Kintsugi is the Japanese tradition of mending pottery with gold lacquer, repairing the cracks. This is the story of how I was broken down and then made beautiful.

Twenty-five years ago, I was a pioneer, someone who deserved a tremendous amount of credit for bringing the problem of deliberate self-harming into public consciousness. That was according to the author of “Bodies Under Siege,” which the New York Times called the first book to comprehensively explore self-injury.

Also 25 years ago, I was seriously mentally ill, homeless, and in the middle of what would eventually be nearly two dozen hospitalizations directly related to my own self-harm. When life was too much, I coped by shoving a steel blade into my wrist. When it wasn’t, I convinced the guy who literally wrote the book on the topic to see things differently.

My memoir: Kintsugi Girl: How Self-harm Nearly Killed Me While Saving My Life is the sometimes horrifying, sometimes funny story of my complicated journey from severe child abuse to extreme self-harm to a life worth living. Moving through a multitude of identities along the way – traumatized teen, good Methodist housewife, geek party girl, homeless mental patient, fierce mental-health activist, and disillusioned wife of a narcissist – I was finally able to make peace with myself.

In between stints on the psych ward and suicide attempts, I created a comprehensive, internationally known self-harm resource, started an online self-help community, and participated in a government panel on self-injury. I wrote practical guides for practitioners, including the still-used Bill of Rights For People Who Self-Injure, consulted with authors, gave media interviews, and got March 1 recognized as Self-Injury Awareness Day. I later promoted the day as a guest on Voice of America radio.

Today, I’m living a life homeless me never could have imagined. I have a senior position at the software company I’ve been with for 17 years. I live with a husband who loves me more than anyone ever has, and we share a house in Seattle with two demanding cats.

How to Write a Memoir

  • Hearts
    I want to tell you about my hearts. A few years ago, I found this nifty pattern for knitting little hearts. I was I a business trip and had some time to kill, so I made a few. I often knit on flights, and as I was getting off the plane home, a woman behind me said, “I’ve been watching you since the terminal and I have to know: are you really knitting a heart?” I gave her one I’d finished the night before. Since then it’s turned into a project. I’ve knitted literally hundreds, on 000s with lace weight… Continue reading Hearts
  • I went to a pandemic and all I got was a book
    While I was working on that first chapter, the world stopped. My husband Victor and I had gone to New Orleans to celebrate the anniversary of our leap-day meeting in February 2016. Covid wasn’t a thing when we left Seattle, but right after we got home, the city locked down. Instead of leaving the house at 5:30 AM and zooming down the freeway, I was leaving the couch at 5:59 AM and walking over to my desk. And instead of driving home and falling into a heap on the couch when 3:00 came, I switched over to my personal laptop… Continue reading I went to a pandemic and all I got was a book
  • Just start writing… eventually
    My first assignment was simple: Write out a timeline of events and a description of the various people in my life. Note that I said “simple,” not “easy.” The timeline ended up being around 46,000 words, more than half the eventual length of the book. The list of people wasn’t much shorter, and the whole thing took months. When Alan had reviewed the two lists, he told me to take the timeline, start at the beginning, and write until the end. I was paralyzed, afraid of doing it wrong and messing up this chance. A long time passed, and Alan… Continue reading Just start writing… eventually
  • The first step
    “Writing memoir.” I knew it wasn’t the most original Google search I’d ever done, but all I wanted was somewhere to start. The first page of results was full of people wanting to sell me things. On the second, though, a link grabbed my eye: “Write a killer memoir.” That was what I wanted to do, so I clicked. The article was great, and I ended up clicking through a lot of the blog before coming up for air. I hadn’t heard of Alan Rinzler before, but he clearly knew what he was talking about. A link at the bottom… Continue reading The first step
  • After chaos, silence
    For years my life was too chaotic to even think about writing – when you’re bouncing from crisis to crisis so hard that you’ve moved 14 times in six years, it’s hard to focus long enough to write a cover letter for your resume, much less plan and write an entire book. Eventually, my life stabilized and I started thinking about the project again. I even bought a book on writing memoir in 2011. My then-husband scoffed when I posted about it on an email group we both belonged to. “You’re just fishing for compliments,” he said. “You only did… Continue reading After chaos, silence