It's March 2021. I'm sitting at my desk when my phone buzzes.
"Hi Lisa, I got your number from so and so, do you have a few minutes to chat?"
Curious, I reply: sure, give me a call. She Face Times. That's intense, I think. But okay she’s so and so’s friend, she wouldn’t have given her my number for nothing.
The next 120 seconds send a shock pulsing through my entire system. Confusion. Disbelief. Defensiveness. And then over the next few hours, the truth. He cheated. He betrayed me. He got caught. And he wanted forgiveness.
Two years later I'm standing at the edge of 32 — divorced, no kids, three apartments and a stint at my parents' house — wondering how it all crumbled into dust. How did it shatter this hard, I kept asking myself?
My story is about betrayal, heartbreak, loss and grief. And about clawing my way back to something that feels wild — not just okay, not just "this will do" — but blood coursing through my bones, I am so grateful to be alive. Something that feels whole.
There's more to this story. A lot more.
But I didn't start Quietly Whole to tell you everything at once. I started it because somewhere out there someone is sitting at their desk, their kitchen table, their car, or their bathroom floor, and the life they thought they were going to live is no longer. A phone rang. A bed went empty. A gravesite grew. An income stopped. Life pivoted. Our world’s shift on us all the time.
And I want you to know you are not as alone as you feel right now.
That's why I'm here. I'm a social worker who specialized in trauma at 24, and then watched my own life become the trauma experience I had spent years helping others navigate. The irony wasn't lost on me.
Here you'll find me week to week talking about healing, mental health and rebuilding yourself after life pivots — with lived experience and a little professional insight woven in.
My only ask is this: be kind to yourself and keep showing up. If hearing from someone who's been there helps subscribe, follow me on Instagram and TikTok as Quietly Whole. I'm definitely at the beginning of my content creation journey (I beg of you, I know it's cringe, but I'm running with the mentality that practice only makes you better). I have some meaningful content coming and a small book releasing in the coming months.
And if you don't do anything else after reading this, please just remember:
Whatever happened, whatever pulled the floor out from underneath you, that moment is not the end of your story.
It's just the beginning of a different one.
Stay close. There's more coming.
Your friend, Lisa