Blog

Sometimes people aren’t single because they cannot find anyone. Sometimes life has required so much of them that tenderness had to wait. For the last few years, I was finishing my doctorate, struggling financially, and helping care for my parents. I watched my father decline and then lost him while dementia slowly took my mother's mind away. There were houses to sell, yards and bills to manage, and constant dealings with Medicaid and nursing homes. I simply kept handling what

Trying to meet someone today has become an exhausting, confusing, and often downright dehumanizing experience. It should be easier than ever to meet someone. Dating apps can show us hundreds of people without leaving the couch. Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms connect us with people we never would have encountered otherwise. Yet finding someone genuine somehow feels harder. We sort through fake profiles, shallow conversations, mixed signals, and people wh

A relationship is supposed to give us more than another person in the room. It should give us someone to talk to, laugh with, depend on, and share our lives with. It should make us feel known, wanted, and connected. But I see so many people staying in relationships that give them none of those things because they are afraid of being alone. They may sleep in the same bed, eat dinner together, and sit beside each other every night. From the outside, they look like a couple. Ins

Maybe some of the best parts of sex aren't actually sex. They're everything that happens before it. The look across a room that lasts a second longer than it should. The conversation where you suddenly become aware of how close you're standing. The first time you realize someone isn't just being friendly. The private joke that nobody else understands. The text that makes you smile because you know exactly what they meant. The anticipation of knowing you're going to see someon

“I need you.” We hear those words in love songs, movies, and wedding vows as if they represent the deepest form of love. Sometimes they do. But sometimes they mean something very different. I need you to make me feel okay. I need you to reassure me that I'm worthy. I need you to keep me from being alone. I need you to give my life meaning. And that's an enormous responsibility to hand another human being. There's nothing wrong with needing people. We're social creatures. We n

We talk a lot about wanting to be loved. We don't talk nearly as much about wanting to be desired. And maybe that's because admitting it can sound shallow. We're supposed to become more mature as we get older. Wiser. Less concerned with appearance. More interested in companionship, character, and emotional connection. And hopefully we do. But that doesn't necessarily mean we stop wanting someone to look at us and think: I want you. There is something deeply human about that f

I keep hearing the same thing from women. Not from surveys or social media debates, but from female friends and colleagues I've known over the last several years—women of different ages, backgrounds, and personalities. The details vary, but the frustration is remarkably similar. "The guys I meet are narcissistic." "Nobody puts in any effort." "Everything turns sexual immediately." "Chivalry is dead." Obviously, not all men are narcissists. And I'm not convinced men have sudde

There’s a particular kind of pain in falling in love with someone you can’t have. You never lost them. They were never yours to lose. And maybe that’s what makes it so difficult. They can still be right there. You can talk to them, laugh with them, look forward to seeing them, and feel better simply because they walked into the room. And sometimes it’s the smallest things that hurt the most. The smell of their hair when they’re standing close to you. Hearing their laugh from

There is a kind of exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix. You wake up and already know what the day is going to look like. Same rooms. Same people. Same problems. Same routines. Same conversations. Nothing may be terribly wrong. But nothing feels particularly alive, either. You aren't necessarily depressed. You don't want your life to end. You're just tired of this version of it. And those are two very different things. Stop Treating Your Entire Life as the Problem When you've be

When we're young, we don't have to work very hard to find other people. School surrounds us with friends. College gives us roommates. Workplaces become social circles. Marriage creates built-in companionship. Children fill the house with noise. Even running errands means constantly bumping into familiar faces. Life keeps putting people in front of us. Then, almost without noticing, it changes. The kids move away. Parents become elderly—or they're gone. Friends relocate, becom

There is a fear I've carried for much of my life that I rarely hear anyone else talk about. It's not the fear of dying. It's not the fear of getting sick. It's not even the fear of losing the people I love. It's the fear of losing myself. Not physically. Psychologically. The fear of waking up one day and no longer feeling like the person I've always been. If you've never experienced it, that probably sounds strange. But if you have... You already know exactly what I mean. Loo

There is a moment in many people's lives that almost no one talks about. It doesn't arrive with a diagnosis. It isn't announced by a doctor. There is no ceremony. Instead, it happens quietly. One day, somewhere deep inside, you stop believing that another chapter is coming. You still wake up. You go to work. You pay the bills. You make dinner. You scroll your phone. You watch television. From the outside, nothing has changed. Inside, however, something profound has happened.

For awhile now people have asked me what Escape the System is really about. Is it about psychiatry? Addiction? Mental health? Cults? Institutions? The answer is... Not really. Those are simply the places where I keep seeing the same thing happen. Escape the System has always been about one question: What happens to a human being when they gradually forget who they are? One of my earliest memories is going to the Buffalo Zoo with my mother. I was sick as a kid for years, so we

My father died last year. My mother is still alive, but dementia has taken much of the person I once knew. Today is my first Father's Day without him. As I thought about that, I realized something I had never considered before. For most of my life, there was always a generation above me. No matter how old I became, there was still someone I could call for advice. Someone who remembered more history. Someone who had already lived through the stage of life I was entering. Someo

I post the song "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" at least once a year on social media because I believe its message that strongly. If you've never heard it, take four minutes and listen before reading further. Not because relationships are supposed to remain exactly the same forever. Not because butterflies are meant to last for decades. But because I believe some things should remain. The feeling that your partner still adores you. The feeling that they still light up w

If you have never heard Janis Ian’s 1975 song At Seventeen, take a moment to listen before reading. If you already know it, listen again. Its emotional truth is part of what this reflection explores. Few songs capture the feeling of not belonging as honestly as this one. If you have never heard Janis Ian’s 1975 song At Seventeen, it is one of the most painfully truthful songs ever written about what it feels like to believe you are not accepted. What makes the song so beautif

There are some people we meet who make us stop for a moment and quietly wonder: What if life had unfolded differently? What if I were younger? What if they were older? Not because we are unhappy. Not because we are searching. And not because every meaningful connection is meant to become something more. But because every once in a while, another human being appears and reminds us that some part of us is still capable of being startled fully awake. As we get older, people ofte

Over the years, people have asked me where many of my ideas about mental health, addiction, recovery, human services, and institutional systems actually come from. The answer is definitely NOT social media. They came from decades working inside these systems — but also from reading researchers, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, trauma experts, recovery thinkers, anthropologists, cult researchers, and people willing to ask uncomfortable questions about power, identity

My brother and I are in the process of selling my mother’s house. A house she has lived in for 40 years. Not because we want to. Because we HAVE to. The cost of her care at McAuley Residence in Tonawanda, NY is just under $17,000 per month. That’s over $200,000 a year. So naturally, the question becomes: What exactly does our family getting for $17,000 a month? What You’re Paying For — And What You’re Not At $17,000 a month, this is what you’re actually getting: Room and boar

I’ve been noticing something lately that doesn’t quite make sense to me. And I think part of it is because my dad died this year… And my mom is on her way. So death isn’t some abstract idea right now. It’s… right here. When I’m sitting alone, in my head, thinking about it— Not existing. Just… gone. It scares the hell out of me. Like a deep, almost panicky kind of fear. But here’s the part I can’t reconcile. If I picture a real situation— A client of mine in danger. Someone tr