Wife. Mother. Coach. Coworker. Busy. Strong. Responsible. Successful.
I love Notre Dame football, hunting, hiking, and spending time outdoors. From the outside, everything looked normal.
But depression doesn’t always look the way people expect.
My story is about what was happening behind the roles everyone knew me by—and how I found my way back to hope, faith, and the light.
The Story
For most of my life, people would have described me as the strong one. I was a wife, a mother, a friend, and a professional.
I worked hard, cared deeply about others, and did my best to carry whatever life placed in front of me. What many people didn’t know was that behind the smile, I was struggling.
Over time, grief, depression, and the weight of life became more than I could carry alone. Eventually, I found myself in one of the darkest seasons of my life, a season that led to psychiatric hospitalizations and a suicide attempt.
At the time, I believed my story was over.
What followed was not an overnight transformation. Healing rarely works that way. Instead, it came one step at a time through faith, treatment, family, friends, and people God placed in my path when I needed them most.
Along the way, I discovered something important: darkness is real, but it is not permanent.
That realization became the foundation for my memoir, the light I couldn’t see.
I didn’t write this book because I have all the answers. I wrote it because I know what it feels like to believe you are alone, and I wanted others to know they are not.
Today, my passion is helping others find hope, encouraging honest conversations about mental health, and sharing the message that even in our darkest moments, light still exists.
Whether you’re here because you’ve read my book, are struggling yourself, or simply want to learn more about my story, I’m grateful you’re here.
Thank you for visiting.
And if there is one thing I hope you take away from my journey, it’s this:
I never intended to write a book.
What began as journal entries, prayers, and scattered thoughts written during some of the darkest days of my life eventually became the light I couldn’t see.
I wrote this book because I know what it feels like to believe there is no way forward. I know what it feels like to sit in an emergency room, to be admitted to a psychiatric unit, and to wonder if life will ever feel normal again.
When I was struggling, I needed hope.
I needed to know that someone else had walked through the darkness and survived.
This is the book I wish I could have read during that season of my life.
I didn’t write it because I have everything figured out. I wrote it because I made it through something I once believed would end my story. I want people struggling with their own mental health to know that needing help does not make them weak, broken, or alone.
My goal is not simply to sell books.
My goal is to put this book where I once needed it most.
I want to place copies in behavioral health facilities, psychiatric units, hospitals, counseling centers, colleges and universities, churches, and other places where someone may be searching for a reason to keep going.
If someone sitting in a hospital room, feeling hopeless and alone, can read my story and find even one reason to stay, then every difficult page was worth writing.
Because sometimes the right words, at the right moment, can reach someone in a way nothing else can.
Most of all, I wrote this book because I want people to know:
Darkness is real.
But it is not permanent.
There is hope.
There is healing.
And sometimes…
the light was there all along.