My story
Three years ago I didn't have words for what I was living through. Today I do, and I'm building this place so you won't have to figure it out alone like I did.
I grew up in a small, close-knit community with its own rules about family, marriage, and what a successful life looks like. Image meant everything. From the outside, my life looked like one a lot of people would envy.
My whole life, I felt different. Not better than anyone, just like I didn't quite fit the world I was raised in.
One of my biggest mistakes was believing everyone around me thought the way I did. I assumed that when people seemed to understand me, they really did. What I didn't know then is that some of them were mirroring me: reflecting back exactly what I wanted to see, so they could steer me where they wanted me to go.
But inside, I was slowly disappearing. For years I lived in a world where questioning things wasn't allowed. When I felt that something was wrong, I was told the problem was me. I heard it so many times that I believed it.
Summer 2024
After years of pushing my instincts down, I couldn't ignore them anymore. One night I typed two words into a search bar for the first time in my life.
What I read described my world exactly, and everything I'd been taught to believe came apart in front of me.
There was a name for this. It had a pattern.
And I wasn't crazy.
It cost me a lot. For years I lived in constant fear of everything. It damaged my ability to make decisions and to follow through on things that had to get done. I second-guessed every move.
Some of that is still with me. The difference now is that I recognize it when it shows up, and I have the tools to fight back.
My faith. I believe God has a plan and a purpose for my life, even when I couldn't see it.
And a promise I made to myself: that I would be the one who breaks the cycle. When I'm tempted to stop, I think about the man I'm becoming, and the life that's waiting on the other side of this.
I'm not finished. I'm still healing, and I'll always be honest with you about that. Some days I think I should be further along by now. But I'm not the same man I was three years ago, and I trust that everything is happening in God's timing.
I always felt called to do more, and I'm grateful that time has finally come. It hasn't been an easy road. But knowing that everything I went through was shaping me into the man I was meant to be makes it all worth it.
I've come to know I was Chosen. Not because I'm better than anyone, and not because I had it all together, because I didn't. Chosen the way God has always chosen people: the overlooked, the broken, the ones nobody expected to rise up. Chosen to go through the fire so I could walk back in and help others out.
And if you're reading this, I believe the same is true for you. What was meant to break you can become the very thing God uses to reveal to you who you truly are.
I built this for the person typing “silent treatment” into a search bar at 2 a.m. For the man who's been told men can't be hurt this way. For anyone who grew up in a world where this felt normal and is only now realizing it never was.
I'm not a therapist. I'm someone who's been where you are, and I'm sharing what has actually worked for me.
If that's you, you're in the right place.
— Nick
You don't have to figure this out alone anymore. Come walk the road with people who understand.