I used to think forensic nursing was where I learned about trauma. It wasn't. It was where I learned to talk about it.

I'm a registered nurse and a former forensic nurse examiner. These days I'd add author, podcast host, and speaker to that list, though nurse is still the word that comes out first when someone asks what I do.

Before any of that, I lived inside the kind of house you don't talk about until you're an adult and someone finally asks the right question. Childhood trauma. Child sexual abuse. Domestic violence. I didn't have language for any of it for a long time. I just had the patterns it left behind.

For years, forensic nursing put me on the other side of that. I sat with people on some of the worst days of their lives, providing care, documenting what had happened, and collecting evidence that might become part of a legal case. I was good at it. For a long time, I believed the work was something I did for other people, separate from anything that had happened to me.

That wasn't true. I didn't understand how untrue it was until I sat through an ACEs training. Not a patient encounter. Not a dramatic moment at a bedside. A training, in a room, with a slide about adverse childhood experiences, where I recognized my own life inside a checklist I hadn't expected to see myself in.

That's where The Fan in the Window started, even though I didn't write it for years afterward. It launched in April 2026. It's a memoir about domestic violence, generational patterns, accountability, and the slow, nonlinear work of interrupting something that started long before I existed.

The memoir explores how I came to understand those patterns. My second book focuses on what we can practice once we recognize them. You Can Interrupt It: A Practical Guide for the Parent Who Inherited Trauma and Swore They'd Do It Differently followed in August 2026. It's built around what I call the Interruption Model™: notice, name, regulate, interrupt, repair, repeat.

Both books are available now on Amazon. The memoir is also available on Audible, narrated by me.

I also host The Fan in the Window: Interrupting What We Inherit, where I talk through all of this out loud, with guests and without them. We explore inherited trauma, nervous system responses, parenting, domestic violence, and relationship safety—including why leaving can be complicated and what support can look like. New episodes come out every other Tuesday.

There's a community that's grown around these conversations, too: Interrupting What We Inherit on Facebook, if you want somewhere to keep talking after an episode ends.

I run all of it through My Sweet Nurse Life, LLC, which is where the MBA finally came in handy. Between the books and the podcast, I also lead workshops for parents, clinicians, and anyone else trying to do this work without a map.

I live in Maryland with my husband, Jimmy. I am a mother to four grown children and a grandmother. All of it still teaches me something about repair.

I'm still doing the work myself, one pattern at a time.

This didn't start with you…but you can interrupt it. 🪟