book release
Introduction to the Book
Ascending the Hidden Staircase is a memoir born from late-night reflection and raw emotion, capturing the trials of a mind that processes the world on a slightly different frequency. Society’s divides can feel especially deep for those grappling with their own place in it, and this book spans my earliest memories through the tumult of adulthood, tracing how I think, feel, and cope when life doesn’t quite fit the scripts we’re handed.
I wrote it for anyone who’s ever felt strange, isolated, or dismissed, and for those trying to better understand a friend or loved one whose mind operates outside the usual lines. Although the focus is on specifically autism and ADHD, the underlining aspect of this book is, I hope, empathy. My wish is that you find echoes of yourself in these stories, moments that remind you there is no “broken” way to be human, only different ways of seeing and feeling.
Drafted in a single night through tears and soda, Ascending the Hidden Staircase captures my hope that, somewhere in these pages, you’ll feel recognized. You are not alone. You never were. And together, maybe we can find a path that honors each twist and turn of our beautifully varied minds.
Sample Passages
"If I could speak to my teenage self now, I would tell him that he wasn’t lazy or incapable. I would explain that each tear, each humiliation, each moment of confusion was another step in understanding how his own mind operated. I would reassure him that missing social cues didn’t make him unworthy of friendship, that failing classes didn’t brand him a failure in life, that repeating misguided jokes didn’t have to define his moral compass. I would remind him that growth is painful, that sometimes you have to lose people, or lose your own illusions, to stumble upon a clearer sense of who you are. "
"It was as though the top-left corner of every image had been smeared away. Sometimes, while I tried to write a perfect letter O, I noticed that same corner missing. It seemed my mind had sustained an imprint from that accident as tangible as the scar itself."
“She gripped my hand and whispered, ‘I’m sorry I’m such a mess.’ […] I murmured a reassurance: ‘We all are, sometimes.’ The sincerity in my voice surprised even me. […] I realized I was seeing a mirror of my own self-criticism, the gnawing sense that I was a burden.”
“In that moment, I felt the strain of my old thoughts re-emerging, reminding me that I’d never be a perfectly streamlined machine. But maybe I didn’t have to be. Maybe it was enough to show up as I was, to keep learning, to keep forging on with the messy, dedicated heart that had gotten me this far.”
Buy the Book
If you want to feel that connection, or know that you are not alone with struggling to feel as if you 'fit in', then this book is for you. It also can be a guide for a family member struggling to understand those who are loved ones in our lives that don't fit into a set box of society, or seem 'weird' and 'odd' or as if they don't have 'common sense'.