Category: Life Lately | Unhinged Thoughts | The Chaos Chronicles So, apparently, I have reached a new level of boredom. Not the normal kind of boredom where you scroll TikTok for three hours, reorganize your closet, or decide your entire house needs to be deep-cleaned at 2 a.m. No. Apparently, my brain decided that the appropriate response to having absolutely nothing to do was to LEARN AN ENTIRE NEW LANGUAGE. Because why not? Some people get bored and take a nap. Some people

Trigger Warning: This blog discusses depression, emotional exhaustion, hopelessness, and the darker realities of mental health struggles. There is a kind of sadness that crying doesn’t fix. A kind of exhaustion that sleeping doesn’t touch. A kind of pain that doesn’t leave bruises, doesn’t show up on an X-ray, and doesn’t always have an explanation. And then there’s depression. Not the kind people casually talk about when they’ve had a bad day. Not the kind that disappears af

An honest, raw, and vulnerable look at first responder mental health from someone who wears the headset, answers the calls, and knows what it’s like to fight battles nobody can see. Trigger Warning: This blog discusses PTSD, depression, trauma, suicide, and the emotional struggles of first responders. We Save Lives. But Who Saves Us? There is a side of being a first responder that nobody really prepares you for. It’s not the long hours. It’s not the missed holidays, the sleep

There is a different kind of heartbreak that comes from realizing the people who are supposed to be your safe place are sometimes the very people you need protection from. Nobody really talks about how much it hurts when your own family talks about you behind your back, tears you down with their words, questions your decisions, and makes you feel like you will never be good enough in their eyes. We talk about toxic friendships, bad relationships, and walking away from people

There comes a point in your life when you have to sit with the person you used to be and be honest about the things she did wrong. Not the things people did to her. Not the reasons she was hurting. Not the circumstances that made her angry, insecure, lonely, or desperate to feel wanted. Just her mistakes. And God, is that a hard thing to do. Because when you’re the girl behind the chaos, you get used to explaining yourself. You get used to wanting people to understand why you

There’s a version of me that I absolutely fucking hate. And the worst part? She’s still me. She’s the version of me who gets so angry that my entire body feels like it’s on fire. The version who says things she doesn’t mean, pushes away people she loves, and feels like she’s watching herself become someone she doesn’t even recognize. She’s the version who can go from perfectly fine to absolutely furious over something that probably wouldn’t bother someone else nearly as much.

Do you know how fucking hard it is to finally look in the mirror and not hate the person staring back at you? Do you know how many years it takes to undo the damage of being told you’re not pretty enough, not skinny enough, not good enough, not worthy enough? Do you know how many nights I’ve spent picking myself apart, wishing I could change everything about myself because somewhere along the way, people convinced me that who I was simply wasn’t enough? Because I do. I know e

“We Respond to Everyone Else’s Worst Day… Then Go Home and Pretend We’re Fine.” Trigger Warning: This blog discusses traumatic emergency calls, death, mental health struggles, and the emotional toll of working in emergency services. There’s a side of being a first responder that nobody really talks about. Not the cool uniforms. Not the flashing lights. Not the adrenaline rush. Not the badass stories people want to hear when they find out what you do for a living. I’m talking

Nobody really prepares you for what it’s like to love someone who works offshore. They tell you about the money. They tell you about the long rotations. They tell you about the weeks apart, the missed phone calls, the shitty service, and the countdown until they’re finally home. But nobody tells you what it’s like to be sitting hundreds of miles away, watching a fucking hurricane develop in the same waters where the person you love is working. Nobody tells you what it’s like

Trigger Warning: This post discusses suicide, suicidal thoughts, mental illness, and personal struggles with mental health. There was a time when I wasn’t sure I’d live long enough to become the woman I am today. And that’s a really fucking hard sentence to write. Because before I became the woman who answers 911 calls, before I became an EMT, before I started chasing my dream of becoming a paramedic and a psychologist, I was just a girl who was desperately trying to escape t

