Last week was A Perfect Storm. This week, I'm standing in what it left behind.

In this episode, I talk about reaching one of my lowest points—breaking to the point of preparing to end my life—and the unexpected message that came at exactly the moment I needed it. I talk about reaching out to someone I deeply cared about and being met with silence, while someone from my past unexpectedly showed up and helped me find my way through the darkness.

But surviving the storm was only the beginning.

In therapy, I uncovered something that reaches much further back than this relationship or this moment: I learned how to disappear. As a child, I hid. I dissociated. As an adult, I found different ways to do the same thing. And underneath it was a heartbreaking belief I didn't fully understand until now—if I disappeared and someone came looking for me, maybe that meant I mattered.

Sometimes clarity hurts. Sometimes the truth we uncover breaks our hearts before it begins to heal them.

But in the aftermath of this storm, I'm finally finding closure, understanding some of the patterns that brought me here, and discovering where the work needs to go next.

In this episode, I talk openly about finding myself caught in a perfect storm of regret, heartbreak, depression, and old wounds resurfacing. As I wrestle with how much I miss my ex and whether ending our relationship was a mistake, I've found myself slipping back into some frighteningly familiar places—including thoughts I hoped I had left behind. This is an honest look at what happens when grief, regret, relationships, and mental health collide, and what it means to hold fast when the storm feels bigger than you are.

In this episode of The Exiled Sojourner, I talk about finally drawing a line I had struggled to draw—telling my ex that I was blocking her, and that if she ever wanted to speak to me again, the effort would have to come from her. Im done running back to her.

But closing that door didn't suddenly make everything better. I slipped into a depression and found myself retreating into something strangely familiar: misery. When you've lived with pain for long enough, it can start to feel like home. You may hate being there, but at least you know what to expect. Sometimes staying miserable feels safer than facing the uncertainty of actually moving forward.

Eventually, I realized I had a choice. I could keep waiting, keep hurting, and keep abandoning myself for something I couldn't control—or I could start choosing me.

This episode is about that choice. About learning that healing isn't pretending the pain didn't matter. It's refusing to let that pain decide what happens next. And maybe moving forward begins with something incredibly simple, but incredibly difficult:

Choose yourself. Again and again, choose yourself.