December 2025
INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR
2018—the winter before I entered sobriety.
I briefly dated a man who unknowingly cracked open the door to a truth I wasn’t ready to face yet. During one conversation, I shared fragments of memories involving myself and my older brother when I was very young. As I spoke, I watched his face change—shock, pain, disbelief. Then he said quietly, “Jacinda, you know what you’re describing isn’t normal, right?”
That moment should have stopped me in my tracks. Instead, I stayed in denial—something I had mastered long before addiction ever entered my life.
Fast forward to early sobriety in 2019. The memories didn’t stop. They intensified. They were relentless. I couldn’t outrun them anymore. Eventually, I called my mother and told her everything. Her response shattered me: “I had a feeling. Your sister and I talked about this years ago, but we didn’t want to make your addiction worse by bringing it up.”
I exploded. I screamed. I cried. I said things I wasn’t sure I could ever take back.
When I spoke to my sister, she told me, “He was a victim too, Cin.”
(There’s more to that, and I’ll explain later.)
At that point, I knew something devastating—I was on this path alone. I needed truth, clarity, something to ground me. But how do you get answers from someone who’s no longer alive?
In desperation, I turned to spirituality. I joined a live online event with a well-known medium in my city. Viewers typed their names into the chat, hoping to be chosen for a live reading. Against all odds, I was picked.
When she called me, I asked one question: “What really happened with my brother?”
She paused, then said, “You understand there’s a difference between molestation and rape, right?”
I couldn’t breathe. Everything went silent. In that moment, at forty years old, the truth I had spent a lifetime avoiding finally caught up with me.
DECEMBER 2025
A BODY TRAINED FOR THREAT
Some stories begin long before memory.
Mine began before my first breath.
While my body was forming in utero, the environment meant to protect me was saturated with fear. My mother was pregnant with me while living under constant threat—physical violence, psychological cruelty, and the unrelenting tension of an alcoholic partner. She was not only trying to survive; she was trying to protect her other children at the same time.
I did not witness these events with my eyes, but my nervous system remembers them. My earliest lessons were not about safety. They were about vigilance.
My mother lived in near-constant fear during her pregnancy. Her body stayed tense, alert, braced for the next explosion. And inside her, my body learned that this state was normal. This is what prenatal trauma does—it wires the nervous system for survival instead of rest.
Long before I could make choices, my body learned:
This was not a failure of resilience. It was an adaptation.
One of the most confusing aspects of prenatal trauma is that it exists without images. There are no scenes to recall, no moments to narrate—only patterns in the body:
For years, I searched for answers in my personality—assuming something about me was broken. It took time to understand that this was not a moral failing or a character flaw. My nervous system did not develop in safety. It developed in a war zone.
I’m not sharing this so trauma becomes my identity. I’m sharing it to make sense of the strength it took to survive something I never chose. To name what my body carried without my consent, and to give words to others who feel broken but don’t know why. Some of us were shaped by harm before we ever had the chance to be shaped by love. That doesn’t mean we can’t heal. It just means the healing has to start deeper.
BOOK SUGGESTION
The Body Keeps the Score - view on Amazon
December 2025
Addiction
I believe addiction is one of the hardest illnesses on the planet to live with. That’s not a statistic—it’s my opinion, formed by lived experience. There is no cure. And yes, it is a disease. Not a weakness. Not a failure of character.
I started drinking at 13. I was smoking marijuana by 14. I was sexually active at 14. I was “wild” and rebellious, but as an adult, with education around this topic, and lived experiences, I now know I was dysregulated, unsupervised emotionally, and looking for relief long before I understood what I was trying to escape.
By 20, I had already been in two physically abusive relationships. I was emotionally unstable, deeply ungrounded, and stepping into adulthood without a nervous system that knew how to feel safe. I didn’t trust myself, and I didn’t know how to exist without chaos.
Then came the nightclub scene in the late 1990s.
