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Adversity shows us that our strengths may be our weaknesses
I know the exact moment: 8:35am, November 23, 2010. That’s when my husband was struck on his Vespa by a white pickup truck, and our world went into a tailspin.
It’s the moment my Type-A, I-never-cry personae crumbled and exposed my until-then-unknown fragility. It’s a moment, in hindsight, that I became stronger than I thought possible even though I fell apart for not days nor weeks, but years as I tried to fix my husband who suffered from PTSD and a brain injury. And through it all, I desperately tried to hold my husband and disintegrating family together as I fought to pull myself from the black pit of bipolar depression, self-harm, self-loathing.
The storm had come out of nowhere and grew in fury until I could no longer hear myself scream over the roar of the wind
Until James’s accident, I believed myself to be the strongest, most resilient women I knew. At sixteen, I decided to leave my home in Michigan and build a new life in California, and it had made me both resourceful and tough. I believed in myself and my ability to stand up to adversity and yell, “Fuck you. Just watch me crush this.”
But near-death experiences change you and realizing I almost lost my husband, the love of my life, sent me…
