My Story
I’ve spent most of my life doing two things at once:
surviving trauma, and trying to make something beautiful out of it.
I got a rare neurological disease called CIDP when I was 10 years old.
One day I was a kid.
The next day I was learning about nerve damage, chronic pain, collapsing immune health, and the terrifying possibility that my body might stop working for good.
And then came the fear—of the unknown, of getting worse, of dying—growing bigger and heavier over the 18 months it took to diagnose me.
It was a complete mind-bending, fear-filled blur that no child should ever have to survive.
There’s no guidebook for medical trauma.
No map for childhood trauma.
No language for the kind of fear that takes root when your own body becomes the threat.
So I survived the only way I could:
I got quiet.
I got strong.
I got small.
I got funny.
I got really good at pretending I was fine.
Silence became my survival strategy.
If I didn’t talk about it, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much.
If I didn’t ask for help, maybe I wouldn’t be a burden.
If I smiled and achieved and took care of everyone else, maybe no one would notice I was falling apart.
And then I grew up.
Trauma grew up with me.
Because trauma doesn’t leave just because you do.
And here’s the part no one warns you about:
when you grow up with trauma, the survival strategies you learned as a child follow you into adulthood.
Silence. People-pleasing. Reading every room like a threat assessment. Becoming small. Never asking for help.
Those things kept me alive as a kid.
As an adult, they kept me in places I should have left.
I survived medical trauma and a childhood where no one had the emotional range to support me…
so of course I ended up with narcissistic bosses, manipulative partners, and relationships that felt like war disguised as love.
I didn’t know how to leave — I only knew how to survive.
I was an expert at enduring pain, not escaping it.
I spent years thinking I was “loyal” and “resilient,” when really I was just surviving long after the danger was over.
Trauma doesn’t just live in your memories — it lives in your nervous system.
It shows up in hypervigilance, people-pleasing, exhaustion, nightmares, perfectionism, anxiety, shutdown, and the bone-deep belief that if you stop moving, everything will fall apart.
It shows up when someone says, “You look great!”
and your brain says, “Actually, my disease is slowly eating my nerves and I’m terrified.”
It shows up when your body collapses in a grocery store.
When doctors don’t listen.
When people don’t believe you.
When you look “fine,” but your life is falling apart on the inside.
And still — I didn’t talk about it.
Not really.
Not out loud.
I waited decades for someone to say,
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“You deserved more support.”
“You’re not broken.”
“Me too.”
Eventually, I realized I couldn’t wait anymore.
Silence was keeping me alive.
But it was also keeping me alone.
So I started speaking.
I started saying the things I never said as a child.
I told the truth about being medically traumatized.
I told the truth about CPTSD.
I told the truth about chronic illness.
I told the truth about losing friends, freedom, mobility, and a future I thought I would have.
I told the truth about trauma brain, dark humor, ER visits, gaslighting, shame, grief, numbness, and fighting for myself when I could barely stand.
And then something happened.
People started saying,
“Me too.”
Not “that sounds hard.”
Not “you’re so strong.”
Not “but you look great.”
Just:
“Me too.”
That is the moment survivors stop dying inside.
That is the moment shame loses its power.
That is the moment trauma isn’t silent anymore.
Now I speak so other survivors don’t have to sit alone with their stories for 20 years the way I did.
I speak because trauma doesn’t disappear when we ignore it — it disappears when we name it, laugh at it, mourn it, and take its power away by sharing it.
I speak because humor has saved me more times than medicine.
I speak because trauma brain is exhausting and ridiculous and if we don’t joke about it, we might never breathe.
I speak because silence is where trauma grows — and words are where trauma breaks.
I don’t talk about trauma so people pity me.
I talk about trauma so people don’t pity themselves.
You don’t have to be okay every day.
You don’t have to be brave all the time.
You don’t have to heal alone.
Whether you survived medical harm, childhood trauma, chronic illness, violence, grief, or something invisible — you deserve connection, community, and the kind of healing that only happens when someone else looks at you and says:
“Me too. I thought it was just me.”
This is my story.
And if you’re here, maybe it’s part of yours, too.
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