Thank you very much for commenting on my article, Kirby, so that I could discover your blog. What a powerful read it was! Your story is inspiring, and it's interesting how most of our pain always leads back to something in childhood. It's hard to talk about, because many adults will discard it, brush it off like it's nothing...Your words matter a lot and I'm sure that by creating this Substack, many people will resonate. Though I didn't experience your story, I see myself a lot in the way you described your feelings. The silent wish for that 'pain' to be visible, so that it can be understood.
Thank you for taking the time to read. That still means so much to me. I appreciate your feedback so much. Thank you for your words and time spent here as well as what you share with others. I love getting to meet people from all different walks of life with different experiences that still mirror my feelings even if experiences differed. š«¶š»š«¶š»š«¶š»
Kirby,(to all those reading, Iām her Dad). Iām reading this for the first time and I am in tears. I am PROUD that you are winning the daily war! I Believe you are able to help many families with your writings!! Love you!!!
I just re reread this and caught that you were suggesting an app called āmediumā for me to share my work? I canāt believe I didnāt see this. I will check it out right this moment. Thank you!!!
My good friend. Thanks for not only subscribing, but genuinely asking for me to read something. I'm not sure if you were asking me or @thetherapistwhocameundone to read this but! irrespective (not a word, I know) of that, I'm going to you give you my 200 cents.
Honestly, reading this felt like watching someone speedrun the entire āhuman conditionā expansion pack before kindergarten. Most kids were out here arguing about whose turn it was on the swings, and you were basically conducting nightly negotiations with your own nervous system like, āListen, buddy, we can panic after snack time, but not before.ā
And adults, being the highly trained emotional technicians they are, responded with their classic toolkit: shrugging, mislabeling, and hoping youād āgrow out of it.ā If childhood had Yelp reviews, most parents would be sitting at a solid 2.3 stars. Great effort, questionable execution.
Thatās the thing about early pain. You werenāt just anxious. You were ahead of the curriculum. You were fluent in a language everyone else refused to admit existed. Meanwhile the rest of the world was like, āJust calm down,ā which is basically the emotional equivalent of telling someone mid-heart attack to āwalk it off.ā
Then thereās the sparkle act. People love a polished child. They donāt care whether the shine comes from talent or from you grinding your soul into glitter to keep everyone comfortable. You were doing Olympic-level emotional gymnastics while smiling like it was a school-district PR campaign. If anyone had paused long enough to check under the hood, theyād have realized the engine was being held together by Vicks Vaporub and pure will.
Which brings us to the philosophical pivot point. You canāt stay stuck in the question āWhy did this happen to me?ā unless you enjoy existential tailspins. No judgment, Kirby, but that question is basically the treadmill of suffering. Lots of sweat, zero forward motion.
I got stuck here for a long time after what happened to me.
The better question is, āWhy did this happen for me?ā Not in a toxic positivity way. Not in a āthe universe gives toughest battlesā way. More like: āOkay, since I didnāt order this trauma appetizer, what skills did I accidentally pick up while choking it down?ā
Because, love it or hate it, pain is an efficient teacher.
Hypervigilance? Thatās unwanted Jedi training.
Loneliness? Thatās bootcamp for self-perception.
Survival rituals? Fine, maybe they looked like witchcraft to outsiders, but they worked, and thatās what actually matters.
Your family story just adds to the comedy of errors that is modern childhood. They didnāt fail you out of malice. They failed you because they were constructing an emotional skyscraper using IKEA instructions printed in disappearing ink. Nobody knew what they were doing, least of all the person pretending to be foreman. So of course you grabbed onto the sibling who made sense. And of course he eventually got tired. He was a teenager, not a licensed therapist.
Then college happened, which is natureās way of saying, āLetās take unresolved emotional trauma and add cheap beer.ā Instead of community, you got social Darwinism, Greek life, and your prescriptions suddenly behaving like cryptocurrency skyrocketing in value. People judged you for coping while simultaneously benefitting from your coping. Thatās not dysfunction. Thatās Tuesday on most campuses.
And when it all crashed, it didnāt happen because you were weak. It happened because your whole life had been one long structural engineering violation. The miracle isnāt that things fell apart. The miracle is that you learned to rebuild without the manual.
