Second Book Launching This Summer
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Second Book Launching This Summer *
(Not the actual book cover)
You Can Interrupt It
A Practical Guide for the Parent Who Inherited Trauma
and Swore They’d Do It Differently
By the author of The Fan in the Window
Be the first to know when it's available.
ABOUT THE BOOK
You already know something is wrong. You can feel it.
In the way you react before you can think. In the roles you took on before you were old enough to choose them. In the relationships that felt like home, even when home was harming you. In the moments when you look at your children and see something that looks uncomfortably like you.
That is not a character flaw. That is inheritance.
You Can Interrupt It is the companion to the memoir The Fan in the Window — the practical guide to doing the work the memoir describes. Drawing on decades of research in neuroscience, attachment theory, family systems, and trauma recovery—and on Tressa's own unflinching story as both a forensic nurse and a survivor—this book gives you a map for the work of interruption.
It speaks to the specific person who has spent her life swearing she would do it differently: the survivor-turned-parent reparenting herself while she raises her own children. It names what is happening in your nervous system without shame. It explains why the patterns feel so automatic—and shows you, step by step, how to interrupt them.
Inside, you'll find the science of why we inherit what we inherit, the truth about what therapy can and cannot do, what attachment styles actually mean for you and your relationships, what happens to the body after you leave something that harmed you, how to repair with your children when you get it wrong, and how to hold a boundary with the people you love most without burning everything down.
Not a checklist. Not a linear path to being fixed. A map—drawn by someone who has walked the terrain.
"This didn't start with you…but you can interrupt it." 🪟
This didn't start with you…
but you can interrupt it.🪟
This Book Is For You If…
You are an adult survivor of childhood trauma who is ready to do more than survive.
You are the adult child of an emotionally immature or unavailable parent.
You want to parent differently than you were parented — but you don't have a roadmap.
You have looked at your children and seen something you recognize — and want to change.
You are a survivor of domestic violence, rebuilding your sense of self.
You are a therapist, nurse, or caregiver who wants to understand this work from the inside.
Inside the Book
The AWAKE Framework
A nonlinear map for the work of interruption—developed from lived experience, nursing knowledge, and the research that explains why we inherit what we inherit.
You don't move through this once. You move through it for life. And every time around the circle, something shifts.
About the Author
Most books about generational trauma are written by therapists writing about their clients.
Mine is written by someone who lived inside the pattern — and then did the work herself.
Tressa L. Bell, MBA, BSN, RN, is a registered nurse, former forensic nurse examiner, and survivor of childhood trauma, child sexual abuse, and domestic violence. She spent years sitting with survivors on the worst days of their lives — translating their experiences into the language of evidence and care. What she could not have told you then was that she was also living inside her own inherited pattern.
Her debut memoir, The Fan in the Window, launched in April 2026. Interrupting What We Inherit is what she learned in the years of doing the work it describes.
She is the founder of My Sweet Nurse Life, LLC and the host of the podcast The Fan in the Window: Interrupting What We Inherit. She lives in Maryland with her husband Jimmy.
Start Here
Haven't read the memoir yet?
The Fan in the Window is available now.
The story behind the framework. Where it started—the childhood, the marriage, the forensic work, the healing. Interrupting What We Inherit is the guide. The Fan in the Window is the story. Both stand alone. Together, they form the whole picture.
The Podcast
The Fan in the Window:
Interrupting What We Inherit
Episodes on the patterns we inherit, the work of interrupting them, and the research that explains why it's harder than it sounds—and more possible than you think. New episodes release weekly.
Find it wherever you listen to podcasts or on this website, click the button below…