared to see was the typical onslaught of what has been sent my way over the past six years as a content creator—Bible verses, self-centering, being called a sinner, projection, and hate.

I scanned each comment, and what I found was genuine care.

Comment after comment, with kindness, thoughtfulness, and present feedback.

I am in a strange grieving process where it is just hitting me how much I walked away from with my online platform I spent several years building. But what I have known was that I needed a different life. I knew I was continuing to suffer, and the only way to stop that was for me to make changes that allow me to feel like when I do this work, when I write these words, that they are coming from a well-rested and peaceful place.

Since Thursday night, I have felt my body lagging. My heart rate feels slow. My eyes heavy. But what is different with the symptoms this time is that my soul is happy and at peace. It feels as though I got something back that I did not know to look for on Thursday (an effective, affirming, community post). As if every decision I made to sacrifice my past work were being granted with peace and clarity that a safe space was being born. So much so that my body continues to thank me by purging old energy and defenses I no longer need.

This morning I FaceTimed with a childhood friend. Someone who is easy to love and was there when many unfortunate events took place. As she does, she reminds me over and over how much I am loved. We get off the call, and I feel my eyes and my body drifting into their zone.

It is euphoria. It is a payoff for me listening. It is peace.

I have a typical morning routine that I was not able to hold up today, and it reminded me of a piece I wrote a few years ago. A piece that many of you responded to because it touched on something we fail to name—permission to rest.

Thank you for what you shared with me Thursday. Thank you for being people who are doing real work and are in touch enough to read something painful and engage with consciousness and awareness.

I had several friends text Thursday about the post, and to one I shared: “After posting I realized at this moment I am building (rebuilding) the life I’ve always needed and wanted.”

I think saying that to someone sent my body a message that it know it was safe to ask for more from me this weekend.

I am so grateful for this little corner of the internet where we are sharing stories and connecting dots. Showing up with words that meet hurt people where they are.

I always think about the silent observers in this space too. Those who are in our midst, barely hanging on but witnessing our communication and trusting they are going to find a way to a life that helps them feel held.

Again, thank you for the contributions to making this space a light for many—me included.

I’m glad you’re here.

Please enjoy “Unmade Bed.”

2023:

On most days:

I wake up. The first thing I do is mindlessly reach for my beeping alarm clock. If I move my arm the wrong way, too fast, too far, I can upset the already torn-but-on-the-mend labrum. I slide the lever down to stop the beeping and tell my alarm clock “I’m up.”

I pull my legs to the side of the bed, place my feet on the floor and pause. Every morning I think about approaching 50. It’s three years away. When I thought about being in my fifties years ago, I assumed I would have accomplished more, understood more, and cared less about many things. This thought comes to me almost every morning.

I have two beautiful sets of pillows tightly tucked in iron-pressed linen covers. They sit to the side of my bed, stacked in the order that I place them on the headboard. I bend over the mattress, and pull the top sheet and blanket to the top of my bed. I neatly pull back and fold both and then tuck them under the mattress.

I move my way to the other side of the bed, stepping sideways because there is no room to walk. Because of this tight space, I often wonder if I would have to move because I got in a relationship. Then, I sigh and realize I would have to meet people in person and talk outloud for that process to start.

I have all the pillows stacked in front of the soft headboard, and I pull the comforter on top of the blanket, and fold it too. I run my hand deep across the top of the fluff on the comforter so its shape falls into place… A perfectly made bed.

Fifteen years ago, I was at the top of my career. Prior to what would soon be known as my darkest days, I was a Vice-President and top performer in my field. This was not a goal of mine. My approach to any career has always come from a place of survival, a guarantee to make sure my needs get met, a deficit (lack) of security, and building so I could one day exhale.

After years of working like this, the exhale came. But when it did, I felt it went on for far too long.

When my breakdown came, I slowly had to let things go. I don’t mean that I stopped letting things get to me. I mean that I had to resign from my job, and I lost a lot of friends because I did not always have the strength to explain how confused I was. I lost a lot of years, because I did not know how to explain to the world I lived in that I always felt I was getting worse.

I am grateful that I found resources (people, places, things) that started me on a recovery journey. I still think of how little I knew at that time. I was so committed to my community, my faith, my family, and I did not have a single resource to explain that all of these things I am committed to are all committed to their own agenda, and none of that included me being well.

But I got well. And, I moved away. And many people from my old home would say “Do you feel like you ran from here?” I always tell them “Yes. Best run ever.”

There were several months after I moved away where my body and mind started to work together again. While I do not have proper definitions of what was happening, I have memories of not being able to stay awake every day when I got off work. I think I was experiencing something new. I was…relaxed.

Over the next two years, I had about 10k worth of delayed dental repairs done, a tumor removed from my throat, and was sick often with fatigue, viruses, sinus infections, pulled muscles. You get it. It was a mandatory reset if I wanted stuff to work again.

Every time I relaxed, my body said “Oh nice. Here are seven years of stress I have needed you to breathe out.” It felt like some sort of purging. I trusted that I was building something that would help me get back all the things I lost.

I launched into new habits. I quit smoking after 21 years. I ran half-marathons. I flossed the hell out of my teeth every night. I made my bed every morning. I was a realized improvement. I put the things in place that helped me move forward.

I threw myself at every type of therapy, book, conference, connection that would help me make sense. I had been diagnosed with cPTSD, but I did not pause to understand what it meant, or what I needed to do to work with that. I only understood I was working with an inner dialogue that felt like hell a lot of days.

That did not slow me down from making the bed, running the runs, dominating the career.

I was still on a path to make sure I arrived at a place where I would not have these nagging feelings inside of me about the next step.

Year after year, no cavities.

Year after year, new sheets, a tighter fit. Beautiful pillows.

Year after year, success.

Year after year, coming home and wanting to be someone else but not knowing who.

Year after year, coming home and wanting to be somewhere else, but not knowing where.

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I had many new discoveries ahead. A lot of heartbreak in core relationships. A lot of loss. A lot of rebuilding.

Along the way I learned things that helped me shape a different life:

1). I am an introvert. By Myers Briggs standards, an INFJ.

2). I love living in small spaces.

3). I desperately want to learn the basics of how to take care of myself.

Each year I would implement a new good habit, and each year there would be a new discovery about how much my life was going to change again.

It felt like this:

Success!! ANXIETY… New friends…MisUNderSTandINg?!! …Ahhh, travel… depression …New home! …Recession!

None of these accomplishments above are bad things, and none of these hard things were personal to who I was. But, I did not know who I was and was mirroring the life I thought would make me likable. A life where I could convince others I was not the inner turmoil I felt.

The reality of what we are told will give us relief should be directed back to our mind and body being at peace and knowing what actions to take when that is not the case, or not accessible.

I kept falling for different paths and along the way would meet people who were also doing what they thought would bring them relief from their inner turmoil.

Off we go.

A new chapter.

A new interruption that exposes that chapter needing additions in order for it to work.

Making different additions, or avoiding the chapter by changing course.

Everywhere you go there you are.

Everywhere.

You go.

There.

You are.

At some point I think we have to surrender any ideals we think are going to help us find relief, if they are not talking about how to care for our souls.

But until we have the resources, we make the bed. We stretch our arm. We feel time holding us, and the discomfort of waiting, uncertain, of what the end goal is.

I like my routines. I like the way they help me understand what I need to get done. But, what I think I like most is when they tell me I have done the right things, and therefore I am allowed to feel good about myself.

How the hell did that sneak in?!

That we have to do the checklist things in order to then prove we deserve rest? We have to show our discipline to all the mantras in place before trusting when our body is saying “THIS is NOT real!”

I am not saying making my bed is bad. And, it is safe to say I will never miss a day of flossing for the rest of my life. Root canals are from the pit of hell.

But, I am saying when you miss the core foundations of having a relationship with your soul, you are looking for cues that tell you what that is, and it is often never someone else’s idea.

Is discipline wrong? Nope.

Goals? Not at all.

But do we have to do them in order to prove we need space from the grind sometimes?

On my soft days, I make myself not make my bed. I leave the shades down where no natural light can come in. No matter how beneficial, or how much that light wants to offer me warmth, there are some days where I want to be in a cocoon and know I am not accessible.

There are some days I think of how fast my life is moving and I need evidence that I am living the life I have worked for. The one with less of the demands from people I do not want to be. Less tugs telling me I will finally deserve relief when I accomplish________.

Three years away. 50. Fucking 50. And, there is so much I still don’t know how to do. It’s like I woke up just ten years ago and realized I have been living someone else’s life. I am constantly revisiting my list to make sure I never (EVER) have another awakening like that again.

My soul.

It feels free most days.

I lose touch with it when I do the lists.

My soul becomes rigid–fast.

It has many memories of being ignored, and is always waiting for me to do that again.

My soul felt free today.

The alarm clock wasn’t set.

It was a beautiful day to go for a walk, and I didn’t even open the shades.

I didn’t even make the bed.

I didn’t even read my list.

Because I knew today was about softness. For whatever reason, a hard day, a tough conversation, for whatever reason… my soul needed a soft day.

I never even made the bed. I sat there for a couple hours on Sunday morning and I thought about how much I crave being there and how many reasons come at me that tell me this is not allowed.

When I decided to leave the bed, I was tempted to start my process. The tucking, the folding. I left the bed as it was, the way it looked after holding me for a little extra time. I did not shape it. I did not make it look well-kept. I left it unmade so I knew it was waiting for me to return, because on some days I don’t have it in me to do the extra steps. And, it is not because I am sad, lazy, or depressed. It’s because I have read from the wrong lists, and sometimes I need quicker access to the things that help me know I am on the right path.

All this, from an unmade bed.

From a rested soul, I send peace.