If there was ever an environment perfectly designed to meet unhealed trauma, that was it. Long nights. No limits. Constant stimulation. Everything fast, loud, numbing. I didn’t walk into that world by accident—I fit right into it.
Looking back now, I can see it clearly: I wasn’t doomed because I was reckless. I was vulnerable because I was wounded.
And then came the longest relationship of my life. Cocaine. It didn’t show up as destruction at first. It showed up as confidence. Energy. Control. Relief. It quieted the noise in my head and gave me a version of myself I thought I needed to survive. That’s how addiction works. It doesn’t kick the door down. It offers a solution, until it becomes the problem.
Over time, everything narrowed—my world, my choices, my sense of who I was. Addiction doesn’t just take substances; it takes clarity, self-trust, and truth. It lies convincingly. It convinces you that without it, you are nothing.
Sobriety did not come from strength alone. It came from collapse, from honesty, from finally facing what I had been avoiding for decades. Trauma. Shame. Grief. A nervous system wired for survival, not peace. Recovery has not been clean, easy or inspirational in the way people like to package it. But it has been real.
Sobriety gave me something substances never did: myself. My body. My intuition. My ability to feel without running. I am still healing. Still learning. Still undoing patterns that once kept me alive.
Addiction took years from my life.
Sobriety gave me the chance to live it.
AA Big Book/Workbook
LINKS BELOW - view on Amazon
DECEMBER 2025
Borderline Personality Disorder.
I still don’t like the sound of those words. They feel heavier and more frightening than the reality of what the diagnosis actually is. I remember feeling deeply embarrassed by it. Ashamed. Terrified.
When the psychiatrist explained what he believed had happened—that my brain likely did not develop optimally in certain areas, particularly the frontal lobe, due to in‑utero trauma and the childhood trauma that followed—it hit me hard. And yet, at the same time, it made profound sense.
For most of my life, I had been made to feel like a failure. The wild one. The train wreck. The irresponsible one. My mother never spoke those words aloud, but her eyes did. I always knew she didn’t truly believe I would grow up and make something of myself.
Maybe, in her mind, I earned that distrust through years of addiction. But with what I now understand about my childhood and the environment I was raised in, that judgment felt like a constant slap in the face—especially coming from the woman who placed me in the middle of so much turmoil.
As I sat with his words, this diagnosis made a lot of sense to me. All of my emotions, my feelings, my mistakes—everything—had always been blamed on my addiction. Always. I remember screaming at my family, insisting they stop using my addiction as an explanation for everything I was experiencing. I was a human being with real feelings, and I wasn’t always wrong, damn it!
Finally, there was a real explanation for all the anger, dysregulation, outbursts, emotional instability, and pain I had carried my entire life. I was 40 years old when I received this answer—the answer that saved my life and gave me a starting point for the journey of self-discovery and healing.
JANUARY 2026
Forgiveness
Forgiveness—for oneself and for the choices we make as injured, heartbroken souls—is the most beautiful act of kindness we can give ourselves. In the human experience, we are full of emotion: able to hurt and to be hurt. But to forgive? That is the hardest task of all.
As humans, we beat ourselves up, beat each other up—metaphorically speaking—and allow our minds to torment us with memories and nightmares we wish we could erase. Yet they linger. They haunt us while we sleep, creeping in at the most inopportune times, stealing our rest and our peace. Thoughts of what we have done to others, and what they have done to us, slither into our dreams like bad omens—terrifying demons waiting to pounce on our insecurities and pain as though it were their last meal.
So, as I woke up at 3:07 a.m., tormented by memories of my past mistakes—and by those who have harmed me too, I decided to forgive myself for the first time. Really forgive myself. Not the half-hearted nonsense… really forgive myself.
I was young. Naive. Even stupid at times. I didn’t always know better, therefore I didn’t always do better. I didn’t grow up in a settled home with both a mother and father to guide me. I was raised by a single mother who was damaged herself—and unfortunately, she never learned how to forgive anyone, let alone herself.
