I am going to endeavor to be as honest and vulnerable in my response here as Sarah Salem was in hers. I highly recommend you check out her response here, and her work in general. A wonderful writer and person.

Okay, let’s get real, shall we?

—

Things Substack Doesn’t Know About Me (Yet):

I’ve alluded to this in posts, and probably given more detail in DMs, but now it’s time to be 100% honest on main.

You all saved me.

And I don’t mean like, “you saved me from a bad decision” or “you saved me from publishing a bad story.” No, I mean like you saved me. As in, you saved me from making a decision I couldn’t come back from.

The past couple years have been some of the toughest of my life. I was struggling with addiction. I went through a divorce that started okay and then went really bad.

I got pulled into a lawsuit that demanded money I didn’t have. I spent a year in and out of court rooms, only to be told to pay anyway.

Prior to joining Substack in January of this year, I stopped writing. Entirely. I just couldn’t do it. My heart wasn’t in it. And to be honest, my soul wasn’t either.

In fact, my soul was aching for release. I wanted out. I wanted off this ride. Everything I had spent so many years building was crashing and burning all around me. I was done.

And then, in that darkest part of my life, I found all of you.

I decided to put my work out there again. I told myself I could start from scratch. That I could build something I would be proud of.

And now, 11 months since I joined this community, I can confidently say I have.

And that’s thanks to all of you.

Now, many of you may have heard me say aspects of this before, but that’s the full story that you didn’t know.

The story of how you all saved me. 💜