Recovery wasnāt your redemption. It was your rebellion.
Sobriety wasnāt purity. It was you calling your nervous systemās bluff.
Healing didnāt let you āfind yourself.ā It let you meet the version of you who wasnāt performing.
And now? Youāre doing something more subversive than survival. Youāre building a community out of thin air. Thatās basically emotional counterterrorism. Youāre giving people the very thing you needed, which is one of the rare moments where humanity gets it right.
So yes, the question changed.
It had to.
It grew up.
It got smart.
Not āWhy did this happen to me?ā but āWhat door did this agony accidentally unlock?ā
Because if life is going to throw plot twists at you like itās auditioning for daytime television, the least you can do is use them to write a better story than the one you were handed.
This is absolutely beautiful and brave and powerful. This line landed hard for me: I used to wish for a scar or tumorāsomething visible, something undeniableāto prove how real the terror of dying.
Our stories are quite different, though there is also a lot of overlap and a lot of ways in which your story holds up a mirror for me. Thank you for guiding me here...
Thank you so much for taking the time to read and give feedback!! I have seen some of your profile today and plan to read a lot more when I leave the DMV. I would love to connect sometime. Thank you!!!!!! Means so much!!
I love reading all you're posts. They provide a level of vulnerability that requires great strength. Please continue to write. You are helping people grow, learning how to get through dark times, and inspiring hope ā¤ļø
Second cousin once removed ā„ļø I remember asking your dad how exactly we were related. Sitting in the back seat of his car. Thank you for stopping and reading! I hope youāre doing well amy!! Love you!
Thank you very much for commenting on my article, Kirby, so that I could discover your blog. What a powerful read it was! Your story is inspiring, and it's interesting how most of our pain always leads back to something in childhood. It's hard to talk about, because many adults will discard it, brush it off like it's nothing...Your words matter a lot and I'm sure that by creating this Substack, many people will resonate. Though I didn't experience your story, I see myself a lot in the way you described your feelings. The silent wish for that 'pain' to be visible, so that it can be understood.
Thank you for writing this.
Thank you for taking the time to read. That still means so much to me. I appreciate your feedback so much. Thank you for your words and time spent here as well as what you share with others. I love getting to meet people from all different walks of life with different experiences that still mirror my feelings even if experiences differed. š«¶š»š«¶š»š«¶š»
Kirby,(to all those reading, Iām her Dad). Iām reading this for the first time and I am in tears. I am PROUD that you are winning the daily war! I Believe you are able to help many families with your writings!! Love you!!!
Thank you dad for reading this and supporting me!!! I love you very much and I hope you help as many as possible!
You'll have quite the audience of like minded people who will subscribe to your posts on Medium.
I'm there often.
Breathe. Two parts. Innnnn... hold for 2... and a longer exhale.
alexa reminds me to take a deep breath every hour.
I just re reread this and caught that you were suggesting an app called āmediumā for me to share my work? I canāt believe I didnāt see this. I will check it out right this moment. Thank you!!!
You have absolutely no idea how much that means to me!! I am so excited right now.
ā¦I breathe with the calm app and can switch up how many seconds lololol. So glad you came and read !! Appreciate it greatly!!!!
I think I have that app. I have sooo many. Stupid F'n AuDHD!
Lately I've been using Mindshift. Doesn't even cost a penny.
M-F zoom meditations and much more. Cheers!
My good friend. Thanks for not only subscribing, but genuinely asking for me to read something. I'm not sure if you were asking me or @thetherapistwhocameundone to read this but! irrespective (not a word, I know) of that, I'm going to you give you my 200 cents.
Honestly, reading this felt like watching someone speedrun the entire āhuman conditionā expansion pack before kindergarten. Most kids were out here arguing about whose turn it was on the swings, and you were basically conducting nightly negotiations with your own nervous system like, āListen, buddy, we can panic after snack time, but not before.ā
And adults, being the highly trained emotional technicians they are, responded with their classic toolkit: shrugging, mislabeling, and hoping youād āgrow out of it.ā If childhood had Yelp reviews, most parents would be sitting at a solid 2.3 stars. Great effort, questionable execution.
