I Forgot Who I Was

The stuck point that changed everything.

On April 1, I posted a mirror selfie in a tiny blue dress and told everyone I was leaving for thirty days.

If you are going to announce an inpatient mental health and wellness retreat, why not do it with a little sass, a peace sign, and a dress?

But underneath the humor, I meant every word.

I wrote:

“See y’all in 30 days! I’m doing an in-patient Mental Health & Wellness retreat to RESET and process years of unresolved PTSD & grief.”

And that was the truth. I needed to reset. I needed to process years of unresolved grief, trauma, stress, and everything that comes from carrying too much for too long.

I had just kept trucking along. Raising babies. Taking care of everyone. Working. Surviving.

Handling the next thing. And the next thing. And the next thing.

Until one day, I realized I could not keep going like that anymore.

Not because I was weak. Because I was exhausted.

Not because I had failed. Because I had carried more than I knew how to process.

Not because I wanted to disappear. Because I felt lost.

I forgot who I was. I forgot what I was capable of.

I didn’t recognize the person I saw in the mirror.

When I first talked about going to The Refuge, A Healing Place — a residential treatment center focused on trauma, PTSD, grief, and healing. I called it a mental health and wellness retreat.

And in many ways, it was.

There was yoga.

Equine therapy.

Group therapy.

Individual sessions.

Music.

Meditation.

Somatic work.

Ropes courses.

Great food.

The forest.

Space to breathe.

Space to cry.

Space to finally stop pretending I was fine.

But it was also work.

Real work.

Uncomfortable work.

The kind of work where you sit with the things you have pushed down for years and begin to understand how much they have shaped the way you think, react, love, protect, panic, isolate, rage, over-function, and survive.

When I came home, I wrote that it was one of the most insightful, educational, and healing experiences of my life.

And it was.

I learned CPT and DBT skills… so many acronyms.

I learned about trauma responses.

I learned about different diagnoses and treatment approaches.

I learned about nervous system regulation.

I learned how much grief can live in the body.

I learned that people from all walks of life are walking around hurting while looking completely fine.

College kids.

Parents.

Doctors.

Dentists.

Veterans.

People who were successful. People who were strong.

The same people who had spent years hiding how much pain they were in.

I saw so clearly that we are all so different, yet so similar, and far more connected than we realize.

But the biggest thing I learned was harder to explain.

I was stuck.

And I had been stuck for years.

I was not just sad. I was not just tired. I was not just having a rough season. I was destroying myself.

My body was sick.

My nervous system had been living in survival mode for too long.

Things that should have been manageable felt impossible.

Small problems felt enormous.

My mind felt overloaded.

My emotions felt bigger than my ability to handle them.

Maybe it was hormones.

Maybe it was menopause.

Maybe it was unresolved trauma.

Maybe it was years of unprocessed grief.

Most likely, it was all of it.

But I knew one thing for sure. I was not me anymore.

I could still function. I could still take care of people. I could still solve problems. I could still show up when I absolutely had to. But inside, I felt disconnected from the woman I used to be.

I could not cope with the little things.

I raged at the people I loved most.

I isolated myself from new friends and from some of my oldest, safest, best friends.

I stopped trusting myself.

I stopped feeling alive inside my own life.

And there is another truth I have to say, even though part of me would rather skip over it.

I had recently ended a relationship that was not healthy for me. I am not going to use this space to tell every detail, assign every motive, or turn my healing into a public trial. That is not what this is. But it would also be dishonest to pretend it did not matter.

That relationship contributed to my isolation. It changed some of my closest friendships. It affected the way I showed up as a mother. It shifted the energy in me and in my home. It made my world smaller at a time when I desperately needed safe people, clear thinking, and connection. And when that relationship ended, something in me started to clear.

Not all at once.

Not magically.

But enough that I could finally see how far from myself I had drifted.

Separation gave me space.

Space gave me perspective.

And perspective gave me enough vision to realize I had done the right thing…and that I needed real help. 