In the quiet of the early morning hours, I sit deep in thought as my life flashes by in fragments. And then I remember: I am human, living a human experience. And I forgive myself.
I forgive myself for not always knowing the right way to approach decisions or how to fix mistakes at the time I made them. I forgive myself for hurting others along the way and for not always taking responsibility when it is warranted. I forgive myself for not knowing how to say no when I did not want to say yes—understanding now that this was my freeze response within fight, flight, or freeze. I forgive myself for not loving myself enough to make better choices at the time.
To any of you reading this whom I once knew in another life: I am sorry for hurting you. I apologize from the bottom of my heart.
And to anyone reading this now—may you find forgiveness in your heart and peace in your soul.
From me to you, cheers.
J. Hoover
JANUARY 2026
My entire life, I was running.
Running from the demons that haunted my dreams. From bullies who humiliated me. From never fitting in anywhere. From being poor when everyone around me wasn’t. Who my biological father was. From the stories I was told. From pain, suffering, and—most of all—from myself.
I spent a lifetime not believing in who I was. I had almost no confidence unless I was getting attention from a man, or in many cases, boys. Being admired for my looks felt like the only thing I had to offer. I didn’t think I was smart. I wasn’t particularly driven. I wasn’t successful. And I definitely didn’t come from a healthy family environment.
So when I started working at a nightclub, I thought I had finally found my place. I had attention. I had popularity. I felt seen. For the first time, I felt like I mattered.
Or so I thought.
At twenty years old, I entered a fast-paced, party-centred lifestyle. It looked glamorous from the outside. The people around me were influential, confident, and living large, and I convinced myself I was safe there. I didn’t see the danger—I was too busy enjoying the escape.
Years passed. Then decades.
Eventually, that life faded, and reality hit hard. I was a single mother, struggling financially, and the love of my life had died suddenly in a tragic accident. The grief consumed me. I lost my footing completely and found myself in a deeply unhealthy and damaging relationship that left lasting scars.
For a long time, I functioned well enough to convince myself I was okay. But after everything I had lost, the cracks grew wider. One afternoon, sitting alone in my home, overwhelmed and disconnected, I had a moment of terrifying clarity.
I had taken my seven-year-old son to daycare that morning, and suddenly the truth hit me like a lightning bolt:
If I don’t change my life right now, I will lose my son—or I will lose myself entirely.
There was no dramatic buildup. No long debate. I simply stood up, walked into an AA meeting, and made a decision that changed everything.
I have now been clean and sober for six and a half years.
For the first time in my life, I’m not running anymore.
I’m present. I’m accountable. I’m healing.
And I’m finally learning who I am—without the noise, without the masks, and without the need to escape.
JANUARY 2026
At the time of his death, my brother was my hero.
I adored him. I looked up to him. I believed in him completely.
What I did not know then—and would not understand until decades later—was that our relationship was far more complicated than my younger self could comprehend. Some memories take a very long time to surface. Some truths only arrive when we finally have the capacity to hold them.
My brother was a troubled kid long before I had words for why. He began running away when he was thirteen. He would vanish for months, then suddenly reappear—on a doorstep, or through a phone call from the police telling my mother he’d been arrested again. This pattern repeated itself for years. He was clearly running from something, though none of us understood what that was at the time.
Despite everything, I remember his kindness toward me. I remember loving him deeply. Both of those things are true, even if they seem hard to hold together.
When I was nine years old, my mother and I moved from Kelowna to Fort McMurray after leaving my father, hoping for a fresh start closer to my older sister. My brother stayed behind. Or rather, he was somewhere—where exactly was often unclear.
One morning, I woke up on my own. Not to my mother calling me, not to the sound of a normal day beginning. When I opened my bedroom door, I felt an emptiness so heavy it stopped me in my tracks. It is a feeling I have never forgotten.
My sister was there. My mother was on the couch, crying. My aunty stood up immediately and brought me to them. It was my aunty who told me that my brother had died. That detail remains etched in me—how a child receives news that permanently alters their world.