Thatās the thing about early pain. You werenāt just anxious. You were ahead of the curriculum. You were fluent in a language everyone else refused to admit existed. Meanwhile the rest of the world was like, āJust calm down,ā which is basically the emotional equivalent of telling someone mid-heart attack to āwalk it off.ā
Then thereās the sparkle act. People love a polished child. They donāt care whether the shine comes from talent or from you grinding your soul into glitter to keep everyone comfortable. You were doing Olympic-level emotional gymnastics while smiling like it was a school-district PR campaign. If anyone had paused long enough to check under the hood, theyād have realized the engine was being held together by Vicks Vaporub and pure will.
Which brings us to the philosophical pivot point. You canāt stay stuck in the question āWhy did this happen to me?ā unless you enjoy existential tailspins. No judgment, Kirby, but that question is basically the treadmill of suffering. Lots of sweat, zero forward motion.
I got stuck here for a long time after what happened to me.
The better question is, āWhy did this happen for me?ā Not in a toxic positivity way. Not in a āthe universe gives toughest battlesā way. More like: āOkay, since I didnāt order this trauma appetizer, what skills did I accidentally pick up while choking it down?ā
Because, love it or hate it, pain is an efficient teacher.
Hypervigilance? Thatās unwanted Jedi training.
Loneliness? Thatās bootcamp for self-perception.
Survival rituals? Fine, maybe they looked like witchcraft to outsiders, but they worked, and thatās what actually matters.
Your family story just adds to the comedy of errors that is modern childhood. They didnāt fail you out of malice. They failed you because they were constructing an emotional skyscraper using IKEA instructions printed in disappearing ink. Nobody knew what they were doing, least of all the person pretending to be foreman. So of course you grabbed onto the sibling who made sense. And of course he eventually got tired. He was a teenager, not a licensed therapist.
Then college happened, which is natureās way of saying, āLetās take unresolved emotional trauma and add cheap beer.ā Instead of community, you got social Darwinism, Greek life, and your prescriptions suddenly behaving like cryptocurrency skyrocketing in value. People judged you for coping while simultaneously benefitting from your coping. Thatās not dysfunction. Thatās Tuesday on most campuses.
And when it all crashed, it didnāt happen because you were weak. It happened because your whole life had been one long structural engineering violation. The miracle isnāt that things fell apart. The miracle is that you learned to rebuild without the manual.
Recovery wasnāt your redemption. It was your rebellion.
Sobriety wasnāt purity. It was you calling your nervous systemās bluff.
Healing didnāt let you āfind yourself.ā It let you meet the version of you who wasnāt performing.
And now? Youāre doing something more subversive than survival. Youāre building a community out of thin air. Thatās basically emotional counterterrorism. Youāre giving people the very thing you needed, which is one of the rare moments where humanity gets it right.
So yes, the question changed.
It had to.
It grew up.
It got smart.
Not āWhy did this happen to me?ā but āWhat door did this agony accidentally unlock?ā
Because if life is going to throw plot twists at you like itās auditioning for daytime television, the least you can do is use them to write a better story than the one you were handed.
This is absolutely beautiful and brave and powerful. This line landed hard for me: I used to wish for a scar or tumorāsomething visible, something undeniableāto prove how real the terror of dying.
Our stories are quite different, though there is also a lot of overlap and a lot of ways in which your story holds up a mirror for me. Thank you for guiding me here...
Thank you so much for taking the time to read and give feedback!! I have seen some of your profile today and plan to read a lot more when I leave the DMV. I would love to connect sometime. Thank you!!!!!! Means so much!!
Absolutely! And good luck at the DMVš¤Ŗ
Literally bawling I love you so much Kirby
I love reading all you're posts. They provide a level of vulnerability that requires great strength. Please continue to write. You are helping people grow, learning how to get through dark times, and inspiring hope ā¤ļø
ā„ļøā„ļøā„ļø this just made my year ā„ļøā„ļøā„ļø
Thank you for sharing your story, Kirby. You and your words are so powerful. Love always from your second cousin once removed
Second cousin once removed ā„ļø I remember asking your dad how exactly we were related. Sitting in the back seat of his car. Thank you for stopping and reading! I hope youāre doing well amy!! Love you!