Standing At The Edge: How I Chose Life, Healing, And Purpose

She was 12 years old and standing on a subway platform in New York City. She was listening for the clank of the approaching train. She was watching for the headlights to bounce off the subway tiles as it came around a curve into the station.

She was trying to decide whether to jump or not to jump. At the very last moment, she chose not to jump. Why would a 12-year-old girl be in so much pain that she stood at the edge of a platform, wondering whether or not she was going to jump?

Because something was happening at home that should never happen to a child.

She was being sexually abused by her father. And she had no place to turn to. No one who would listen. No one who would protect her. She didn’t want her life to end—she just desperately wanted the pain to stop. That 12-year-old girl was me.

My first taste of freedom came just one month after my 16th birthday, when I got myself onto a college campus 2,500 miles away from home. That gave me physical distance—but the emotional wreckage came with me. There were no resources back then. No books. No therapist. No safe place to process. Certainly no internet.

So I did what many survivors do: I hid it. I buried it.

I built a mask of confidence and capability that no one could see through. By the time I arrived on that campus, my armor was fully in place. No one saw the brokenness underneath. No one saw the scars of a childhood that never should have been.

No one saw the insecurity, the silence, or the fear of judgment that haunted me every day. But over the course of four decades, I found something extraordinary: healing. And through that healing, I found purpose. I left behind a successful design business because I knew my true calling: To help others who are still carrying pain they don’t know how to name.

To walk with people who have never been told that freedom is possible. To help others break the chains they were never meant to wear. And today, that work fills me with a joy I can’t fully describe.

So if you're still carrying pain from your past...
If the shadows of childhood still follow you into adulthood...
If you're tired of pretending you're fine when you’re not...

Please reach out.

You are not alone.
You are not broken.
And you are not to blame.

You don’t deserve the chains you’re carrying.
You never did.
They were forged by someone else’s choices, not your worth.

You are powerful.
You are worthy.
And you have the right to build a life that is truly your own.

Let’s talk.
Let’s break the chains.

Your past doesn't get the final word—you do.