I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

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Reflections:

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Who and what are suggesting your rest is earned or needs to be requested?? Fight this as hard and fast as you can (after a nap, of course).

Registration for my online group is open. You can read all the details and fill out an application here.

Truly, truly, I hope you rest. ✨

For anyone who is needing the reminders of what next step can be taken to find peace, this episode is for you. 

The link to join my online group is here. If you are seeing this message when registration is closed, make sure to add your name to the waitlist to be notified when registration opens. 

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Dear Nate,

In my early adulthood, I was diagnosed with ptsd. After 20 years deep in therapy (that caused more shame, guilt, and suffering). Social media became my go-to for understanding and validation. I found you on Instagram. Your posts were soft, thoughtful, kind, and believable. You felt safe and trustworthy.

I have been misdiagnosed many times in therapy. The people who I had gone to for help and understanding missed my AuDHD until I was 43. At that point I had to become my own full-on “expert.” I was an ABA therapist (this role causes me guilt) and a behavior analyst with a double master’s for a decade. I knew for a long time I was like my students, but we didn’t have the right information for me to understand why. I now have a cPTSD diagnosis from past abuse and neglect.

After 40 sessions of ketamine therapy (while being deep in perimenopause), my anxiety was squelched enough that my rage, ASD and ADHD were very visible. My burnout finally made sense. Memories kept popping up with more clarity; I call them “autism flashbacks.” Like, “That’s why I only eat SunChips at the beach,” and the more difficult, “That’s why I changed my traits based on who I was around.”

My ketamine sessions allowed me to realize/start to accept that I’m pansexual and nonbinary. In summary, at 43 I learned I was autistic and queer.

I’m constantly trying to process memories and flashbacks of being abused by a narcissistic family. I went to them for support for decades, missing that they had caused me the trauma in the first place. I was blamed for my abuse. I was severely codependent and had Stockholm syndrome until a couple of years ago.

My dad is a disabled veteran. His cPTSD caused mine. My mother’s shame/narcissism silenced and changed me. I need to keep reminding myself that what they taught me about myself is false.

Daily, I’m coping with perimenopause, unmasking, adhd/asd burnout, advocating for my newly diagnosed AuDHD 13-year-old, finding “good” doctors, finding chosen family, being stuck in survival mode, the news, disautonomia, PMDD, etc.

I just restarted ketamine treatments and continued EMDR. I’ll keep pushing.

I desperately want to experience change. I believe in others more than myself. I’m mean/abusive to myself when I make simple mistakes or when my nervous system is doing what it does naturally. I blame myself for everything. I apologize when I’ve done nothing wrong. I silence myself to keep others comfortable. I won’t do anything unless I’m good at it right away. I overexplain to the point that I push people away. I’m sad. I’m angry. I’m lonely.

I have a beautiful life now but can’t seem to see the joy in it. I feel like I’ve lost decades of my life dissociating. I’m hurting so deeply. I can’t see the good things about myself even though I “know” I’m a badass who broke the cycle. It’s a daily challenge. I want to be at peace and an active participant in life—not stuck in burnout and survival mode.

The hardest part is not letting their tainted narrative alter my clear one.
The best part is seeing how strong my son is because of what I’ve modeled. He’s open, he’s real. He feels safe, loved, and validated at home. He is a kind and loving friend. He advocates for his peers! He fights against racism, homophobia, and ableism. It puts him in tight spots, but he doesn’t waver. I taught him that. I’m so proud.

Nate, I need your help. My questions are:

1). How do I recover from autism burnout and exit survival mode?

2). How do I discover and feel self-love and learn to trust myself?

It all feels like it is too much, and I am not sure where to start.

It seems at this point, those things should have taken root, but they still feel pretty far out of reach.

Thanks, Nate.

Next steps waiting.

Dear next steps waiting,

I am a visual person. While reading through your story, I imagined a person who was moving around in this world but also wanting a permanent cover where they could only be seen, touched, or heard if it was a guarantee that being seen, touched, or heard could not cause more harm.

I recently described a funnel that I believe exists in the world of abuse and trauma. At the top of the funnel are things like denial, abuse, corruption, and the people who use those to their benefit. As that world exists, at the bottom of the funnel is those who express knowledge about denial, abuse, and corruption and call out those who use it for their benefit. When those at the top of that funnel feel any sense of threat, they are able to gather together and pour gross amounts of their denial, abuse, and corruption to the bottom of that funnel. Who is at the bottom?

A person who has not had access to things that could get them to the top of the funnel.

A person who needs help and that help exposes the corruption at the top of the funnel.

A person who is marginalized.

A person who is hurt and needing to speak openly and honestly about needing help.

Anything that exists in a person that challenges corrupt power, abusive behavior, or denial is going to create this funnel where that person is piled upon and convinced that the only way for them to feel better is to normalize things that are hurting them.

Based on the story you have shared, I hear a lot of unprocessed grief and much justified anger. I think anyone in similar positions to yours (and mine) spends time doing things that we think will somehow make the top of the funnel respond better. We have these messages coming at us from every direction that not only refuse to name our reality but also blame us for not seeing how to respond better from being down there having all that yuck pointed at our core.

When you experience abuse from within your family, enablers want to pretend that there is a misunderstanding or that it was equal play and somehow the scapegoat just didn’t handle it well. This is yet another harsh pour from the top of the funnel.

Funnels are not bad. They exist to show volume and mass and get something that does not fit into a smaller space to fit. But, when the thing that is poured down is toxic, the aftermath is detrimental.

All newborn babies are at the bottom of a funnel. They are waiting to receive whatever is sent their way, and there is nothing they can do to empower themselves with anything other than survival mode.

At no point is a child ever at the top of a funnel and an abusive parent at the bottom. Again, if we are talking about volume and mass, we are measuring where the majority of something came from and why one person is carrying something harmful that was poured into them and why they can’t seem to get it out.

Bottom of the funnel.

In your story, there were many funnels, each representing a different experience. One of those was being a child in an abusive family. At the top of that funnel is each family member who abused and enabled the abuser.

Another funnel was being undiagnosed with things that multiplied the impacts from other funnels. At the top of this funnel are those who missed the signals of what to name in order to help you heal.

Also, at the top of different types of funnels are things that impact us in the best way. Nature, safe relationships, our favorite book, our beloved hobby. This is something we create that we are allowing to come directly at us, where time can pass safely without worrying about what will happen next. You are at the top of this funnel, and your mind, body, soul are at the bottom taking in what is being poured down.

Again, funnels aren’t bad. But when the things that are being poured down come at such rapid speed (multiple abuses, misdiagnosis, etc.), the mass and volume land in a person and become real weight.

So what to do when you are at the bottom?

When you distanced yourself from your abusive family, you exited the bottom of that funnel.

When you got the proper diagnosis that names how your mind and body operate, you exited the bottom of a funnel.

But, here is the reality. You spent so long being poured into and not only not understanding that the funnel exists but also that the ability to unload that energy came faster than you were able to send elsewhere.

Let’s say each toxic pour (abuse, trauma, etc) to the bottom of the funnel represents a gallon of spoiled milk. In order to get that milk out, you have to go to this specific place (it can be a professional, or a hobby, or something you have found that really helps remove spoiled milk), and it takes one visit to unload ¼ gallon of spoiled milk.

Now, let’s imagine how many gallons of milk you had poured into you at the bottom of that funnel before ever having a space or resource to get the very first full gallon back out.

The expectation to somehow navigate life well after years of trauma is like saying to this person, “Yeah, you had 16 gallons of spoiled milk poured into you for the first 40 years, but what about the three WHOLE gallons of delicious milk that you have poured in lately?”

Healing from complex trauma is in itself, complex.

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There is a lot of good news too:

When you start naming the funnels, you are able to step away much quicker when someone attempts to pour something on you that you see for what it is.

When you see the people at the top of the funnel, and what they choose to do with their energy and power, you lose interest in learning more about them and create distance.

When you find ways to unload ¼ cup of spoiled milk, you start to see over time that a lot of the spoiled milk starts to exit on its own because you have opened yourself up to something new and you don’t need to direct it to leave anymore, it just no longer needs to take up space within you.

When you create new funnels where you are at the top, you feel empowered in ways you didn’t before, and using that power to help others stabilizes something in you that has always felt a little uncertain.

You build more funnels that are strictly for the most sacred parts of you. At the top of all the things that help you feel alive, safe, seen, and heard.

And then there is this one funnel, where no other person can or should ever be at the top other than you. It is you today, in the present moment, looking down at your past self. The one who is afraid to look up to you, because of how much pain they have endured by needing or wanting others. The first time you look to the bottom of that funnel, with the best of intentions, you realize this is going to take some time. That while you do have the power to pour love, care, and gentleness in them, they are not ready. They need time to trust that when you come back for them, there is no chance you will ever leave. They need to know if they open themselves up and tell you what they remember that you will never hint that it was their fault. They need someone who can understand that they may not want to be held or touched after they explain what they have carried, because they have had to carry it alone.

This funnel is where no therapist, no friend, no incredibly supportive partner can or should go. This is a connection with self that does not need feedback or input from others, because the connection to the past is no longer influenced by anything other than your present self. It is naming things that others pretended was invisible. It is owning mistakes. It is being honest without fear that there will be judgment, because you both already know. It is visceral grief, and anger, and restored pleasure and peace. It is private. It is necessary.

Next steps waiting,

Recovering from autism burnout and exiting survival mode will come when you continue to exit funnels that are pouring into you what only is meant to be filled with your peace and continued pleasure. This comes by creating new funnels that remind you of your capacity, your history, and what is realistic for your whole self to be known.