Thank God, my children and I are finding our way back to the right track.

Thank God, some of the friendships and relationships that were strained are beginning to heal.

Thank God, I can look back now and see that leaving what was hurting me was one of the first ways I began choosing myself again.

That was part of the truth too. And I do not want to leave it out just because it is uncomfortable.

Maybe you know that feeling too. The part where your life keeps moving, but you do not quite feel like you are inside it. You are answering the texts. Making the appointments. Going to work. Taking care of the kids. Doing the next thing. And the next thing. And the next thing.

But somewhere underneath all that doing, you realize you have become very good at getting through the day and not very good at feeling alive inside it.

That is where I was.

So I made a decision that felt both terrifying and profound. I decided to take care of me.

And do you know what happened?

Everyone was happy for me.

Everyone was supportive.

The world did not fall apart because I stepped away to heal.

In fact, I think the people who loved me were relieved that I finally saw what they may have been seeing for a long time.

I did not go to The Refuge because I wanted to disappear. I went because I felt lost.

Not a little off.

Not just tired.

Lost.

I had built lives. Raised children. Created businesses. Moved countries. Made things happen. Survived losses. Started over. Kept going through things I barely knew how to talk about. But somewhere along the way, I had forgotten who I was.

Not completely.

Not in a dramatic, movie-scene, amnesia kind of way.

I had lost sight of myself. There is a difference. Losing yourself sounds final. Losing sight of yourself means you may still be there — buried under exhaustion, grief, disappointment, responsibility, survival, unhealthy patterns, and years of being the strong one. At The Refuge, I started learning language for things I had lived with but never fully understood.

Trauma.

Grief.

Survival mode.

Nervous system overload.

And one phrase I heard so many times that by the end of three weeks, I never wanted to hear it again:

Stuck points.

Honestly, if someone had said “stuck point” one more time, I may have needed another retreat.

But the truth is, I was stuck.

And I needed a place that understood trauma well enough to help me get unstuck.

A stuck point is usually not the truth. It is a belief that forms after something painful happens — something that makes you believe something false about yourself, your life, other people, or what is possible for you. The evidence of the opposite may be there. It may have been there all along. But when you are hurt, grieving, ashamed, betrayed, exhausted, isolated, or surviving, you cannot always see it clearly. So the work becomes learning to look at the situation again.

Not through the pain.

Through the truth.

One of my stuck points was that I could never trust another business partner again because my experience had been so painful. But that was not the whole truth. The truth was, I had seen many partnerships flourish. I had seen people build beautiful, respectful, successful things together. One painful partnership did not mean partnership itself was impossible.

Another stuck point was that I had failed because someone else could eventually run Bazzle Baby better than I could. But that was not the truth either. The truth was, I built that company from an idea. I ran it for years, largely by myself, with help from family and friends.

I created something real.

Something successful.

Something that existed because I had the courage to begin.

That is what stuck points do. They take one painful part of the story and convince you it is the whole story.

At The Refuge, I began learning how to challenge those beliefs with evidence.

Not fake positivity.

Not pretending everything was fine.

Not skipping over the pain.

Evidence. What actually happened?

What did I make that mean about myself?

And what does the evidence say is true?

That question changed something in me. Because when I looked back honestly, I realized the evidence was there. I had found another door before.

When I did not make cheerleader in high school, I ran for student council.

The next year, I made the squad.

In college, I applied for an internship at the Utah State Capitol and somehow ended up in Washington, D.C., working for a Congressman instead.

My first job out of college was through a temp agency, and I wound up working with some of the biggest music artists in the world.

By twenty-nine, I was making six figures in radio sales and had been promoted to GSM.

I traveled to England to visit a friend, joked that I should marry a Brit, and then — weirdly and randomly — I did.

I built Bazzle Baby from an idea into a real company.

I traveled the world.

I raised four amazing kids between England and the U.S.

I dreamed of living by the ocean, and eventually I did — in a beautiful coastal home six blocks from the beach that we designed and built ourselves.