I remember collapsing. I remember a scream coming out of my body that didn’t feel like it belonged to me. My nervous system reacted before my mind could understand. Grief arrived all at once, with no instructions.
My brother lived a life full of contradictions. He broke laws. He lived under more than one name. At his funeral, half the people came for the brother I knew, and half came for a version of him that existed separately from our family. Even then, I sensed how divided his life had been.
I cried through the entire service. Loudly. Uncontrollably. My young body did not know how to process that kind of loss, and it did the only thing it could.
As I grew older, my understanding of my brother—and of my own history—became more complex. Grief does not stay frozen in time. It evolves as we do. Some realizations arrive years later, bringing clarity, confusion, and new layers of mourning all at once.
I don’t have answers for how to grieve “correctly.” I don’t believe there is a clean or simple way to hold love and harm, loss and truth, at the same time. But I do have experience. And I know how isolating it can feel to carry a story that doesn’t fit into easy narratives.
If this resonates with you—if you’ve lost someone, or loved someone complicated, or are quietly carrying pain that feels difficult to explain—I want you to know you are not alone.
Please reach out if you need to. I am always willing to listen. More than anything, I don’t want anyone facing these struggles in silence. No one should have to carry this kind of weight by themselves.
There is no pain like losing your twin flame. You only have one in the entire universe. If you find them, the connection is intense—excruciating, even—a pain I would never willingly choose again. And yet, these encounters are necessary for the deepest soul growth. Damn it, I have grown the most since losing him. I am my best self now, and I am grateful for the experience if it led me to where I stand today.
Twin flames can be anyone—not just a romantic connection. They show you mirrors of yourself, both the light and the dark. These relationships are rarely healthy. More often, they are toxic, chaotic, full of highs and lows, conflict and emotional whiplash. But when the separation happens, it feels as though you are losing half your heart—an irreplaceable piece of yourself that you will never get back.
He came into my life like a hurricane and left the same way. I was left standing in the middle of the destruction, holding debris in my hands, not fully understanding what had just happened. My God, it was the kind of pain I would never wish on another human being.
His death was a tragic accident.
It took me three years just to say his name without crying, without feeling like hot wax was burning through my soul. It took another three years after that to truly begin picking up the pieces of my shattered heart. Eight years later, I found love again—real love. A love I wouldn’t have been able to recognize or fully appreciate without enduring all that heartbreak.
Healing was beautifully painful, and I don’t regret a single second of it.
JANUARY 18, 2026
TRAUMA RECOVERY
Meeting myself again—yes, that’s exactly what happened. The old version of me had to die so this version could be born. The process has felt like being a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Before the butterfly emerges, the caterpillar is focused solely on survival and growth—eating, shedding skin, adapting—with no visible sign of wings. Yet the wings are already encoded within it, waiting for the moment transformation makes them real.
I’ve always felt destined for more: a bigger life, a different family dynamic, healthier friendships. I never felt like I truly belonged in the life I was living. With trauma woven into my story from before conception, my mind and body only knew fight, flight, or freeze. I became fluent in self-pity, anger, and resentment, and deeply entangled in an unhealthy codependent relationship with my mother. After my brother died when I was nine, she clung to me for survival, suffocating me in the process. She, too, was a trauma survivor, carrying her own dysfunctional responses that shaped how she raised me. Her pessimism and constant worst-case-scenario thinking kept me small and afraid for far too long.
Still, I always knew I was meant to fly. I was a bird longing for the sky, for freedom, for open air. But people and circumstances kept clipping my wings—again and again—until one day I rose and said, No more. This is my life. I will live it on my terms, without explanation or permission from anyone, least of all my mother. I am a 46-year-old grown woman. I no longer need approval to choose myself. I will not let my past or my family hold me back any longer. I will get back up, spread my wings, and fly. And I have.