There’s a specific kind of insanity that comes with falling in love with someone you’ve never actually met. Because try explaining that shit to people. Try explaining how someone you’ve never physically touched can feel more familiar than people you’ve known your entire life. How you can know the sound of their tired voice. Their moods. Their silence. The difference between their normal “I’m fine” and the one that means they’re absolutely fucking not. You know what makes them

There are parts of my story I can tell casually. I can joke about my bad decisions. I can laugh about my chaos. I can turn heartbreak into dark humor and trauma into something sarcastic enough that nobody realizes how badly it actually fucking hurt. But there are other parts of my story that still feel different when I say them out loud. Parts that aren’t funny. Parts that explain why I am the way I am more than almost anything else ever could. So if you’ve ever wondered why

There’s a kind of heartbreak nobody really prepares you for. It’s not being cheated on. It’s not finding out they never loved you. It’s not watching someone slowly become a stranger until you barely recognize what you had. Sometimes the most devastating heartbreak is looking at someone and knowing: I love you. You love me. And somehow, we still can’t be together. What the fuck are you supposed to do with that? How do you grieve someone who’s still here? How do you convince yo

There’s a very specific kind of man who deserves more recognition. Not the boyfriend. Not the situationship. Not the guy currently responsible for the emotional damage. I’m talking about the guy friend. The one sitting on the sidelines of your absolutely unhinged romantic life like a war correspondent who has somehow survived every single battle. The one who has heard: “I really think he’s different.” Followed approximately three business days later by: “You’re never going to

Sometimes I genuinely wonder if I’m hard to love. Not in the cute, “I’m a little complicated” kind of way. I mean sitting alone at night, staring at the ceiling, genuinely wondering: What the fuck is wrong with me? Why does everyone eventually leave? Why am I always the person begging for communication? Why do I always seem to care more? Why can somebody make me feel like I’m everything they’ve ever wanted, only to eventually make me feel like I’m too much? At some point, whe

I hope you read this someday. Actually, fuck that. I hope you recognize yourself in every single fucking word. I hope your stomach drops. I hope your chest gets tight. I hope for just a second you have to put your phone down because every memory you’ve apparently learned how to live without comes flooding back all at once. And I hope one question follows you long after you finish reading: If it was real, how the fuck could you do this to me? Because that’s what you said, righ

It’s funny how healing can make a fucking liar out of you. Because I really thought I was over you. Not in the dramatic “I never think about you anymore” kind of way. I knew there were still memories. I knew certain songs would always carry pieces of you. I knew there would probably always be some tiny corner of my heart that remembered what we were. But I thought I had finally reached the point where remembering you didn’t hurt anymore. Apparently, I was fucking wrong. Becau

Sometimes I look at my daughter and wonder if she’ll remember how fucking tired I was. If she’ll remember Mommy always going to work. Mommy doing homework. Mommy studying. Mommy checking the bank account. Mommy cleaning the house. Mommy answering emails, handling responsibilities, making plans, chasing goals, and constantly saying some version of: “Hold on, baby. Mommy has to finish this.” God, I fucking hate that sentence sometimes. Because the truth is, I don’t want her chi

Nobody wants to hear a mother say she’s fucking exhausted. Not “I could use a nap” tired. I’m talking about the kind of tired that lives in your fucking bones. The kind where someone asks, “How are you?” and you automatically say, “I’m good,” because explaining the truth would take three business days and probably end in a mental breakdown. Because the truth is: Being a single working mother to a toddler is fucking brutal sometimes. There. I said it. I love my daughter more t

There’s a specific kind of pain that comes from realizing you handed someone the softest parts of you because you genuinely believed they were safe. And then finding out they weren’t. It’s not normal regret. It’s not “damn, I probably shouldn’t have said that.” It’s the kind of regret that makes your stomach drop when you remember everything you told them. Every secret. Every insecurity. Every trauma you normally keep locked behind ten different walls. Every “I don’t usually