I believe processing grief and anger are in store for you. I think some people view anger and revenge as the same thing. As if recreating a funnel where you have power to return what they did will somehow restore something in you, but I think it is safer to exit the funnel, and walk away. Create funnels that offer life. Just as I shared that there is one funnel that no person (ever under any circumstances) should have access to, the same is to be said about healing moments that are meant solely for you.

Anger for what was done and left unnamed.

Grief for what that cost you.

I hear that you have built a great life now. I believe you. I just think there are parts of you that aren’t so much in the place to celebrate that with you (yet).

Grief and anger: When I think of how you had to mask much of your life while carrying all these unnamed narratives in your mind and body, I think of how desperate those parts would be to say, “Can I be honest with you?”

I can’t tell you how to process your grief and anger. Your body can. It may be a daily thing for awhile where you are looking down at the bottom of that funnel because you see a version of your past self saying, “I need you now” and you take the time to say, “I’m here.” Your being there for them could be a walk, writing, moving your body, taking a bath, sobbing, watching your favorite familiar film, and occasionally saying “Precious soul, I know you are there, but I just can’t today.” That can be part of the process too.

There is a lot of unjust things you have experienced by walking through this earth without the proper names to things that hurt you. This process of holding this with the intent of processing that energy can/will offer relief and lead to alignment.

Your second question:

How do I discover and feel self-love and learn to trust myself?

Learn to love and hold the part of you at the bottom of those funnels, and you will have no problem finding them (and you) lovable. They hold many of the answers you are looking for. Finding them is complex, learning about them, establishing a relationship with them is complex, but nowhere near as complex as not knowing why you feel like you are an unwanted guest in your own life.

You have created a powerful funnel for your son. The one you needed a long time ago. That is further proof that you have what it takes to be the guide to further healing.

I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

Share

Reflections:

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There are many ideas about healing that often pretend you can cut off a part of you, call them names, and somehow build a life where their reality is no longer in your mind and body. That isn’t how healing works. If you related to this, please share your support for this person. What are your next steps? What did this help you name?

Follow-up:

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If you related to this story, you would enjoy my online group. We have several live meetings each month as well as other connecting points. You can get the details and fill out an application here.

I am doing a much deeper dive into this topic on my podcast n Wednesday of this week. Check out Episode 10 of “A Little Less Lonely” on all streaming platforms then, and feel free to get caught up on past episodes now.

Truly, truly. I’m glad you’re here.

Yolanda's book, Attuned & Attached, is out now! You can purchase here (or preferably at a locally owned bookstore near you). 

The link to join my online group is here. If you are seeing this message when registration is closed, make sure to add your name to the waitlist to be notified when registration opens. 

Thank you to all who continue to help build this community. If you'd like to show support for this space, please take a few seconds and leave a five-star review. These reviews help others find these stories, and gives them comfort to know we are here. Thanks for your support!

I'm glad you're here!

Sign up for my Online Community

Trigger warning and gentle reminders: This story contains multiple instances of abuse, including sexual trauma, abandonment, religious trauma, and abuse of power. With that, it is important to see others name the parts of stories that live within us with proper accuracy. That is the purpose of sharing in this way. If you relate to the words below, I hope you feel permission to hold close the parts of you that have carried similar pain.

Last week I recorded a podcast interview with a close friend. We had planned the conversation a month in advance, which built up her excitement. What I noticed during the interview was that my friend, who is a self-professed people-pleaser, was having an extraordinarily difficult time directly answering my questions.

The questions were about a story where she witnessed trauma and another where she experienced it firsthand. It was not the details or the impact she had a hard time sharing about. It’s that she veered so far off topic, explaining that maybe the one man (who was 40 and publicly humiliated a 15-year-old girl) didn’t mean it because it was a different time. The other story was about her ex, who had put her in an extraordinarily life-changing/stressful position overnight.

She spent so much time defending these men that I had to pause and let her know we were pretty far off topic and I needed her to get to the answer. She had discussed what they “may not have meant as harmful” for so long that she didn’t remember the original questions.

When writing the outline for this piece, the first thing that came to me was to explain that I am not a father and because of that, may not be qualified to talk about the father wound. The reality is, being a good father is a choice. My father’s choices kept me in survival mode for the first twenty years of adulthood. With that, I am not writing today on behalf of fathers. I am writing on behalf of those they have wounded. I applaud any father who steps out from the cradled palm of patriarchy and shares his mistakes and what he is doing to course-correct. In the meantime, those who have survived their wounding deserve their stories being told without needing to cater to their father and his potential reasons why.

First step for anyone carrying the father wound: Stop apologizing for your father.

I reached out to another friend, letting her know I was writing on this topic. She is also a writer and someone who tells stories with context that does not allow you to pass the words without feeling those tugs we spend much of our day trying to silence.

She agreed to have me write about her story. I think you, like me, will have a greater understanding of the way so many daughters have been hurt in a multitude of ways by trying to love and be loved by their fathers.

Meet Lucy.

For many years, Lucy was the baby in her family. She was the third of the three children, with two older brothers. Her parents divorced long before she was old enough to know what divorce was or how it would impact her. While Lucy understood how much her mother sacrificed to work hard and provide, her father distanced himself from the kids (in every sense) and took on the role of a Disneyland dad, but without the perks of actually going to Disneyland. Some of Lucy’s first memories of her father were noticing how difficult it was to capture his attention or time.

Lucy’s brothers were given a greater responsibility to make sure she got places safely and knew what to look out for.

There was one story Lucy shared when her mother, before or after one of many shifts at work, sat Lucy and her middle brother down and explained that there was a kidnapper in their town and for them to be extra careful on their walk to school. Their mom went on to share the details of his car—a station wagon, wood paneling, etc.

On their walk to school, Lucy, around 7 years old, says to her brother, “What is wood paneling?” Not knowing how to describe what wood paneling is, her brother looks around and points to the station wagon with wood paneling that is making a turn in their direction. “There, it’s like that.”

Both kids immediately realize who is driving towards them, and they take off running, luckily only a block from school.

I think one of the things we fail to realize is the effort a child makes to normalize sadness and/or confusion that makes them feel shame. Lucy, like all of us as kids, was gathering information about why she did not see her father when other kids at school did. Lucy, like all of us as kids, did not have words like “grief,” “abandonment,” and “shame” to name what was tugging at her innocent young heart every day.

The visits with their father were sporadic at best. They were not predictable or lengthy. The kids were no longer his kids when they visited him. They were mere visitors to be entertained.

Lucy’s normal was a life without her father. There was no conversation to help her understand if she had done something wrong for him not to be around, so she assumed she had. She would sit by the phone when she was told her dad was going to call. Most of those moments were met with further disappointment. The silence of the phone never ringing would hold her still, allowing the shame to increase deep into the places where she hoped to be met with her father’s approval.

There were a multitude of these experiences. Promised visits were on the calendar, with a no-show from Dad. He missed child support payments while claiming the kids as dependents on his tax returns—an agreement he insisted on in their divorce. At one point, Lucy’s father had built a decent career for himself, but when the courts ordered him to catch up and pay more in child support, he quit said job.

This drove home the narrative deeper into Lucy’s identity: that earning his time, attention, and love was going to be a difficult task, but in order for her to shed that icky feeling of being unlovable that her dad bore in her, she would have to work, as only an innocent, empathetic young daughter can, to earn his acceptance.

Not only do we, as kids, build up false narratives, but we carry them with us long into adulthood. How is it supposed to be that Lucy does not believe she is at fault for her father’s absence? A young child looking for the small ask of consistency and finding constant and sudden shifts and changes and no one explaining what this means and how her heart is being shaped by it all.

There is no hard stopping point on a person’s timeline where pain like this ends because of time or age. It takes the skill and willingness to feel those vulnerable stings of feeling forgotten, unwanted, and undone and to find a way to help those parts of us begin their process of exhaling that pain.

Lucy’s adoration and confusion about boys and men were beautiful and tender. She was shaped by two older brothers and an absent father. A naturally empathetic, kind-hearted little girl trying to establish her life while a foundation that keeps moving beneath her.

Lucy’s mother, 23 years old with three young kids, was physically present when able but relied heavily on the church being the village to help raise them. She was not prepared for motherhood nor the ongoing battle of needing support from Lucy’s dad. Lucy was learning to manage things like faith and purity culture for little girls and carrying the pain from past years of what no one explained while having secrets of her own. Religion gave her structure of how things work and an exact to-do list of her responsibility in it.

In observing her story from the outside, I think of a little girl who was searching for rescue. She was moving around each day in a life that didn’t make sense to her. The one loss she understood was that her dad was once there and now he wasn’t, and the daily sting of what went on inside her home left her little room for hope that she would ever feel safe there. For several years, Lucy was abused by her brother. The same brother who walked her to school and made sure she got there safely also took away the internal safety that comes from sexual abuse.

Where is my father?

Why do I feel dirty?

Is my being dirty what keeps my dad away?

If I can stop this abuse, will he come back?

I hate these feelings.

I hate these thoughts.

I hate this body.

Help.

Lucy’s mother went on to marry what Lucy describes as a good man who was present and brought a stability to her life that she hadn’t known in her first ten years. Her mom and stepdad welcomed two younger sisters to the family, and to this day Lucy takes tremendous pride in them and talks with them every day.

Survivors of this type of dysfunction have to work harder at building relationships and understanding stability. The craving for both does not stop because of the trauma, but the expectation to establish either is farfetched for a person who has had their internal and external compasses turned upside down.

Lucy made great grades. She went to college. She rebelled on a very low scale of what would be expected.

She felt like the grownup with her mother. She often felt she was not so much navigating her mother’s poor decisions and behaviors as much as trying to teach her how they were inappropriate. When her mother announced that she was divorcing Lucy’s stepfather, Lucy felt an old wound come back with different types of salt being poured in.

