Thursday, September 10, 2026 marks the 33rd anniversary of the day that changed my life forever. It was a day that started out like every other and ended with me in a near-death experience. Luckily I survived a brutal attack, kidnapping, rape and gun violence, and am here all these many years later to talk about the impact of trauma on one’s mental health.

Looking back on that first year after the attack, I can see just how bitter I had become. After the initial heartbreak and devastation of facing permanent injury wore off, I was just angry. Angry that I would never have the athletic career I’d imagined. Angry that I’d never have the life I’d imagined.

Surviving a traumatic event does not mean its effects simply disappear once the physical scars heal. Understanding and learning to live with the invisible scars—including PTSD, anxiety, disrupted sleep and grief—can take much longer.

I cringe when my memories come up daily and I look back at the things I said 17 years ago. Things captured forever that were obviously attention seeking, even if I didn’t know it or think it back then.

If this is what social media can feel like for a fairly educated, 53-year-old, mostly well-adjusted adult who has spent years working professionally with these platforms, what is it like for a teenager growing up with them?

Sree Sreenivasan is our guest for Ep. 55. How do we live with technology that can simultaneously connect us, help us and harm us? The goal isn't necessarily to get off social media. We have to figure out how to use it in a way that is healthy and balanced, particularly for those of us who use it for advocacy and/or as part of our job.

How do you talk to yourself about clutter? From past personal experience and my work as a Decluttering and ADHD Coach, I see how closely clutter and mental health are connected. What looks like "just clutter" on the surface is often tied to something much deeper that may not be immediately visible to others.

Alison DeCamp joins to talk about how decluttering intersects with mental health, including depression, trauma and ADHD.

Dawn Neuburg couldn't participate in Ep. 52. For Ep. 53, we’ll play clips of Vasu Tolia’s answers to my questions. Dawn will then respond. As always, we’ll entertain additional comments and questions from the audience.

Creativity gives us a doorway into what we feel. It can help us begin conversations that are otherwise difficult to start. That is one reason the mission of No Shame On U matters so much to me. Their work reminds us that mental health conversations should not be hidden in silence or shame.

Vasu Tolia joins us on the next episode of "Shining Light on Shadows: A Candid Conversation About Mental Health" to talk about the challenges she faced in finding her footing after retiring from her medical career.

If we really want better outcomes for youth and families, we must begin treating foster parents and caregivers as an essential part of the youth’s team, rather than an after thought.

Eva Green will discuss the challenges, realities, and opportunities to better support those impacted by foster care while working toward more stable and healing outcomes for youth, families and caregivers.

While there is more awareness than ever about the social, emotional, and behavioral needs of young people, many students and families still struggle to access timely, consistent mental health support.

We will explore why so many of us struggle with self-care — including the belief that we are “bad at it,” the pressure to keep going, and the guilt that can come with resting or putting our own needs first.

I have to tell myself over and over that no one’s trauma is worse than another person’s trauma. The trauma may have occurred differently, or under different circumstances, but each person’s trauma is their own. We get to own our own stories and no one gets to tell us how to process that, what to feel or when we should be “over” it.

Sexual assault and violence do not affect everyone in the same way, but that does not make one person’s pain more valid than another’s. Too often, survivors feel pressured to measure their trauma against someone else’s story. The truth is simple: trauma is trauma. My story, your story, and our stories all deserve care, compassion, and healing without comparison.

Everyone is entitled to own their own trauma. We get to own our own stories. One person's experience is no more or less traumatic than someone else's.

While April is the time of year for anticipation of the joy and beauty that is to come with the approach of summer, it is also a time of year for reflection, meditation, and remembering the difficult journey of reaching this moment in the present.

Healing is not a linear journey. It is a constant back-and-forth, at least for me. There have been many moments in my life like this. In the early years, I thought those moments meant I was regressing—that I had somehow undone the healing I had worked so hard for. But over time, I came to understand something different.