My Story

Twenty years ago, I was struggling to heal from the most traumatizing event of my life. A succession of hardships led to one seismic event that blew the ground out from under me. After that, I was flooded with symptoms I eventually came to match to those described by prisoners of war.

I spent a year treating myself as I was left with no money for therapy and no health insurance. I had an advanced degree in psychology, so I knew where to look for the latest approaches and how to apply them.

I was faithful to self-administered exposure therapy, journal writing, and daily exercise. Forcing myself to leave the apartment, cringing each time someone walked past me from behind.

At the end of a year, I traveled to a remote hilltop in Canada to spend time with friends. In the quiet of night, I was writing when I encountered something I never before experienced. A complete absence of suffering in the presence of something supernatural, which I realized was God. It felt as if He passed his hand over my heart. Then poured water into the heart.

After the encounter, something was different. My hatred for the perpetrator of my trauma was missing. It had been removed like a tumor. Instead, I felt great sorrow and great joy. And the remaining symptoms of a jangled nervous system.  

I then entered a period of conversion. During that time, I came to learn the significance of story and who God is as an Author. I was prompted to write in a different way than I’d been writing before. This new way became a means of healing and deep conversion.

I was also prompted to pray the rosary and learned it is a way of meditating on stories. Through the time I spent with Mary in prayer, I saw how elements of my own trauma story intersected with elements of Christ’s trauma story. In those moments of clear connection my bond with Jesus grew deeper, and I came to know Him in ways I never knew Him before.

In a few months, I had written a novel about my trauma. By the end of the writing process, I’d arrived at a place of profound healing, forgiveness and peace. I had in truth come to love a person who betrayed and tortured me, with a love like I had never known before. The entirely free love of God.

During my healing, I had close, dear friends. But none of them were experts in the psychology of trauma, or the architecture of stories, or knew the God I encountered. They loved me as they could and I love them for it. As a result of my own experience, I have founded Dove & Quill to be there for you, if you want or need to spend time with someone who understands these things. I founded Dove & Quill, so that you may learn to read your story, to find God in it, to know you have not been forsaken, you are not alone in your suffering, that good can come from hardship, and that transformation and healing are possible.