The Day I Realized I Was Disappearing

It took crawling under a playground slide in a foreign city with dengue fever to finally feel... peace?

I was under a slide when it hit me.

Not a metaphorical slide — an actual plastic one, in the middle of a crowded, chaotic park in Chicago. My kids, 3 and 5 at the time, were running wild on their first-ever vacation. It was also their first time in the United States, and my first time feeling like maybe, just maybe, we’d made it somewhere safe.

Except I was violently ill.

We’d only just landed when I got chills and my body began aching in a way that made me question whether I’d collapse in the middle of Target while buying up all the warm clothes i could. (I did not, but it was close.) By day three, I had a fever, chills, and pain in every cell of my body. By the end of the week, it was hemorrhagic dengue. And yet…

I felt light.

I felt peace.

I felt — for the first time in decades — something close to okay.

There I was, sick beyond comprehension, alone in an unfamiliar city with two small children, lying under a playground slide because my body literally couldn’t stand anymore. And still, a strange clarity settled in. Like I could finally hear myself think.

This was before I knew what I’d been living in. Before the word “narcissist” meant anything personal. Before I understood the depth of the emotional and financial abuse. Before the unraveling.

But it was the first crack in the mask I’d been forced to wear.

Because away from the noise — the controlling presence, the constant tension, the erasure of self — my body finally stopped bracing. And even with dengue eating me alive, I felt more alive than I had in twenty years.

If You’re Here…

You might be in your own “under the slide” moment. It may not look as dramatic. Maybe it’s just a random Tuesday afternoon and you realize you don’t remember what you like anymore. Maybe it’s a quiet ache you’ve ignored for years.

That’s the Spark Embers phase. The moment you start to realize you’ve been disappearing. That something essential has gone missing — and you're no longer willing to stay gone.

What Helped Me Start to Reclaim Myself

I didn’t leap into healing. I didn't have a dramatic glow-up. After failing with all the big fixes, I started small. Quiet. Clumsy. I lit a few sparks and waited to see what flickered.

If you’re there now — in the noticing, the ache, the under-the-slide realization — I created something for you:
🎁 The Spark Starter Kit — a free, no-pressure guide to help you reconnect with yourself in small but meaningful ways. No “fixing” required. Just gentle experiments in noticing what makes you feel a tiny bit more… you.