About the Author of Holey House
Where the soul wounds become sacred openings
A survivor-led sanctuary guiding you through the journey of healing from incest trauma, from pain and fragmentation to purpose and wholeness.
There was a time in my life when I believed I simply needed to try harder.
Try harder to love. Try harder to succeed. Try harder to stop hurting.
I did not realize that so much of what I thought was my personality, my choices, my relationships, and even my suffering had been shaped by unresolved trauma.
In the Fall of 2022, I experienced what I now call my Trauma Awakening.
For the first time, I began to understand that many of the patterns I had spent years fighting were not personal failures. They were adaptations. Survival strategies. Attempts by my mind and body to protect me long after the danger had passed.
Holey House was born from the questions that followed.
- Why do people repeat painful patterns even when they desperately want something different?
- Why does insight alone often fail to create change?
- Why can love feel unsafe?
- Why do so many people feel disconnected from themselves without understanding why?
Today, my writing, my books, my art, and this website exist to explore those questions.
My work combines lived experience with years of independent study across trauma, psychology, behavior, relationships, systems thinking, and healing. Through Holey House, I translate complex ideas into language that people can recognize inside their own lives.
I believe unresolved trauma can quietly influence far more than emotions. It can shape identity, relationships, boundaries, self-worth, physical health, meaning-making, and the way we move through the world. Many of the struggles people blame themselves for are often understandable adaptations to experiences that were never fully processed.
Healing, in my view, is not becoming someone new. It is learning to recognize what survival built, understanding why it made sense, and creating enough safety and awareness to choose differently.
My hope is that Holey House becomes more than a website. I hope it becomes a place where people feel seen without being reduced to their pain. A place that encourages curiosity over shame, understanding over self-blame, and small acts of repair over perfection.
If my work helps even one person ask a better question about themselves (or realize they are not alone in what they are carrying) then sharing my story was worth it.
Welcome to Holey House.
— Candice
Holey House's Mission
My mission is to transform my pain into something useful.
Through my writing, art, research, and lived experience, I seek to help others recognize the hidden ways unresolved trauma shapes identity, relationships, beliefs, and the way we move through the world.
For years, I believed I was broken.
What I eventually discovered was that many of the parts of myself I hated were not defects; they were adaptations.
Now, I dedicate my life to helping others ask those same difficult questions with kindness instead of shame. I do not want people to leave my work feeling diagnosed. I want them to leave feeling understood.
If I can help someone recognize a pattern, reclaim a piece of themselves, or feel less alone in their suffering, then I have fulfilled my purpose.
My work is not about optimizing people. It is about reducing unnecessary harm and helping people rebuild with greater awareness, agency, and hope.
Holey House's Vision
My vision is to help create a world where trauma is no longer invisible. A world where people understand that survival changes us, but it does not define us.
I dream of building more than a website. I want to create a sanctuary for people who feel disconnected from themselves—a place where difficult truths can be explored safely, where shame loses its grip, and where healing feels possible. I want Holey House to become a place where people can find language for experiences they have never been able to explain.
A place where stories become understanding. Where understanding becomes action. Where action becomes change.
Long term, I hope to grow this work into books, tools, education, community, and spaces that help people rebuild their lives with intention. Not because I believe healing means becoming someone new. But because I believe healing is remembering that beneath everything survival built, there is still something whole worth coming home to.
And if one person learns to patch their holes and inspires another to do the same... then the ripple was worth creating.
You’ve carried enough alone.
It’s time to understand what happened, and how it shaped the way you see yourself, love, and trust.
The Incest Trauma Healing Toolkit is a gentle, survivor-created guide that helps you make sense of your story, calm your nervous system, and begin rebuilding a relationship with yourself that feels safe again.
Whether you’re just realizing what you survived or years into your recovery, this toolkit gives you the language, framework, and guidance to start transforming pain into power.