A couple of years ago, I would not be writing this statement. I was deep in the bellows of depression, unable to do the basic levels of care necessary to function regularly. I was reeling from the throes of my further uncovered childhood and military trauma and struggling to grasp the meaning of being a neurodivergent thinker, having recently received an ADHD diagnosis. I had been working with a psychologist to help me academically while pursuing my degree, and she suggested I take up the creative writing therapy group my veteran hospital offered.  One class was all it took for me to discover my love for writing. I always considered myself a strong writer and have done well on research papers and reports for work, but never once thought to write for myself. The class unlocked in me a channeling of my most intrusive thoughts, a cathartic process to write about my experiences, and more importantly, to share them with others.

Writing brought back my love for reading and challenged me to explore new avenues of literary styles, like poetry. Telling my story in poetic form became therapeutic for me, a lighthouse in a storm, a support mechanism to get painful memories out of my head and onto paper. My hobby developed into a newfound passion and motivated me to start working on a book. What started as work in a classroom setting expanded into writing daily and culminated in my first independently published novel, No Exit Wounds. This book, at its core, is a story about survival, as a child first, then as a Marine, then as a civilian, trying to repair what was taken from me from the lives of the first two. It is a message of resilience and continuing to look for shore even when it feels like you are drowning.