In her desire to have a say and get her mother’s attention, Lucy made a decision to go live with her father. At 19 years old, her father is a stranger to the narratives she carries from his neglect, but she needs a new chapter. This was her ultimate attempt to get her mother to wake up and look towards Lucy.

Lucy describes her boyfriend at the time as caring, patient, and remarkably kind. She has become concerningly ill and ends up in the ER. Her father has given her a curfew that is meant to somehow show his genuine care, so she leaves a message for him about where she is. Forever the responsible and respectful daughter.

Lucy has just been treated for mono. She is exhausted and afraid. She returns to what she knows as home, and her father is waiting for her. She didn’t miss the curfew per se, as much as she was not able to oblige his curfew and her visit to the ER. He was intoxicated and did not listen to the message that was left for him. Without an ounce of curiosity or proper pause, her father berates her for being late.

Lucy has many ideas about who her father is and how she could be different or better to get him to treat her well.

As outsiders it is easy to give feedback that we think a person should see about their abuse experience, but that is not how lived history works inside a traumatized body. Experiencing abuse of any kind comes with shame that feels like a flood and the worst thunderstorms you’ve heard. The shameful narratives, when not interrupted, take root in how we see ourselves and the world around us. We are walking pain with open wounds, hoping someone will at least not increase that pain, because our belief of self is hanging on by a very thin line.

Lucy’s father, empowered by his position in her life, offended that the curfew was not met, looks at his daughter, and then pulls from the weakest place in himself, and he tells Lucy’s boyfriend all the reasons why he should leave her.

Lucy, physically sick, wounded soul, listens as her father takes those narratives that were born from his neglect and her brother’s abuse and her mother’s dysfunction, and he tells Lucy’s boyfriend out loud all the things Lucy thinks about herself in silence.

A few years ago I was being pursued by a few big publishers and literary agents. They each had the same taglines about how impactful my work is and how they had been following me on social media for some time but wanted to wait for the right time to reach out.

I love writing, but I was not sure if publishing a book was the right outlet for me. I was communicating with a very well-known and respected agent and finding myself feeling a bit out of my league. Said agent requested I write the first chapter of my book. “What book?” I thought. I was not prepared, but I told her to give me some time.

There was a particular memory in my life that I had only shared with my EMDR therapist and two close friends. Due to the nature of the sexual trauma in it, I have found that the healing was helpful, but it wasn’t a story I wanted to repeat. In my desire to impress this agent, I decided to write about this story. I felt the context alone would be what made me worthy of her commitment.

It took me a few days, and looking back on that time, I remember exactly where I was and how it felt to type those words out. But I did. And I sent them to the agent to get her feedback.

Within two hours I got an email from her that said, “This needs a lot of work. You’ll need a ghostwriter.”

I swallowed hard. I stood up from my desk and felt this wave of shame that scoffed at me for thinking I was gifted enough to write my own story. I had opened this door to something that took me decades to remember in therapy and now desperately want to close it back, but someone else is holding the knob.

Lucy is a writer–a ghostwriter, in fact. Having written books and book proposals, she is well acquainted with the publishing industry. I sent Lucy a text including the context around me needing to get the agent a draft. She knew this agent well. Lucy and I had known one another for a couple of years at that point, and while she has shared her appreciation for my online work, we had not discussed much of my story. Her first response was immediate, “You don’t need a ghostwriter.” Her next response was explaining her evening with her son and husband and letting me know she most likely would not be able to get to it tonight, but she would text me the next day with notes.

I sit and prep the email for Lucy, explaining what I understood about how to write this chapter and being unable to name, at that time, the intense pangs of discomfort in my mind and body.

Within an hour, I get a text.

“Nate, I just read this piece. I just wanted to tell you I need some time to think through this story. It truly horrifies me as your friend to think of what was done to you. I will have more of a response later, but I just want to go hold my son. I love you. Lucy.”

This is Lucy. This has always been Lucy. This will always be Lucy.

What I needed was kind eyes and a soft voice to let me know that what I shared was understood. I didn’t know that. And that is an unfair expectation to have for a busy literary agent. But, because of the way Lucy responded, part of my story was restored. It was given back to me, and it felt like I had choice again.

This. Is. Lucy.

Lucy spent over a decade in her early adulthood, living in the same city as her father. His office was ten minutes from her apartment. He came to see her there—twice.

There have been many attempts where Lucy has tried to present information to her father for him to somehow, some way step into a place of ownership, kindness, and a little bit of awareness. Each attempt failed. Not because Lucy did not do it right or well. Her communication is powerful and present. It failed because Lucy has a bad dad.

During these years, Lucy was drowning in religious beliefs that had her returning to things like forgiveness, spiritual authority, and honoring her parents, when what she needed was a safe place to talk about things like pain, trauma, anger, and the real results of what it means to be a young girl in a world that harmful men rule without consequences.

Through the years, Lucy made the choice to sacrifice more of her time to begin healing from these stories. These stories are a mere few of many that she absorbed from an innocent place while attempting to simply exist. Attempting to love, be loved, and be connected to those who brought her here.

When asked what has helped her heal, she explains an exercise her therapist had her do where she had to draw a pie chart of who was responsible for her abuse and was not allowed to write her own name. She has returned to this visual often to remind her, on the days where it is easy to believe she is unlovable or unwanted, that there is a tender young girl in her that sometimes experiences the world like a threat rather than an invitation, and this is that young girl’s way of trying to hide.

She tells me inner child work profoundly changed how she saw that young child in her. Seeing her son at 2, at 7, at ages where she can’t rest until she knows he has what he needs, and understanding her trauma was never because of who she was or how she showed up in the world.

Lastly, she states, “Friendships with other people who’ve had traumatic childhoods. While I believe you don’t have to understand in order to honor someone, there is a kindness when you find someone that just gets it with a deep knowing because they’ve experienced it.”

Today is Father’s Day. For some of you, it is a day of loss and great grief because your father was a gem and you miss him. For some, your father has not been a part of your life the way you’ve needed, and it feels like more loss is on you. There are many other stories, layers, and nuances in between.

I wanted to take this Father’s Day and honor the stories of those who avoid today, because it has too much heartache. To honor the complexity for those, like Lucy, who will do something special for her husband with her son and not be able to escape the parts of her that ache a bit from that generous act.

The father wound is not discussed enough. It somehow fades in the backdrop with muted expectations and shames people for believing it could be different. But it can. Lucy’s son is experiencing that now. Many of you are married to, or have become fathers that the younger version of you would have healed with.

I hope reading this story at least helps you name something that you’ve been taught doesn’t matter. Something that helped you feel connected to the complex and messy narratives that come under the umbrella of being a complex trauma survivor carrying the father wound within them.

I asked my dear friend, “What do you want your name to be for this piece?”

She said, “Can I be Lucy? That sounds like such a cute little girl name. “Lucy” means “light” or “light bringer.” I like the idea of bringing light to my younger self in your words.”

“Yes!” I replied. “You can be whatever name you want.”

I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

Share

Reflections:

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Today is a hard one for many who have those complex narratives that are not easy to share because they are not sure if they will be blamed further for naming pain they carry that they didn’t contribute to. The father wound is visceral and deserves a gentle approach. I hope this story makes today hurt less for you—for you to know these stories, while complicated and isolating, are vast among many innocent souls looking for lighter days.

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Last week, I opened registration for my online group for the first time this year. If you’d like to connect with other stories like these, you can check out the space here.

Truly, truly, I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

The link to join my online group is here. If you are seeing this message when registration is closed, make sure to add your name to the waitlist to be notified when registration opens. 

Thank you to all who continue to help build this community. If you'd like to show support for this space, please take a few seconds and leave a five-star review. These reviews help others find these stories and give them comfort in knowing we are here. Thanks for your support!

I'm glad you're here!

Sign up for my Online Community

The link to join my online group is here. If you are seeing this message when registration is closed, make sure to add your name to the wait-list to be notified when registration opens. 

Thank you to all who continue to help build this community. If you'd like to show support for this space, please take a few seconds and leave a five-star review. These reviews help others find these stories, and gives them comfort to know we are here. Thanks for your support!

I'm glad you're here!

Sign up for my Online Community

Hi everyone,

I wanted to note two things before sharing this exchange below:

1). Trigger warning for the mention of multiple abuses. I tend to mute graphic details, but in this case, I felt they were necessary for the story to be understood, namely the complexities and the main question this person submitted.

2). I speak a bit more freely to this person than I do to many submissions. This is someone whose story I know more history of, and I am able to address things more directly than normal because of that familiarity.

Dear Nate,

I’ve been following your work on social media for several years. I have also been a part of your online group in Circle since it started, and it has been a huge part of my healing process. I love how raw and honest you are. It makes me feel safe, heard, and seen. I am not always able to see the forest for the trees, but your work helps me get there.

I am a CSA (child sexual assault) survivor. I have been on a healing journey for years and recently have learned to identify things like the fact that my mother is abusive and that my family is extremely dysfunctional.

The primary focus of my healing has always been centered around the sexual abuse as a child. Your essay about your childhood photo resonated with me. Similarly, I cannot look at my childhood photos.

All of my photos until around age 5 or 6 show a light in my eyes. I was a clown as a little kid, and the joy is evident. After the sexual abuse, I withdrew into silence, hoping it would make me safe. It didn’t work, but neither did speaking up. Now, as an adult, I still shut down at the blink of an eye; I hate talking about myself, and I’m always “fine”… Honestly, it’s really hard to hold it all in. But I’m not ready to blow up my family because of my CSA or, much less, the parental abuse that no one is willing to name.