I had built things.

I had started over.

I had survived loss.

I had raised children.

I had created a life more than once.

My confidence had disappeared.

But the evidence had not.

For so long, I thought I had lost myself. Now I think maybe I had lost sight of myself. The Refuge did not introduce me to a brand-new person. It helped me remember the one I had stopped seeing.

The brave one.

The creative one.

The funny one.

The woman who could figure things out. The woman who could begin before she was ready. The woman who had always known how to make something from almost nothing.

She was not gone.

She was tired.

She was grieving.

She had been carrying too much for too long.

And she had been living inside circumstances that made it harder to hear herself clearly.

By the end of my three weeks at The Refuge, I was sick of the words “stuck points.” But as much as I hated hearing them, the work mattered. Because slowly, I started to see it.

I was not a failure.

I was not incapable.

I was not too late.

I was not starting from nothing.

I was looking at my life through the most painful parts of the story and mistaking them for the whole truth.

When I came home, I wrote:

“This changed me, and I’m not staying quiet anymore.”

And I meant that too.

I will advocate for mental health education.

I will talk about getting help.

I will talk about trauma and grief and the things we push down.

I will talk about how good women are at hiding how much pain they are in.

I will talk about the fact that you can look fine, sound fine, post pretty pictures, raise children, make money, laugh at dinner, answer texts, and still be unraveling inside.

I will talk about the truth that sometimes healing also means admitting what environments, relationships, patterns, and dynamics are keeping you from yourself.

Because I know what that feels like. And I also know what it feels like to finally admit:

I need help.

Maybe this is true for you too.

Maybe the person you are looking for is not gone.

Maybe she is buried.

Maybe she has been quiet because life got loud.

Maybe she has been waiting for you to stop asking, “What is wrong with me?” and start asking, “What happened to me?”

Or even:

“What evidence have I forgotten?”

When did you surprise yourself?

When did you begin before you felt ready?

When did you survive something you did not think you could survive?

When did you find another way?

When did you build, love, lead, create, protect, provide, start over, or keep going?

Maybe reinvention is not always becoming someone new.

Maybe sometimes it is remembering who you were before life made you forget.

At fifty-four, I am not becoming fearless. I am remembering that fear has never stopped me from moving before.

This is not proof that I have everything figured out.

It is not a polished after-photo.

It is where I am remembering myself in real time.

It is where I am learning to tell the truth.

It is where I am building again — not from nothing, but from experience.

I forgot who I was. Now I am remembering myself in real time.

A little disclaimer, from me to you

I am not a doctor, psychologist, therapist, counselor, or mental health professional. I am not here to diagnose, treat, or tell anyone what they should do.

I am just sharing what I have lived, what I have learned, and what helped me start finding my way back to myself.

But I will say this:

If you are at a point where you know you are not okay, please do not wait until everything completely falls apart to get help.

If you are able to go somewhere like The Refuge, or another trauma-focused residential treatment center, I would encourage you to explore that option. For me, stepping away from my normal life and into a place designed for healing made a difference I could not have created on my own.

And if residential treatment is not possible, there are still options.

There are intensive outpatient programs, partial hospitalization programs, trauma-focused therapists, grief counselors, support groups, and other forms of care that may be more accessible while still giving you real support. Many insurance plans may cover some or all of certain types of treatment, so it is worth making the call, asking the questions, and finding out what is available to you.

If something I write here feels familiar, please do not ignore that little nudge. Talk to a qualified professional, your doctor, a therapist, or someone safe who can help you figure out what kind of support you need.

And if you are ever in immediate danger or afraid you may hurt yourself, please call 988 in the U.S. or your local emergency number right away.

I am not an expert.

I am just a friend on the internet saying:

You are not crazy.

You are not alone.

And you are allowed to need help.

Final note:

I also want to thank the community, therapists, cooks, nurses, and the entire staff at The Refuge. You helped me find my way back to myself.