Book suggestions:
https://amzn.to/4kzkIET - Find on Amazon
Everything was always blamed on my addiction, because that was easier than facing the truth. Even now, six years sober, I’ve had to draw a firm boundary with my mother around this narrative. The disappointment in her eyes still cuts deeply, and I cannot bear it. I grew up feeling like a failure within my family, which is ironic considering I come from a long line of people who made far worse mistakes than I ever did. Yet somehow, I became the black sheep. And yes, I was selfish at times. I made many mistakes and poor decisions along the way. But addiction was not the root problem—my brain was.
I used substances to feel, or sometimes to stop feeling altogether. Living with undiagnosed borderline personality disorder meant that I felt everything too intensely, all at once, with no off switch. I didn’t overuse substances because I lacked willpower; I overused them because I over-felt my emotions. People with BPD often experience a profound sense of emptiness, even when surrounded by others. We tend to live with deep self-contempt, sometimes even self-hatred, painfully aware that we don’t quite fit into the world the way others seem to. It is a devastating existence. For me, the only way to make the pain of this lifelong condition manageable was to begin researching it—and then to tell my story. Borderline personality disorder is still so widely misunderstood, and silence only reinforces that misunderstanding. We need to speak up and speak out. We deserve a voice and a place in this world.
Similarities
Emotional Regulation Issues
Intense emotions
Difficulty calming down once triggered
Mood shifts that appear sudden or extreme
Impulsivity
Acting before thinking
Risky behaviors
Difficulty tolerating distress
Relationship Strain
Conflict with loved ones
Push–pull dynamics
Fear of abandonment or control
Coping-Based Behaviours
Both may involve using substances, behaviors, or people to escape emotional pain
Both can develop in response to trauma or chronic stress
Key Differences
BPD – Core Issue: Identity and Emotional Regulation
Intense fear of abandonment
Strong reactions to perceived rejection
Unstable self-image
Emotional pain is the primary trigger
Behaviors are driven by overwhelming emotions and attachment fears
Addiction – Core Issue: Compulsion and Reward Seeking
Loss of control over substance use or behaviors
Cravings and urges
Tolerance
Continued use despite consequences
The behavior becomes the priority
BPD significantly increases the risk of addiction
Substances can temporarily numb emotional pain
Addiction can intensify BPD symptoms
Treating only one condition is often not enough
I wish I had known then what I know now. Still, I am deeply grateful—for sobriety, for clarity, and for having enough fight left in me to advocate for myself through countless appointments until both conditions were properly treated.
Real Fears About Having to Work with BPD
Before my newest meds—which, by the way, have been a complete game changer—I was lost, scared, and deeply alone. Alone because I had isolated myself. I isolated myself because I had become intensely afraid of people. And deep down, I was mostly afraid of myself.
I was terrified of losing my temper, of not being able to tell when I was about to burn out, of being pulled straight into the eye of the tornado that was my mind. I had lost faith in myself. My confidence was gone, and the level of panic waiting to implode inside my aching soul was excruciating. I felt like I could never do anything right. My health was suffering. I was terrified.
My inner thoughts tormented me every single day, and the more I fought them, the louder and more vicious they became. The once vibrant, bright human being I had been years ago was now just a shell. I didn’t recognize myself anymore.
In many ways, I felt as close to rock bottom as I had when I was fighting to get sober—except this time, I had just spent two years in a toxic workplace environment that made me feel crazy every single day, exacerbating every feeling of worthlessness already living inside me.
But I kept fighting.
When I had finally had enough abuse, I went to my doctor, asked for a leave of absence due to workplace stress, and I walked away. I chose myself—for once. Around the three-week mark of my absence, my head started to clear, and I decided to quit my job.
Believe me, I know how hard that choice is. I know finances can suffer for a while—but honestly, if you get fired, finances suffer anyway, right?
So love yourself. You beautiful soul.
We did nothing to deserve this excruciating condition other than being born into or around trauma. BPD is not our fault. Recovery, though? That’s a choice—and you matter. We all matter.
So fight for yourselves, loves. Dig deep. Choose yourself first.
I promise—you will never regret it.
