Picking Up The Pieces

Some beautiful smart ass made a post saying that if you want to know what your therapist has been through, you can tell by looking at what they specialize in.

Generational trauma and ADHD?

OOF.

This random stranger sure had my number.

It’s not lost on me that this same logic applies to my research. I’m developing a scale to measure maladaptive self-reliance, drawn from my work on the cultural trauma of Appalachia.

I’m intimately familiar with structural abandonment being rebranded as “resilience”.

Three years ago, I built this space with the intention of writing regularly about mental health, rurality, generational trauma, Appalachia, and the stories we tell ourselves about success and failure.

Then life happened in the way life eventually does.

In 2023, I was working full-time as a counselor in community mental health and trying to figure out my dissertation topic. I was also trying to build an online presence to help bridge the gap between research and reality.

Then, in a 30-day span, we lost my sister-in-law, father-in-law, and mother-in-law.

An entire branch of the family tree. Gone.

I wanted to reduce my clinical hours for obvious reasons. I knew what traumatic grief does to the brain. I knew the ethical standards that say counselors should not provide services with impaired judgment.

My job was part of the National Health Service Corps program and my appeal for approved time away was denied. The financial consequences for breaching this contract would have been devastating.

So was continuing to work at that capacity under these conditions. Anything that took energy beyond existing came to a halt.

I didn’t know I made a deal with the devil.

It took about a year for my brain to grow back. I fumbled through TikToks trying to practice talking about my work again. Some of them landed. One got the attention of a publisher.

Now I find myself returning to old notes, unfinished drafts, highlighted books, scattered theories, and half-formed ideas. Some of them still feel alive. Some of them were ahead of me. Some of them need to be let go.

I’m working as hard as I can to land this doc degree before I time out.

My first book, Money in the Mountains: The Cultural Trauma of Appalachia comes out in June.

In the meantime, I think I’m back.

Still thinking. Still writing. Still picking up the pieces.