In the depths of grief, I found myself unraveling like a moth-eaten sweater. Each thread, once strong and woven into the fabric of who I was, seemed to fray beyond repair. Yet, inside of each of those very holes, I discovered the threads of my resilience: words. This is the story of how I stitched myself back together, one poem at a time, and how you can, too.

The Catalyst: A Journey Through Loss

I said “I do” and stepped into the most important chapter of my life on March 14, 2020. The whole world was shutting down around me, and all I saw was the world I was just beginning to create.I had a vision of what it would mean to be whole. I imagined a future filled with the warmth and chaos of parenthood, a dream Izzy and I held tightly. 

But the reality was starkly different. They say the first two years of marriage are the hardest as you are just beginning to merge two lives and build an entirely new one. But that wasn’t what made our first couple of years so tough. 

Mere months after the wedding and inside of our honeymoon and COVID-19 bubbles, I rapidly gained more than 40 pounds, missed two months of periods in a row, and failed more than a dozen pregnancy tests. Something was off, and I had to fight my way into my doctor’s office to find out what. It turns out, this was the onset of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), which I learned quickly would become a permanent facet of my life and a significant obstacle in growing our family. 

PCOS stole my body from me for years. The rapid weight gain, irregular periods, and the constant barrage of negative pregnancy tests took a toll not only physically but also emotionally. 

I felt trapped in a body that no longer felt like my own, constantly fatigued and battling an overwhelming sense of failure. I experienced miscarriage after miscarriage, each one carving out a deeper wound in my heart, leaving me hollowed, frayed, and broken. PCOS became this silent, constant presence that amplified my grief after every miscarriage. The emotional weight of it was crushing — it left me feeling powerless, ashamed, and disconnected from the future I had envisioned. Every day felt like a battle between hope and despair, my heart heavy with the fear that I would never experience the fullness of motherhood.

Every miscarriage made me feel more like a sweater that moths had eaten away at, vulnerable and unraveling from the inside out. I couldn’t find the words to describe the depth of my grief. With each loss, the grief compounded, and with it came a growing feeling of emptiness. I felt like I was disintegrating, a piece of fabric barely held together by tattered strands.The grief was not just sadness; it was a crushing, all-consuming presence that left me feeling worn and incomplete. I remember standing in front of a mirror, wondering how I had come to this point, my large, rumpled reflection barely recognizable, my mind wrapped in darkness. That’s when I realized that if I didn’t find some way to heal, I would stay like that — moth-eaten and unraveling, forever.

The Transformation: Writing as Healing

Life’s timing is a funny thing. Inside of the hole of grief that seemed to get deeper every day in that season, a friend from college I hadn’t spoken to in years and who had been on the slam poetry team with me, reached out. Out of the blue, he invited me to join a community-based poetry group. I hadn’t written poetry in what felt like forever, and I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it until I showed up to that first meeting. Every Saturday, we gathered online, a small group of us, sharing our words, our stories. For nearly a year, this group became my lifeline.

I remembered in this group that this was not the first time I had felt so fragile, so close to broken that I was afraid to move, afraid to breathe. And I started writing about all the times before. I wrote about my grandmother who died just a few months after my wedding; I wrote about the years I spent in a toxic relationship believing I was undeserving of love or respect; I wrote about the first time I was ever pregnant, not by choice, and the forced loss that followed.

I penned a piece of poetry about a sofa trapped and forgotten inside of a cruel, abusive, and controlling house; it is called No Body’s Home, and it was in this poem that I brought back to life a phrase I had actually come up with in adolescence, when I first discovered poetry. The phrase was “a bitter, beaten, moth-eaten sweater.” 

As a teenager, I loved the way this phrase fell off the tongue saying it out loud, and here in this writing space more than a decade later, the phrase reminded me that while I have time and time again felt moth-eaten and forgotten, I was also still capable of creation, of piecing myself back together one stanza at a time. I wrote about all the times I had broken before, which forced me to realize all the times I had also survived, healed, and lived. Through this process, I remembered the power of poetry to transform my grief. 

Crafting my emotions into poems and short stories wasn’t just cathartic — it was liberating. It allowed me to take control of my narrative. The act of shaping my experiences into art gave them meaning and structure, even when everything else felt like chaos. I learned, through the group’s support and our shared vulnerability, that healing doesn’t have to be a solitary journey. 

The poetry group reconnected me to a part of myself I thought I’d lost and proved to me that the stories we tell shape our reality. I realized that writing didn’t just transform my grief — it offered a path to reclaim my voice and reshape my story. As I felt the power of words mending my life, I started to wonder what it might look like to share this process with others, so they too could find healing through the act of writing and create a new narrative for themselves.

The Mission: Birth of Write Yourself Well

Though I may at times still feel like the moth-eaten sweater I have likened myself to since youth, writing has made me whole over and over and over again. I’ve also realized that my writing could do more than just heal me — it could help others who were struggling with their own unraveling. I want to create a space where others could find the healing power of words.

That’s how Write Yourself Well was born.

I began sharing my story on social media, building a community of people who had experienced similar losses or who were battling their own personal struggles. The response was overwhelming. People resonated with the idea of finding hope and healing through storytelling, and they began to share their own experiences with me. The community I am building is a testament to the power of words — to mend, to heal, and to transform. From the blog to social media, to the upcoming e-books and mobile app, the goal is to help others stitch themselves back together, one word at a time.

Conclusion: An Invitation to Write Yourself Well

My journey from pain to poetry is ongoing. Healing isn’t a destination, but a process, one that requires daily dedication. Writing remains my constant companion through it all, a thread that continues to weave hope into the fabric of my life. I invite you to join me in this process. If you’re feeling frayed, worn, or broken, I want you to know that you don’t have to stay that way. Words have the power to heal, and they are always within your reach. Start small — grab a notebook, write down your thoughts, and let the words guide you toward wholeness.

You don’t have to unravel forever.