The Chaos of Healing

Pull up a seat – It’s story time

I’d love to tell you this story started in 2025, but the truth is, it began much, much earlier.

In 2022, I was already in therapy, trying to untangle my past and become a healthier version of myself. What I wasn’t prepared for was discovering that I was still living in the middle of abuse and manipulation. I began recognizing patterns I’d carried since childhood—patterns I thought were normal because they were all I’d ever known.

Once your eyes are opened, it’s impossible to close them again.

By 2023, life began unraveling in ways I never expected. The longest and dearest friendship of my life came to an end. While I had my own part to play, I fought hard to repair it. When people say friendship breakups can hurt more than romantic ones, they’re telling the truth.

At the same time, my family uncovered that my father had been hiding a meth addiction for years. The man who had always called me his favorite became someone I barely recognized. His behavior grew volatile, and after months of trying to help him seek treatment, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life: I chose to protect my children and sever all contact. There are few griefs more confusing than mourning someone who is still alive and you still love dearly.

My marriage had always truly been struggling, but in 2024 I finally accepted what I had been avoiding. After years of unhappiness and an incident that changed everything, I chose to leave. I asked only that we make it through the holidays for our children’s sake. Instead, the separation stretched on for months, and it wasn’t until July 2025 that he finally moved out after I had to bar him from our home.

Then, in January 2025, everything shifted again.A phone call from my doctor changed the course of my life. Genetic testing from two years earlier had revealed something that had been missed: I have Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome, a rare genetic condition that significantly increases my risk of developing tumors and certain cancers.

Ironically, the diagnosis didn’t make me question leaving my marriage. It reminded me how precious time really is.

A few months later, my bonus mom—my guiding light and fellow survivor of my father’s addiction—was rushed into emergency brain surgery after doctors discovered a brain tumor. On the evening of my father’s birthday, after learning she had made it through surgery and her seizures had stopped, I sat down and wrote my Life List.

For the first time, I stopped asking what life expected of me and started looking at what mattered most to me.

Then came May. I flew to California for a wedding, only to receive a phone call thirty minutes before the ceremony that my father had died in Portland from septic shock and heart complications related to his addiction.

The grief that followed changed me forever.

As I tried to navigate losing my father, supporting my family, and carrying the weight that somehow always seemed to fall to me as the oldest child, another lifelong friendship quietly came to an end. That loss cut deeper than I expected.

The months that followed were messy. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and several chronic health conditions. I grieved relationships, old dreams, and versions of myself I thought I’d become.

But I also began rebuilding.

I started the business I’d dreamed about for more than twelve years. I earned my driver’s license back and bought my own car. I chose sobriety and never looked back. My circle became smaller, but my life became more authentic.

Little by little, I stopped surviving and started living.

Chaos of Healing was born from that journey.

This isn’t a place where I’ll pretend healing is graceful or linear. It’s where we’ll talk honestly about grief, trauma, addiction, chronic illness, resilience, rebuilding, and finding hope after life falls apart.

If you’ve made it this far, I’d love for you to stay. My hope is that somewhere in my story, you’ll find permission to believe in your own.

Because healing isn’t about erasing the chaos. It’s about learning that there can be beauty within it and using it to choose your path.

Write your truth. Own your story.