Over the past few months, I have started to understand how much psychological damage and mind games I experience with my mom. As a mother, I can’t fathom doing the things she does to me to my kids. While I have made progress in healing, I feel like her continued behavior is a direct link to my trust issues, fear of intimacy, body/self-esteem issues, etc. I have spent my entire healing journey pointing to the childhood sexual assault, but that is not making sense at this crossroads.

Currently, my mom is in a phase where she enjoys bringing up traumatic past events I experienced. As a child, she would do my hair to make me look girly to her liking (I’m now nonbinary)—but always did it in an extremely rough manner and would not stop until she brought me to tears.

This week she sent me a pic of her favorite hairstyle that she used to make me wear and that she knew I hated. She suggested I do it on my kids. She also said last week that my childhood wasn’t that bad and she “had to live through it too.” This is after she has learned about some pretty severe experiences I had in and out of our home.

These statements remind me of other things she did to me that were abusive–both physically and emotionally. She would often punish me by pulling me around by my ears. There were many degrading behaviors I endured from her.

I have tried to create a better relationship with her. Any conversation about boundaries turns into a personal attack in her mind. She will then give me the cold shoulder (which I love), so that doesn’t work out for her. After a few weeks she’ll reach out and yell at me for not asking how she’s doing. It’s a painful cycle, but I do enjoy the quiet while it lasts.

The cold shoulder is much like the silent treatment she would give me as a child. There were many examples when I was a kid, when she would go without speaking to me for days, sometimes weeks. An example is when I was 16, my therapist (against my will) forced me to share about the CSA with my mother. My mother yelled at me for not telling her and then gave me the silent treatment for three months.

This continues to interrupt my healing a great deal, right? Learning to talk has been the hardest for me. I think A LOT. My therapist says my brain is like Times Square with all the lights and messages. But I hold it all in and keep everyone at arm’s length. I feel like I’m drowning a lot of the time, but no one has a clue.

Obviously the childhood assault was, in fact, traumatic, but I am starting to feel like my mother’s presence is what lingers and does not allow me to heal. Her delight in reminding me of things she did that I am trying to heal from does more damage than I realize until typing these words out.

Thanks for any input you can offer. My questions are:

1). Is it possible the current relationship with my mother is what I am actually trying to heal from more?

2). What needs to be considered before disclosing important but unknown information about your childhood to your family? (Familial SA, parental abuse by extended family, etc.)

3). How to find your voice and how to know when to use it. I’m so scared that silence is safety, but at a very deep cost for me.

Thanks,

I’m so tired.

Dear, I’m so tired.

Thank you for taking the time to type these out and name the specifics of what you are carrying. You being tired makes sense.

As you read along, I want to ask you to pay attention to the younger version of you, whose story was told today. What do they need from you? What do you need to know about them? Their presence and needs matter greatly in this scenario, and I assure you they will speak as you read these words.

In your intro you mentioned, “I am not always able to see the forest for the trees.” After reading the heartbreak in your story, my thought was, “Healing is the forest; your mother’s behavior is the trees.”

There is a theme throughout your story of your mother wanting ownership over her child rather than mothering them. Some examples of mothering would be:

Making sure you were heard when you had questions about how things work and the confidence to state when there was confusion.

Being a warm place for you to land when things are scary.

Modeling touch, intimacy, and connection in the safest way for you to understand the importance of each.

What I hear in your story is your mother seeing you as property (owning) rather than having a child. I think one of the biggest issues when you have an abusive parent is their refusal to allow you to experience safety anywhere (trees blocking the forest).

You mentioned in your path as a mother that you could not fathom doing what was (and is) done to you by your mother to your kids. I want to give you permission for two things:

1). If you can’t imagine doing to your kids what your mother has done to you, it is best not to. With that, there is a body and nervous system living within you that have a multitude of stories that pushed them off track. There is a young child who was developing while these things were happening. Oof. Where does that pain (and those memories) need to go?

2). What has been the cost for that child?

The healing process is often about restoring and reclaiming. Your process is complex because a person who was active in what you are trying to heal from is still active, while creating more to that healing to-do list.

While you are able to manage this with more tools as an adult, you are still carrying the child within you who had their hair tugged and pulled to tears. That child had no choice but to adapt to this type of dysfunction and do what they could to normalize it. Again and again: forest…trees.

One of the biggest scams I see created for survivors like yourself, who have much trauma stacked against them, is to align with ideas around the positivity of your mother, what she may have experienced as a child, and how to forgive or understand her. I believe, fully, if you were to attempt to do this, that child inside of you would start losing their breath and send the most lethal anxiety they can find to your nervous system. While you, an adult, are saying, “Why am I so bothered by my mother?” that younger version of you within is saying, “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

There is no shame or guilt in that. The pressure to align with societal norms and be ok with everyone is extreme. So much so that the norms themselves become a new layer of trees blocking the forest.

I wanted to share the details of what you have carried today because I know most of the people who will read this story have similar complexities living inside their minds and bodies. and they too believe there is a formula that allows them to exist with their abusive parent and hold their breath, see a positive light, or just let go that resolves the past (and current) pain. All while suffering and saying “I’m fine.”

I lost important years doing this. These ideas are why so many return to harmful people and, in their innocent way, are saying “Hey, if I do 90% of the work and you do 10%, could you treat me better?”

What we don’t realize is we are actually saying, “It is ok that you jerked my head around when brushing my hair, and you can still do it a little bit in new and different ways if you will at least admit you’re doing it.”

Abusive people know the perfect formula to pull in your vulnerabilities and manipulate your hope for their change. They have scripts galore of how to keep you open to them healing and taking ownership of their behavior, and as soon as they see you relax and let your hope grow, they strike again.

Not only does this create an added layer of new things to heal from, but it keeps the child separate from hope that they could potentially have a life where they feel valued. Forest. Trees.

Question #1:

Is it possible the current relationship with my mother is what I am actually trying to heal from more?

Yes.

I once shared a traumatic story with my therapist of an event that took place as an adult. My confusion was around the fact that the details were serious, but the impact wasn’t. After talking this through, what I realized is that I had a close friend that I was able to share within hours of this event. Their words (which I downplayed and suggested the event was not that bad) pulled the trauma out of my body. Her words were like a magnet that named exactly what happened, how I responded, and why I felt the way I did. While I am certain I had a rough day or two, there is nothing left in my body from that event.

If validation and naming things have that kind of power, what kind of reverse power do silence and manipulation have?

All abuse is profoundly damaging. All. With that, I have always felt that sexual abuse was darker in that it rearranges the soul. I did not feel the same sense of loss with the physical and emotional abuse. Again, it was all bad, but the sexual abuse felt like something was taken from me that I could not get back. The path to heal from this felt different. More invasive, different complexities, and the darkest of self-appointed shame.

You…were…a…child.

A child. Sexual assault at any age is horrific. A child? A developing child, who is as vulnerable as they come and experiencing such trauma, makes it impossible to know how to manage.

In a perfect world, that abuse would have never happened.

In a different world with some hope, after this happened someone would have made it safe for you to tell them, and you would immediately be protected.

In a survival kind of world, you tell this story years later and are hopefully met with mercy.

The number of trees that your mother has built around you, ever being able to believe there is a forest, much less see one, is deep and wide.

Without speculating on her silent treatment towards you after finding out about the assault, let’s imagine what that was like for that 16-year-old. Somehow, they knew their mother was not a safe person to tell about an invasive memory. However when forced to do so, they are further punished. The option for the words to become that magnet that pulls the trauma out of your body is replaced with silence. Deafening silence for that younger version of you to believe that silence is the only way to be safe.

Is it possible your current relationship with your mother is what you are actually trying to heal from?

Yes, I believe you are healing from your mother’s abuse.

Yes, I believe your mother’s actions have shaped much of the heaviness you are navigating now.

Yes, I believe your healing is waiting for you at the center of the forest, and when your mother senses you may begin to use your voice, she plants 100 new trees because your healing reflects her lack of health.

Question #2:

What needs to be considered before disclosing important but unknown information about your childhood to your family? (Familial SA, parental abuse to extended family, etc.)

Earlier you shared:

“Honestly, it’s really hard to hold it all in. But I’m not ready to blow up my family because of my CSA or, much less, the parental abuse that no one is willing to name.’

You are not responsible for your family’s response, wellness, or unwellness. You are not the nucleus that holds your family in place. The idea of family is often the rigid and rusty ironwork holding things (and people) in place that perpetuates more trauma, more denial, and more silence.

Let me be very clear about something regarding family where abuse happens:

The foundation of these families are not built on health or truth. If a person coming forward about being abused within the family is something that blows up a family, that family needs to be rebuilt.

How fragile is a group of people in a family who would collapse upon hearing that one of them was traumatized by another? And then blame the collapse on the victim who asked for help? That isn’t family. That is scapegoating. This is cowardice and fraught with dysfunction.

I want to change your question from “What needs to be considered before I share?” to “What needs to be shared?”

I don’t know who is responsible for directing survivors back to families where abuse and trauma happen and no one speaks about it, but this needs to stop. While we are dependent (and biologically hardwired) on our families, there is a misstep that is actively taught to survivors: that they need to start explaining things to their family.

The same family who was there when it happened?

The same family that is repeating these cycles on their kids and those around them?

The same family who has supported a parent who was knowingly abusing their child?

I would challenge you to ask what response is likely because of what you know so far.

Has anyone in your family shown an interest in the changes you are trying to make?

Has anyone in your family expressed admiration for your attempt to heal?

When you have hinted (or blatantly stated) what you are healing from, have they shown you mercy?

If there are family members who are your “yes” to these questions above, a private conversation may be in order.

But, as far as what your mind and body have carried that has cost you more than you bargained for, you don’t owe your family an explanation.

This also includes exiting any role that your family has you in that keeps the denial intact.

This is complex, but when you are standing in the forest, this will be worth it.

