ft. Disclaimer
A few years ago, I swapped New Year’s resolutions for Word-of-the-Year intentions. Thirty-five years of failed resolutions had taught me that goal-setting was more obstacle than path forward (and thank goodness for late-diagnosed ADHD, am I right?).
At the start of 2023, I was barely three weeks public in my recovery and gearing up to begin my internship as a therapist. I chose Authenticity as my guiding word and began weaving my recovery into conversations with family and friends. By the end of the year, I was speaking about it in professional spaces—even job interviews. I had two employers vying for my affection and loyalty, and honestly? I’ve never felt more desirable.
2024, however, decided that my first Word-of-the-Year made me a little too cocky. There’s nothing quite like choosing Balance only to have the year knock you flat on your ass. But that’s a story for another time. I set out to cultivate a sense of work-life equilibrium and ended the year feeling like a spectacular failure. In hindsight, I misunderstood the assignment. Balance, I’ve learned, isn’t a single achievement—it’s a daily practice. A recalibration. Again and again.
For 2025, I was drawn to the word Alignment, which also happened to be the theme of my last poetic art piece. It’s a word without a roadmap—no clear destination, no metrics to measure. By February, I was ready to mail it back to the Universe marked Return to Sender. Where Balance required a day-by-day approach, Alignment demands moment-by-moment attunement. It’s as exhausting as it sounds. And yet, it’s trained me to tune in—to what my body is saying, to the whispers of intuition, to the messages that don’t use words.
And strangely enough, these past four months have brought me closer to a lifelong goal than perfectionism or ambition ever did. I declared before I was even ten that I would write a memoir someday. I respect that little girl’s faith—that her life would be worth writing about. But by thirty, I was still holding the dream loosely, unsure how to tell stories so many would prefer stay silent. Now, as I approach my late thirties (say it ain’t so), I’m reckoning with how to share those stories—knowing my clients, and one day my children, might read them.
I respect that little girl’s faith—that her life would be worth writing about.
Alignment led me somewhere I never expected: writing my memoir as fantasy, from the perspective of different muses. Even more surprising? I’m doing it through poetry—my most vulnerable creative language.
So far, I’ve introduced three of The Muses: A, Elle, and Gran-riella. Over the next week, I’ll unveil the other four main characters: Ari, Ariella, (ari-elle), and Aradia (who we call The Emerging One). These muses aren’t characters so much as embodiments of the attachment styles I’ve lived with as someone healing from Complex PTSD.
Telling this story as fantasy isn’t just for creative flair. While it offers anonymity that a traditional memoir never could, it’s also a trauma-informed artistic decision. Nearly half of those with C-PTSD experience dissociation, and some researchers even argue the diagnosis belongs more with dissociative disorders than anxiety ones (though everyone agrees it’s rooted in trauma). So why fantasy? Because for many of us, fantasy wasn’t an escape—it was survival. What the body learns in trauma must be unlearned in safety.
One of my core areas of focus as a therapist is attachment trauma. Unlike classic PTSD, attachment trauma isn’t tied to a single event. There are no predictable triggers. No structured way to titrate exposure. It shows up anywhere there are people—which means relationships, yes, but also work, parenting, community, and even how we relate to ourselves.
Right now, there’s a collective movement stirring—a desire to break cycles and heal the wounds we never asked to carry. At the heart of that movement is attachment. Family systems weighed down by generational trauma, mood disorders, and personality disorders pass on insecure foundations for the next generation. Healing intergenerational trauma means reckoning with the physical and emotional unsafety we knew as children and choosing to build something safer, steadier, and more whole.
Right now, there’s a collective movement stirring—a desire to break cycles and heal the wounds we never asked to carry.
Midnight ’Moir (aka “memoir”) will explore this healing journey through metaphor and myth. Some posts will include activating content—suicide, sexual abuse, religious trauma, pregnancy loss. I’ll include content warnings so you can tend to your energy and choose what feels safe to read. And because these writings are voiced through attachment styles, they speak Truth—but do not necessarily reflect reality.
Most of The Muses view the world as a land of villains, heroes, and victims—and some are just as much the archer as the prey. The greatest offender in this story is patriarchy and the systems that have sustained its existence at everyone’s expense: the feminine, the masculine, and the whole spectrum in between.
So let’s raise a metaphorical glass to 2025: The Year of the Divine Feminine Rising. And yes, apparently, Angie’s Alignment.
~
If you’d like to go ahead and get to know The Muses a little better, they’ve each started their own Spotify playlists of go-to songs when they have pen in hand. One person in particular dominates the list and deserves credit for inspiring this Metaphor ‘Moir. No one blurs the line between fantasy and truth better than Ms. Taylor Alison Swift.
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Disclaimer
The Clan would be remiss
Not to share their greatest Muse.
She is Mother.
She is Wordsmith.
She is Queen of Leave Confused.
By telling stories slant,
Making Love itself the muse,
She unveils
The Poet’s Paradox
of Obscuring the Still True—
So the pen can still move freely,
Leaving lawyers absent proof
Submitted into evidence that
This song is about You.
When communing with the Muses,
We choose not how they come dressed.
Take only what is useful.
Leave allusion all the rest.
~
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