February 2026
I remember telling my mother about my BPD diagnosis — my last attempt to be believed. She tilted her head and said, almost casually, “I wonder if you’re born with it, or if your whooping cough as an infant caused it.” When I told her the psychiatrist believed it likely developed while she was pregnant with me, during a time when she was being repeatedly assaulted, she stopped. Then she said, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry for that.” I cannot explain how many years I had been waiting to hear those words. Five years earlier, I had told her the same diagnosis, only to be dismissed — told it wasn’t real, that everything came back to my addiction instead. I remember trying to explain how deeply that disbelief had hurt me, how often she brushed off my truth or grew angry when I suggested my pain might not be my fault — or hers. To my complete shock, she apologized for that too. And for the first time, I was able to explain to my mother what actually triggers my BPD episodes — not as an accusation, but as an act of understanding.
Here are some of the most common triggers for my Borderline Personality Disorder, shared not as excuses, but as context.
Conflict is a big one. When I feel attacked or cornered, my nervous system goes into overdrive, and I may lash out — depending on the situation, the person involved, and how I’m being approached. If I’m already upset and someone continues to push me into arguing or debating, that reaction can intensify. I also need more time than the average person to recover after conflict; emotional wounds don’t close quickly for me. And at times, I can take things personally, even when that isn’t the intent — I often need space and time to step back and process things more objectively.
I am deeply grateful for my family doctor and the small but powerful team of cheerleaders I do have in my corner. My doctor has allowed me to be an active participant in my own treatment, giving me the space to try different medications until we finally found the right combination for me. That journey won’t look the same for everyone — what works for one person may not work for another — but having a provider who listens has made all the difference.
If you’d like to know more about what has helped me along the way, feel free to reach out. I would genuinely love to chat.
March 2026
Have you ever found yourself understanding a painful situation now—as an adult—yet still feeling the deep sadness of what it felt like as a child?
You can logically process what happened. You can see the bigger picture. And yet, when you remember how it felt at the time, the pain is still there.
If that’s you, you’re not alone. I’ve been there too.
Healing is layered. It isn’t linear. It isn’t neat. For me, it has come in waves—understanding, anger, compassion, resentment, clarity… and sometimes right back again. There have been ebbs and flows of heartache. Moments of peace followed by unexpected triggers. Healing moves up, down, and sideways.
And that’s okay.
There is no one-size-fits-all path to healing. There’s no “correct” timeline. No perfect way to begin. No rulebook that says you must forgive, or when you should.
(I wrote another post specifically about forgiveness—feel free to explore it in my blog archives if that resonates with you.)
But this post is about something deeper: feeling the sadness for the little child inside of you. The one who was hurt, abused, neglected, misunderstood—or simply didn’t receive what they needed.
It’s about learning how to hold space for that inner child.
For me, healing meant finally seeing both sides:
The little girl inside of me—and the adult I am today.
I began to understand that the people who hurt me were struggling in their own ways. They were sick individuals carrying their own wounds. That understanding brought compassion.
But even more importantly, I came to understand something else:
What happened to me was not my fault.
I want to say that again for anyone who needs to hear it:
Anything that happened to you as a child was not your fault.
I hope you truly let that sink in.
My journey involved a lot of personal work. I worked with psychiatrists, psychologists, my family doctor. I spent time reflecting deeply. I reached a point where I realized anger was no longer serving me. I didn’t want to carry it anymore.
So I made changes.
For me, that meant getting sober. It meant sitting in professionals’ offices. It meant walking into an AA room. That was my path.
Your journey may look completely different—and that’s okay. Healing is personal. What matters is that you find what works for you.
And if you’re struggling, please reach out. You deserve support. You deserve to be heard.
Below are some of the books and resources that helped me during my hardest seasons. If you’re walking through something similar, I hope they help you too.
You are not alone. And you are worthy of healing.
BOOK SUGGESTIONS:
https://amzn.to/4ksGQk6 - Find on Amazon
