CONTENT WARNING
Breaking the Cycle: Love, Lies, and the Things We Carry
If you’re in the mood to go on a little emotional journey with me, keep reading. If not, that’s okay too. I don’t know yet if this article will ever be shared beyond this circle. My skin tingles about any eyes reading it. But, this is part of my process—an idea sparks, intersects with something else, and becomes messaging that encourages folks to destigmatize mental illness or spread kindness. Because if I have any kind of platform (and, I mean, I do), I’m damn well going to use it to do some good in the world. Ahem.
Some things you unlearn in an instant. Others take a lifetime.
The clock read 10:26 PM, July 6, 1986 when I realized the truth—that everything I had been told about myself was a lie. That was the night the gaslighting cracked wide open, the night the myth shattered. But it would take years before I could unlearn everything else. But, that night, the truth of being the daughter of Steven Randolph Knox was restored. I was 12. Seven long years of being forced to parrot a narrative, to repeat & believe a lie about which of the men were my father. Three in total, had been presented as my father, over the span of my short life.
