“Not everything is yours. Some burdens you have been carrying for generations.”
When people look at a finished book, they primarily only look at the finished product: the cover, the pages, and the words bound together. They don’t know that process behind it — the late nights, the fears, and the acts of courage it takes to write something so intimate. For me, Twice as Hard – Revelations of a Mother was more than just telling a story. It was about breaking a silence that had been carried through the generations, and at last speaking what could not be written into reports or procedures.
From Social Worker to Storyteller
I had spent years in the social sector as a personal counselor, reintegration worker, and social worker. I was there to assist those most likely at their most vulnerable. I learned to navigate bureaucracies, follow rules, and fill out reports. In black and white, I was doing everything by the book. But behind those tidily crafted files were real human stories — raw, messy, and too heavy to be locked inside the boxes of officialdom.
There were things that I had to say but couldn’t. Pain that I witnessed but had to verbalize in clinical terms. And in between that silence, I began to understand something: I too was walking around with stories I had never spoken out. Not just from my vocation, but from within my own family history. Stories of struggle, resilience, and survival that were silently informing the way I lived, loved, and even parented.
Why Twice as Hard
My book’s title speaks to a truth I discovered the hard way: when you are doing your own thing, as well as unknowingly carrying the unspoken load of all the generations that preceded you, life becomes twice as hard. It can be working harder to be seen, to battle harder to feel good enough, and to struggle longer to find your own identity.
Writing the book was my way of peeling away those layers. I wrote as a daughter left with more than she knew, as a mother who wanted to leave her children fewer wounds, and as a worker who had seen what the invisible burdens do to people’s lives. The process was raw and often agonizing, but it was also liberating.
A Book for the Collective
This is not a theory-book or an abstract model. It’s a life book, of the silences when we feel being “different” and don’t know why, of the loyalty that makes us keep quiet, and of the courage it takes to reclaim what never was ours to begin with.
I hope that readers can see themselves in me. That they’ll recognize their own struggles in the narratives I share, and feel less isolated. And most importantly, that they’ll know that healing is possible — that by speaking out, we not only liberate ourselves but also the ones who come behind us.
Closing Thought
Twice as Hard is not my tale alone. It’s an invite to notice further, to pose courageous questions, and to step into restoration. Because even though pain can be passed down, so can courage — and sometimes, that’s enough to make new pages for those who follow.