Question #3:

How to find your voice and how to know when to use it. I’m so scared that silence is safety, but at a very deep cost for me.

You have found your voice. You have used it here with direct correlations to why you are struggling with life. That IS your voice. However, it needs to be used every day to speak to you about your own needs.

Your mother’s chaos when you have used your voice has taught you that using your voice was the reason you walked away with more pain. You walked away with more pain because your mother abused you in those situations.

If you were standing in the middle of the forest and healing was abundant, your mind clear, and your soul free, I believe you would see that younger version of you who was pecked at every time they used their voice, and you would see their silence as wise. Because it was.

You noticed that your voice, your words (and the truth in them), provoked more pain for you to have to navigate, and you wisely found ways to hurt in silence. This was wise, but costly. The pain was not because you used your voice. The pain was because of how your mother treated you when you spoke truth to her.

I recently read that when an arborist sees that a tree is diseased, their first attempt is to wall off the part of the disease in order to keep the tree alive. One of the major threats there is the diseased part of the tree spreading beyond what they have attempted to isolate. However, if the diseased part of the tree spreads, it not only gets to the root, but the disease can spread to other trees via wind-blown spores, root grafts, and infected pests. This can (will) wipe out an entire group of living trees.

Your mother’s presence is meant to be a lifeline for you. The history with her is meant to be rooted in safety, comfort, and understanding. This is not your history. In your story, where there needs to be validation, there is silence. Where there needs to be compassion, there is judgment. Where there is hunger for the forest, there is her blockage with the trees.

This is not what you are meant for.

I understand you are afraid of using your voice more.

I understand you are afraid of being silenced when you do and feeling all that old pain again.

I understand you have past pain that keeps getting touched by a person who was meant to help relieve it.

But I want you to pursue the forest.

In that pursuit, many people get stuck, like me, for years, believing there is a way to allow unwell people to feed off them, continue to hurt them, and somehow still heal. This is not what that younger version of you is looking for. That is not them finding their voice. That is not them standing in a safe space and exhaling because they know the worst is done.

Run to the forest, my friend. Run, run, run. When you get there, those who’ve caused you the most harm will lose interest. Not because you are not interesting, but because your healing is louder, and they know you are out of their reach.

I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

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Reflections & gentle reminders:

=========================

This is not an opportunity to tell the person here what you think they should do. Feel free to share how you were impacted, but most importantly, this is an opportunity to connect with your own story by witnessing theirs.

Follow-up:

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Registration for my online group is open for the first time this year. You can get the details and sign up here. If you are receiving this after registration is closed, make sure to add your name to the waitlist. to be notified for the next registration.

Take good care of your heart, mind, and body after reading this today.

Truly, truly, I am glad you’re here.

Last week I shared a personal story about a problematic ministry leader from my past who got arrested. In that story, I spoke directly about the following:

• Being taught about the lake of fire (hell) for eternity as a child.

• Being ostracized from my family and community if I did not attend conversion therapy.

• The mental breakdown caused by attending said therapy.

• The continued abuse/trauma from the leadership of the organizations.

• The president of the largest organization got arrested last week in a pedophile sting.

The summary of this was: I have peace in my life and found that peace long before the so-called justice was served with his arrest. I am grateful I did not tie my peace to an outcome out of my control.

You left comments about your stories. Remarkable, heartbreaking, inspiring stories, like only survivors can.

What I enjoy about storytelling in this format is it makes room for someone to sit, process, and then type out how the words pull from something inside of them that needs to be named. This, in my experience, can also be healing for someone. To read words that have just the right mixture of personal backstory and how to manage the experience, a person can allow something meaningful (often difficult) to linger in vulnerable places. What usually feels like fear and anxiety can become more understood, therefore allowing it to be released a bit quicker because the person feels like their experience is shared.

You do this in my comments every week. Thank you. This is healing in real time.

Because I take this work seriously and respect the context of it, I do not allow comments to remain that are going to trigger someone else or take away from the focus of the story. I was not shocked last week when I read:

“You’re really suggesting the lake of fire is not real ???”

I went to his profile. A pastor. Elderly. Says he works with youth.

Years ago, I watched an interview that a few people recommended to me.

I will not name the person being interviewed, but he shared a story about how he received public backlash on a public forum. He suggested it was curiosity that led him to send a direct message to the person criticizing him. He is well-known, and he suggests the person immediately becomes flustered and apologizes. He goes on to explain that the person was in pain and he learned more about the person’s story, while vaguely rementioning the person was touched when he reached out. The emphasis was on how the person kept apologizing for the negative feedback and was shocked to hear from someone this well-known.

I was struck by how this person told a story that made him look like a hero, all while wearing a flashy outfit, pointing directly at what would be seen as humble.

I don’t like compliments. I don’t dislike them because I am pretending to get someone to try harder. My brain does not have the same reward center that a neurotypical person has, so what is meaningful to someone else and may feel like words of affirmation or validation for me is often experienced as just information.

I have a joke on repeat with those closest to me. When they compliment one small thing (”Nate, you are funny.”) I reply and name 4-18 other positive traits they may need to be reminded of about me, and I end it with, “And I am also EXTREMELY humble, and I don’t even know it.”

This interview felt a bit like that to me. I guess good on him for being curious, but it felt like he was pretending to tell a story about being curious about others, but with a very large side dish of “Holy Shit. Can you believe how humble I am?”

When the pastor left the comment, I immediately removed it because had my readers seen it, it would have felt like someone was taking away from their experience and it would have gotten replies that took the focus away from the key points of the story.

I kept thinking of the interview I’d watched years prior and asking myself, “What would it be like if you sent this person a message to understand more of where he is coming from?” Then, I took a huge bite of Oreo cake from a bakery here in Buenos Aires, went to the guy’s profile on here, blocked him, and then took another bite of that cake.

Let me be clear on this one piece first: To read through the details of things like conversion therapy, my reference to many who lost their lives to AIDS, the leader of a corrupt cult being arrested on pedohile charges and someones take away to be “YoU nO lOngEr BeLieVe In hEll?!” We are not only not operating with the same goals, but we are not orbiting the same reality.

Doing this work and sharing publicly has come at a personal cost. So personal, that I am still reprocessing what the hell the last six years have been for me, a loner, an introvert, showing up on these social media apps, and building this large platform while pretending not to struggle with it all—every single day.

Coming to this space and focusing more on long-form content has done much of what I needed it to do. It releases creativity for me, helps me connect a lot of rambling thoughts (that need to be connected), and hopefully gives insight for someone who (like me much of my life) needs some things clearly defined to make their load a little lighter.

I have no desire to know more about this pastor. While he is not responsible for what other pastors have done to me or the masses of other innocent people walking around with religious trauma in their lives, he is responsible for respecting my space.

His response had nothing to do with my belief about the afterlife. His response was about him. My guess would be he has some unprocessed emotions and a lack of education on things I wrote about. He read through my essay and saw factual information like “Well-known ministry leader arrested in pedophile sting,” and instead of pausing and expressing an emotionally mature response, he shifted the narrative to something else to escape his own discomfort—while implying my beliefs should be doubted. That is a slippery slope he created.

Something I have learned from posting publicly, is there have often been people who follow my work because they know if the people they’ve hurt find me, they will be in trouble. They do not follow me to embrace it but to keep their thumb on it and pretend they can control me.

So, let me put this out there:

I take healing seriously. I take the well-being of hurt people seriously. I don’t abide by the rules of social media, cancel culture, facades of humility, fame, social clout, or pretending to respect the elderly who refuse to show up in respectful ways.

I have done my work to recover from trauma. I will continue to do my work to grow and heal. There is a long list of things that I want to improve on, but creating space for people who haven’t done the basics in healing work while having the confidence to disrupt safe spaces is of no interest to me.

My compassion is held for those needing compassion. My curiosity is held for those showing a desire to grow and heal.

I come to this space and I do this work, because I once laid on my bedroom floor and said to myself “If I make it out of this, I want to try and help others.”

At that time, barely hanging on, there were no people telling me about hope, and many people, just like this pastor, interrupting what could have saved my life.

I am telling you about the pastor because I want to remind you that being elderly, or being a pastor does not warrant respect. Being respectful does.

It is a shame he will no longer have access to this space, because seeing your stories could have been something that helped him address his own.

I am learning there are plenty of people who want honesty in their lives. This is often because of how many people curate false narratives for them, or in this case, blatantly push their denial and expect someone else to address it.

I am no longer holding space for those who inappropriately invade mine--professionally and personally. I am too tired, too happy, and have worked too hard for my peace.

Do I believe in hell? Yes, but thankfully, I found my way out.

I hope you do too.

I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

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Reflections:

=======================

I want you to pause for a moment and think of a person in your life that shows up, changes the narrative, and refuses to read the room. What has been modeled here that you need to manage (or not manage, change, etc) the relationship with this person?

Final thoughts:

=========================

It took years to get to this place with boundaries. Years. When I tell you there is complete and total peace in remaining unaffected by unwell people, there is. But it took years to understand the validity in protecting my space and understanding the detriment of a person willing to invade it. Any step you take towards this is huge. Go get it! 🫶

Truly, truly, I’m glad you’re here.

I have always found it odd that people say they don’t have regrets. Like, nothing? At all? Not even a little something you wished had been different, better, or a hard life experience that you’re still paying for? No?

I understand the power of peace. I really do. And I understand we all have different ways to get there, but there are parts of my life that carry such weight that I don’t know if I will ever fully recover or have peace around all parts of them in this lifetime. It wasn’t the cruelty of it, but the ignorance of it. The fact that my world could be so small and limited, that I would buy into ideas that were farfetched and unrealistic, and that I remained internally dormant for almost forty years.

