10/21/2025
At the Indie Author Fest this weekend, I was reminded how complicated healing can be.
A woman came up to my table, a survivor. She told me she’s been carrying her story for decades — waiting for the “right time” to begin healing. When I asked what she meant, she said softly, “I’m waiting for my mom to die.”
It’s something I hear more often than people realize. Many survivors wait until their parents are gone — out of fear, loyalty, or protection — before they feel they can finally speak. But the cost of that silence is heavy. There is no perfect time to begin healing, only now.
Then there was a different kind of moment. A fellow author asked what my book was about. When I told him, he had a physical, almost violent reaction — as if the air had been sucked out of the room. He walked away without a word.
That, too, is the reality of this work. People don’t want to see it, hear it, or believe it. But it’s real. And every time we talk about it, every survivor who steps forward, we chip away at the silence that keeps so many of us trapped.
Thank you to everyone who stopped to learn or share. The conversations matter. Even the hard ones.
