Three days after I was raped, I went back to work. For a month, no one knew. A reflection on Mental Health Awareness Month, what people carry invisibly, and how to lead with curiosity instead of assumption.

We often talk about the moment of trauma, but we rarely talk about the aftermath—the blurry, lifelong process that doesn’t fit into a 90-minute documentary. In a chance reunion with the SANE nurse who cared for me 12 years ago, I realized that while institutions may choose silence, individuals can choose a compassion that lasts a lifetime.

Last week, sitting in a room with a thousand others listening to the story of Surviving Ohio State, I felt a familiar tension. We’ve become much better at telling stories of trauma than we are at responding to them. From the systemic failures at a major university to the personal burden of proving a perpetrator's "intent," why is the bar for belief still set so high?

Trauma is rarely a solitary experience. While we focus on the survivor's splash, we often overlook the ripples that reach the partners, parents, and children on the shore. Explore the weight of the witness and why supporting secondary survivors is the missing piece of the healing puzzle.

Watching baby videos should be a joyful trip down memory lane. But when trauma thins out your memory, those videos don't restore what was lost—they simply light up the gap. A reflection on the "low-burning" anger of stolen moments and the quiet, hard work of staying present with the life you have today.

We often wait to speak because we are afraid our story is too jagged, or our timeline isn't organized enough. But truth isn’t found in the polish. Discover why 'I don't know how to explain this yet' is often the most honest thing you can say, and why you don’t owe the world a perfect performance of your own life.