In my twenties I had this faint whisper that would tell me to log onto dating websites and look at gay men and just see if there was someone worth losing my family and community over. That was the insanity of it. It was that black and white. If I were to ever “choose” to be in a relationship with a man or what the religious mouthpieces called “acting out,” then I would no longer be allowed in their presence.

My regret is not only that I did not walk away sooner, but also that I did not know there was a life waiting for me that had the peace I mentioned. The peace I have found looks nothing like what I was taught peace was, and that is all I need to know to confirm that I have done it well and done it right.

Like many of you reading this, my world was made small by abuse and trauma. The power and impacts of both whittle away at dreams, aspirations, and hope and get replaced with shortness of breath, an apologetic presence, and lack of vision. Not because you are small-minded, but because your mind is being forced to focus on survival.

I feel confident in saying I have recovered from the abuse and trauma from my childhood. I spent years sifting through memories that needed to come to life. Memories that I knew, by mentioning them, would make my chest have that burning sensation, while my heart rate would go to war with the air in the room. But I grew to experience the internal relief from reprocessing these things by naming, digging in, and helping my mind and body feel a little more like home. What once felt like a slow death now feels like a rebirth.

In the midst of my “war on being gay,” I landed in conversion therapy when I was 18. This is that thing that is so stupid that I regret not knowing. And again, I don’t mean I regret not knowing as if I should have, but I regret not knowing because it still affects parts of my life now.

I have wondered if there will be some sort of spiritual awakening that is so profound that the energy of the awakening carries me to new places and in new ways and the grievance from my mind and body’s past no longer has the grip or the ability to take away time.

I have peace. I have fought for every bit of it against religions, families, communities, and cults called “ministries.” But it is real, and its existence allows me to pursue more pleasure in my life while still being aware of the subtleties I have not quite learned to let go of.

Conversion therapy has many branches and ministries. The mothership for those was Exodus International. I attended many events, conferences, workshops, and groups there and felt like an outsider because I believed the messages they told about homosexuality being something you need to heal from, which left me as a failure—forced to carry the shame in silence.

The president of Exodus shared that God had healed him from his same-sex desires. He married a woman and adopted two kids. He wrote multiple books and articles while also sharing what was called his testimony in front of us as a model to follow so we too would be free.

If you are reading this and think, “How could Nate have believed this shit?” I want to explain a few things to you:

1). I was fully dependent on outliving a narrative that I learned in church as a child that if I were gay, then God would give me AIDS. This was not subtle, and none of us misunderstood. This was South Georgia in the 80’s.

2). I grew up evangelical, so everything hinged on heaven or hell. Again, so many of us scoff at how insane some of those thoughts are now, but as a child if you are taught about a lake of fire, you do what you can not to end up there.

3). There was sexual abuse in my little world that started when I was around five years old. There was physical and emotional abuse too, but the sexual abuse changed my soul, and all I was ever trying to do was cleanse myself from feeling dirty.

Today, my strongest connection to the gay community is understanding the lives lost to AIDS. How they were discarded and scapegoated and how many faced their ending here without being properly held. I long to hold them. Those who were there. Those who lost loved ones. Those who survived it.

When I think of the lake of fire, I feel fury over children being taught this. This is being normalized, not considering how destructive that is for a child to think of such things.

When I think of the shame I felt from the sexual abuse, I don’t doubt the dirty feelings; I just know it wasn’t my dirt.

Last week, the president I mentioned from Exodus was arrested in a sting operation, attempting to meet a 14-year-old boy.

I am a touchpoint for many people who only know one survivor of conversion therapy, so when I would get the updates, I would confirm, “Yes, I know him well.”

When I first heard of it, I did a search to confirm, and it was quickly becoming national news. Oddly enough, the day before this story broke I had just finished preparing a session for my online group where we discussed the topic of finding peace when there is no justice. Prepping that session helped me identify how I was feeling about the situation and why.

Nothing about the arrest surprised me. This is a man whose organization led us to Christian campuses and conference centers, and then the day we arrived, they would force us to sleep in the bed with someone else from the conference.

This was a place where my 22-year old, undiagnosed autistic self would feel pleased and confused when staff members would seek me out and say things like “You need a hug” and then rub my back, hold me a little too close, a little too long.

This was years of us being told to confess our most intimate sexual behaviors (sins) to our leaders, so we could be corrected, chastised. And once again, one of those leaders has just been arrested for being a pedophile.

If you feel discomfort reading some of this, you might have felt a similar injustice. The insanity of living on the outside of justice and having to find ways to make life work so it does not swallow you. That balancing act of knowing the truth about corruption but not being able to speak it too loudly, because of how many people are not willing to open their eyes to abuse of power and the harmful fairytales being told in church.

Justice. Is this it? Or was the apology he gave years ago for how much damage they had done to so many lives supposed to be our justice?

This is what I have learned about justice:

Someone else’s definition of justice is not what you can depend on to find peace in the aftermath of what your mind and body have carried.

Seeking justice often involves a similar energy to that of injustice. Be careful with your energy. I am not suggesting you don’t seek justice. I am suggesting placing peace as a priority.

Justice does not always equal peace. It can. For many, it will. But the two are not steps to one another.

When I got the first message about his arrest, I googled his name and saw his mugshot all over the internet. The backwards testimony he has always told no longer has a place to hide, yet there will be people who defend him and suggest things like mouthpieces do.

“Tempted by Satan.”

“Fell from grace.”

“We all have….”

Oof.

Typing that out makes me grateful that chapter of my life is over.

I taught the session with my group, and we had a lively conversation about justice, injustice, and the aftermath of dealing with those who won’t speak truths.

After the sessions, I checked in with my body a little quicker than normal. I curled up on my couch and thought about what I had seen and what I was processing.

I am glad he got caught, but nothing in my life changed if he didn’t. I am not withholding my pursuit of peace based on whether or not the truth is told. That feels dependent on the places and things that have had power over my peace, and that is not something I will allow to happen again.

I am grateful it was a sting operation and there was no 14-year-old boy. I have been that 14-year old in real life, and the weight of that evil has felt damn near impossible to shed.

In the end, I did not feel any justice from this. Again, not because I did not want justice, but because I found my way to peace and I was no longer willing to be on hold for systems that need to be destroyed before people will listen.

The justice was different for me. The justice has been in my ability to live fully and well beyond the rigid scope of judgment and shame people like him tried to tell me I was not allowed to possess.

I will not follow his trial. I will not check for updates. There were no surprises from this arrest. I don’t need to revisit a tender part of my life to be reminded of what was obvious to those of us in his care but denied to us when we tried to tell others.

The survivor’s path is tumultuous. As you read this today, take from it what makes you swell in hope and action. My path to justice is not the path–it’s simply mine. No matter what yours is, I hope the stories of heartbreak that have remained feel the fury of your desires to heal them, and that fury scares away those who intend to cause more pain.

I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

Reflections:

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What brings you peace? What has helped you move towards it when justice felt too slow or too far out of reach?

Truly, truly, I’m glad you’re here.

In the early years of estrangement, I found holidays to be the most difficult. I don’t think it was the shallow pressure to find peace on earth in my face as much as it was time standing still.

I had little to no coping skills for what to do with the anger and pain from estrangement, so I worked. That felt productive, like I was buying time into some sort of advantaged future and hoped that somehow, through that process, a lightbulb would go off and things like idle time and silence wouldn’t feel like a threat.

When the holidays came, my phone would stop ringing. The urgency to tackle my to-do list stopped. The rush to get back to my office to meet the deadline did not exist. Slow time came fast, and I didn’t know what to do with it.

As the years went on, I learned to make plans for the holidays. Some of those early plans were 1). Hide from people and eat one whole turkey and 3 pies. 2). Watch reality TV for nine hours and judge them for not being as insightful as me. 3). Go for a walk.

There were enough of these cycles where I didn’t want to feel worse after the holidays, so I started to find things that allowed me to be a little more present. Longer walks, time with friends, volunteering, reading by the fireplace, a matinee.

Last December, I bought my first jigsaw puzzle. I remember being a kid and seeing elderly people put puzzles together and thinking how tragic that was that this is what their life had become. When I calculate the years, and who I saw putting said puzzles together, I realize “elderly” was about 45. I’m 48.

The first puzzle I bought was a 500-piece of an English bookstore in spring. It had a light pink painted brick exterior, plush flowers by the door, and books positioned in every direction of the arched window—a perfect view for me. It was fairly easy to put together, so a friend who also does puzzles (elderly of about 38 years old) recommended I try a 1,000-piece puzzle.

There is a spot on my way home from yoga that nine out of ten times has someone posing in front of and I always enjoy seeing that. Recognizing that this theater sign I walk past every day means something to others makes me appreciate Chicago’s charm. I went to a couple of local shops to buy a puzzle, and when I found a 1000-piece puzzle of the sign, I knew it was going to be a good holiday.

I had two different people share with me how much they hate puzzles. Both, oddly enough, were teachers, and both shared that puzzles bring an intensity that they don’t want to feel in themselves—almost like a blinding effect.

I get it. I really get it. In an attempt to be present in the mind and body and enjoy a simple pleasure, those little puzzle pieces needing to fit together can feel like you are being taunted by your past, present, and future.

While I was putting the puzzle together, I was in the beginning stages of my transition out of the US and off social media. I knew a new chapter was beginning for me, and I took notes of how putting that puzzle together reminded me so much of what healing looked like.

I wanted to share those notes with you. I hope you enjoy.

I’d imagine I am not the only one who buys a puzzle, looks forward to putting the puzzle together, considers the patience and focus needed to participate, and then allows the puzzle box to go unopened for a bit longer than planned.

Healing is like that.

