This isn’t where I teach. This is where I bleed.

More than 2 decades after my abuse ended, I found myself sitting in the ruins of a life that no longer made sense.

I thought had done everything right. I went to therapy for years, read numerous self-help books, and lived a healthy life full of good food, exercise, and lots of time spent in nature and with friends. Yet, I was still struggling, still suffering, still severely depressed and at times, suicidal.

Awakening didn’t come as light. It came as chaos and drowning in pain. It came when I finally stopped pretending that I was fine.

This is my story. It’s a sacred witnessing of all that was Holey in me and my life. It’s the agony. The madness. The sacred surrender. It’s not edited for comfort or mindfully written to avoid triggering my audience. It’s the agony, confusion, loneliness, worthlessness, grief, and rage that were born from the incestuous trauma I survived.

Welcome to the pieces of me that I never thought I’d share.

Welcome to 10,000 Matchsticks.

I was born in a house with 10,000 matchsticks.

They were everywhere, in corners, under rugs, tucked into drawers, scattered around the floors.

Every person is born ignorant of what is “normal”. Childhood is the time in which we learn about the world and ourselves. And because these matchsticks always existed and were always present, I believed they were normal. I believed they were just an ordinary part of life. These matchsticks were small, harmless things, or so I thought.

I learned to live around them, to pretend they weren’t there, and to avoid them, and to get through each day despite their existence.

But these weren’t ordinary matchsticks. These matchsticks were the kind that spontaneously ignited. They exploded into flames with no warning and for no apparent reason.

Sometimes I could stamp them out before they spread. Other times, I’d discover them after the smoke and ruin, leaving the people I loved coughing in the ash.

I tried everything to get rid of them and completely remove them from my life. I’d clean them up and throw them out. Just when I thought the last one was finally gone, another would pop up out of no where.

I went to therapy. I practiced forgiveness, kindness, and compassion. I refused to let my pain turn my heart cold. I held onto hope.

I moved across country. I found new friends. I left bad relationships, each time carrying with me the wisdom of what I wanted and needed. But no matter where I went, what I did, or who I was with, the matchsticks followed. They followed me everywhere I went and showed up no matter who I was around.

Until one day, I met someone unlike anyone I’d ever met before. He made me feel safe, valued, cherished, and for the first time in my life, trully loved. He saw depths of me that I had buried long ago, and I saw the deepest, darkest places within him. We could sit with each other’s pain and still feel comfort. We talked for hours and shared our souls. And for a time, we were inseperable. Then, he found a matchstick. He picked it up and asked me about it. And when he did, he burst into flames.

He pulled away and blamed me. I was devastated. I never wanted to hurt him. I didn’t want these matchsticks and I had tried to get rid of them. How could I be blamed? But a voice from deep within me whispered, “Maybe he’s right. Maybe it is your fault he was so severely burned.”

That was the day that I began to look closely at myself. I got brutally honest. Everything I felt and everything I did was questioned, and then questioned again. It was a brutal interogation. And just when I thought I had all the answers, just when I thought the rabbit hole I’d uncovered was thoroughly explored, mapped out, and understood, I’d find another part that went even deeper, and then deeper again.

I realized fairly quickly that these matchsticks weren’t just laying about or randomly popping up. These matchsticks were a part of me. They were little pieces of pain that I shed everywhere I went.

That was the day that I promised myself to eliminate them once and for all. That was the day that I vowed to share everything I learned. That was the day I found my purpose. That was the day that Holey House was born.

This is the story of how I learned to stop running from the fire within me. I stopped ignoring the pain that constantly lived below the surface. I stopped pretending that everything was okay, that everything was fine, that everything was normal.

That was the day that I faced the flames with courage and determination.