Once the box is opened and the first attempt begins, it is overwhelming to see so…many…pieces. It is hard to decide which way you want to start organizing them and also hard to imagine the end result ever being put together as something exciting to see.

Healing is like that.

The organization process is important. Having an idea or guide about your plan and pace can be helpful. Some people will give you insight on the fastest way to put the puzzle together, but advice like that is not inclusive to each of us wanting a different experience from putting the puzzle in place. It is important to be careful with who tells you that their way of assembling is the only (or right) way.

Healing is like that.

The time it takes someone else to finish a puzzle has nothing to do with you. There is no way to compare or measure the way you gather and put the pieces in place. The puzzle being complete is not to prove you can put it together but a choice to do something that allows you to be present with time. Using timeframes (yours or others) robs you of the process.

Healing is like that.

There will be many moments where you will hold a puzzle piece in your hand, searching for where it fits. The desire increases with each corner and crevice you want to make home for this piece. But after some time you realize you need to take a step back and place that piece to the side until you can have some time away from the whole puzzle (and the process) because you’ve spent too much time trying to put it together, and what you need most is a break and a new perspective.

Healing is like that.

There will be pieces that you place in the puzzle that seem like the right fit for a specific spot, but they’re not. If you have not had a line of successful pieces placed together recently, it will be that much more tempting to leave that piece in place. But as time moves on, you will see it was a close fit but not the right fit, and having the wrong piece in place does not allow you to build on more pieces in the right places.

Healing is like that.

Those pieces that seem to fit will not be easy to let go in the beginning. In fact, without some practice and understanding, you may not be able to see it does not fit. Almost like, it masked itself to seem like the missing piece and played on your hunger and need. The more puzzles you put together, the more refined your vision is for something being more exact, and the slightest rub on that piece against another does not mean that piece is bad but simply that it is misplaced.

Healing is like that.

There will be moments where you assume the puzzle maker and store have taken advantage of you. That, of course, you were the one who received the puzzle with missing pieces that can’t be put together, and that somehow, you deserved that. Then, after stepping away, you will come back, and in this small pile of puzzle pieces, a piece, newly discovered, that you can’t imagine you overlooked, will appear. That piece will be the connecting point to many other puzzle pieces being put in place. These only show up when it seems like they don’t exist.

I hate this. But healing is like that.

There will be times you sit down to work on your puzzle and because of other things that happened in your day, it will make the puzzle pieces harder to find, and it will seem like nothing is coming together. It will be easier to dismiss the 4, 5, 6 pieces you have just put in place, and suggest nothing got done when, in fact, those pieces were progress, and working on the puzzle on hard days is a really big deal.

Healing is like that.

I have never had a long stride of pieces coming together without a glaring halt afterward. I chalk this up to having space and time to go strong for a bit but then recognizing that putting puzzles together is a first for me, and I can’t expect to see the puzzle in its entirety without also needing time and space to adjust my vision to what is coming together, adapt to the time I have spent devoted to assembling the puzzle, and accept this is all a new experience.

Healing is like that.

During the process, you will have periods of time where you get busy or distracted and are not able to work on the puzzle. During that time, life is going to happen in unexpected ways. It is important to recognize that in the normal flow of life when you return to the puzzle, all the pieces will be just as you left them. Once a piece has been put in place, you may not feel as connected to it because of external factors, but it is there and much more accessible with time.

Healing is like that.

There are no shortcuts. You can have someone come and take a look and tell you what pieces they see but in the end each piece has its place, and it only works with being put in the place it was made for.

Healing is like that.

There are no specific rules or timing on when you work on the puzzle. The process provokes different emotions and pathways when you are with yourself and putting the pieces together.

Healing is like that.

There will be pieces you have set aside that seem like they will end up being a very important part of the puzzle when in the end, they were a small part of a much larger image. It is ok to allow that to just be and not need, want, or pretend that piece is more significant than the others.

Healing is like that.

There is a stride when you begin working on new puzzles where you are familiar with the process and a supposed missing piece or a stall in effort does not scare you because it all ends up being put together.

Healing is like that.

At the end of the process, there is a mix of pleasure and sadness. Something you have been committed to is coming to an end. I have never wanted to put the same puzzle together twice, but after some time, I have recognized I was ready for a new puzzle, and if anything, I have a better understanding of how to navigate the process.

Healing is like that.

If I were to have started with a 1,000 or 2,000-piece puzzle, I most likely would not have continued the journey of putting puzzles together. Starting with a puzzle that is too big for the beginning of your practice will take way too long and potentially turn you away from wanting to do another one. Finding the right size for your capacity to meet you where you are is an important factor in expanding the practice.

Healing is like that.

Imagine you stepping outside of your mind and body for a moment and watching yourself sit at a table, putting your puzzle together. Notice their determination and their intent. The way they view the puzzle, and the way they are moving the pieces around in order to bring it together. What do you sense when you see this person? Now imagine someone comes along and tells them they’re taking too much time and that their puzzle should already be put together or that they’re not doing it right or that the puzzle is taking up too much space.

Healing is not like that.

There is another big difference between healing and putting a puzzle together:

Puzzles come with an exact picture of what the end result is supposed to look like. Healing doesn’t. Healing is more like a blur with hope. This shows a lot of courage to trust things, people, and resources that are able to help you refine that blur to clear seeing. To move towards a place of compassion and peace for the path you’ve taken to get here, and the willingness to gather the pieces and attempt to put them in place is brave.

No matter where you are, I hope you have just enough to see the pieces, acknowledge their importance, and start putting them in place.

I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

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Reflections:

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Was there a statement above that spoke to you about something that felt hidden or confusing to you in the healing process?

Truly, truly, I’m glad you’re here.

Rittenhouse Square, Philadephia, PA

July 2024

Full disclosure: I am not, never have been, and never will be a mother. The words written below are meant to offer hope for those having a hard time today and needing more than the Hallmark version of what this day is. I say this because I admire mothers and do not want to pretend that I understand the sacrifices, pain, and complexities of motherhood.

Someone mentioned this week that Apple has added Mother’s Day to their calendar and there is no way to remove it. So today, even the person who chooses not to go on social media or check their email is still forced to feel that pang of salt in the wound to be reminded of what they’re trying to forget.

Someone else mentioned that today is their least favorite day of the year. When I read that, I imagined what they are carrying in their body. What their eyes have seen, what their ears have heard, and what they were told when they tried to explain said things.

I believe both of these people are justified in their experience. And from my experience, there are a lot of places where they would get wounded further by sharing that feedback. This is what creates much of the polarization when people talk about what should be talked about but is hidden in many communities and families.

I have tried to write this essay four times, and each time, I am flooded with how often I have been harassed, belittled, and shamed for naming things that have helped others around having an abusive mother. Every time I go to make one point, I can hear (and see) the anonymous onlooker leave their comment on some innocent person’s vulnerable sharing, “There are two sides to every story.”

I hate that shit. And we don’t have time and space for that. The pain from today is real, and the people who need the reminders to hang on don’t need the reminders from strangers who act like the mothers they walked away from. I hope that’s clear.

To those needing the reminders:

For all the daughters who needed a less competitive mother, I hope you thrive in self-acceptance.

For all the sons who were not the kind of boy she wanted, I hope you are rooted in self-love.

For the adult whose past self is yelling today because they have never had what they needed from her, I hope you hold that past self close.

For the young mother who is afraid, because becoming a mother has reminded her of past pain, I hope you feel your strength of how you’re doing it differently today.

For the grieving mother, who regrets not knowing better, I hope you know how many strangers appreciate knowing there is someone who cares and is sorry.

For the adoptee who has never known her, I hope you feel important today and held by a deep, affirming love.

For those experiencing the first year without her, when she was the anchor of healing and hope, I trust her presence shows up right on time for you today.

For those stuck between needing space and feeling guilt because of how much trauma she has endured, I hope you choose peace for your mind, body, and soul.

For those needing to be heard and instead being told what to do about her, I hope you catch your breath in a silent space, and feel held there before you are vulnerable again.

For those who are still trying to please her, when nothing seems to work, I hope you allow yourself to grieve that cost.

For those who’ve had to protect their kids from her because it was the only way to break the cycle, I hope you see safekeeping in your kids’ eyes today.

The cycle to heal these is not an easy one.

Suggesting a person who has experienced a mother wound what they should do without understanding how that wound has changed them is creating more for them to heal from.

Healing the mother wound is not healing the relationship with your mother. It is healing the harmful actions your mother took that are left inside your mind and body. Healing the mother wound is you coming face-to-face with those wounds and mending them. Taking those wounds to the person who put them there is often where more wounding comes.

For those who’ve had changed mothers who’ve fought for your relationship, I hope you can consider those who haven’t today.

If I had one want for everyone listed above, it would be that they are no longer objectified when they try to show people their pain.

How do we heal from this?

By listening to the parts of us that we have silenced. The part that was hurt by her, and the part we found easier to numb rather than to be reminded of what they carried.

We build the space and capacity to listen to the lies that were built from the shame and the shame built from the past traumas, and we close our eyes and say, “I am here," over and over until we sense our own power coming back.

This is a kind of vulnerability that feels similar to when she hurt you. In the moments when you needed comfort but received criticism, you stopped opening your arms.

Healing is opening them up again, but this time, being the warm embrace they needed. It makes sense to want your mother to clean up your wounds, but if she is the one who put them there, the safest bet is to be who you needed her to be and over and over see the past wounds heal and the potential for present wounds to stop.

This is not easy. It is complex. Days like today can make you feel more hurt, but let today be what it is intended. A lot of pretend. A lot of unnecessary false narratives. You, standing on the outside of it, catching your breath.

I’m glad you’re here.

Nate

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Reflections:

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Is there one step you can take today that feels aligned with your continued healing of this process?

Again, I’m glad you’re here.