I should probably edit this, but if I start down that path, I’ll futz with it until I decide to delete it all. So I’m publishing something that’s a little more rough than usual.
I am a slow writer. I write slowly. It takes me hours to settle on 500 words. I rarely feel finished, but I let a lot of things go so I can get to work on something else.
When I am only a writer, of the capital-W variety, this isn’t a problem. It takes as long as it takes. A lot of the time when I’m working, it looks like I’m not. My hourly rate is terrible as a result, even if my per-project rate is standard. But that’s how I do it.
There’s an ongoing joke in my life, built on the following premise: I have a wide open calendar for months at a time, endless time to schedule jobs and meetings and press if I need to. Without fail, after long months like this, an avalanche of job opportunities, pr asks, and other stuff that I file under Adulting will absolutely need to happen on the same day, at the same time. No, we can’t move it at all the only time we have is that time.
Being my own boss, producing and hosting my podcast, is supposed to change all of that. I’m supposed to be able to focus on the podcast, ten episodes at a time, do the other things for a week or so, and then start over with another ten episodes.
In theory, this is going to be great. In practice, I’m drowning in missed deadlines and urgent responsibilities while I finish building and learning how to use the machinery that will eventually automate (or at least make more efficient) a lot of my work process.
It’s so weird to be learning how to do so many things so late in my life. I have always had tremendous respect and admiration for Felicia Day, (who is not just my friend, but my North Star on how to do the thing I want to do without compromise) but I now know that I wasn’t appreciating or admiring her nearly enough all the years we did The Guild and Tabletop together. I should probably text her and tell her this.
Today is the first day in too long that I’ve had the time and the focus to sit at my desk, open up my blog, and fill it up with words. We recorded an episode of It’s Storytime this morning, leaving us with two to go before we take a little hiatus for the holidays. I was aware of how tired and overextended I am, as I stumbled over the first page several times, fumbling around to find the connection to the material that I discovered and made while I was preparing it.
Real quick context: I choose to experience my life as a series of seasons. I’ve written about it before, the difference between living in a season and doggedly charging toward a goal; A season of healthy habits is more lasting and easier for me to commit to than a decision to lose or gain X pounds, for example.
I have been in a season of healing for much longer than I thought I would be when I started. If you read or listened to Still Just A Geek, you know that when it was done, I didn’t have this sense of catharsis or closure. I certainly didn’t have profound and lasting healing. What I did have, though I didn’t realize it at the time, was a map of all the times and places that contributed to my CPTSD. Of course, that map came with nervous system dysregulation, panic attacks, night terrors, and all kinds of delightful mental health crises. I think I’ve talked about how I reached out to my Spacemom for help, and it was one of her assistants who introduced me to the woman who is now my EMDR therapist. We’ve been working together for … I think four years or so.
During our work together, I have experienced the meaningful and lasting healing that I hoped writing about my trauma would deliver. I hear it. I hear it right now and I hear how ludicrous that is. “Ah, yes, I presumed that reliving all of my trauma in public would magically heal it. Genius!”
The public part has been helpful to a significant number of people, or so I have been told a few thousand times, and that is a real blessing. I want to be a helper whenever I can, and somehow I knew that the only way I could be a helper to myself was to spend my season of healing in private.
There’s this thing that happens when I’m working on a story. Like clockwork, I will be somewhere between halfway and two-thirds through my draft, when I get this overwhelming urge to tell someone about it. Some of you are nodding along, right? The thing about that urge is that it is powered by the same creative energy and motivation I’m using to write the story, and if I give in to it, real close to all of the energy I need to finish leaks out. Every writer has a different reason for this, I understand. For me, I feel like it’s a shortcut to the satisfaction of sharing the idea without the risk of its execution not fully working. It’s an expression of the Marshmallow Test, and I fail it all the time.
I wasn’t going to risk my commitment to healing and recovery by talking about it. I’m still not, really; I feel like I’ve already said too much about it, but at least I feel like I’m far enough along in the process and I have experienced enough very real, significant, and meaningful moments of lasting healing to know that this isn’t going to derail any of that.
I’m tired. I have really been through it. There have been entire weeks where I have just felt terrible, while working on reprocessing something particularly painful, or fully seeing something for the very first time. By terrible coincidence as I was starting to feel safe and less vulnerable in my relationships, I was stunningly ghosted by a couple of longtime friends without explanation, just dismissed and forgotten like we never even knew each other. That was such a shock, it kicked me in the stomach so hard, the pain and the loss, the confusion and disappointment. It came up over and over again until very recently, when a lot of the work I’ve been doing came together and did its thing.
All of this, so intense and so hard and so worth it, while I was doing my best to get It’s Storytime off the ground, deal with the unceremonious and surprising ending of The Ready Room, without so much as a thank you from the network after hundreds of episodes. (I guess that’s how corporate does things, now? That sucks. I’m sorry to everyone who has to experience that.)
And then the election. It broke me. How this country could do that … I am still just astounded and sickened. But it broke me so much, my entire Creative Self retreated into some deep, dark, safe place that even I could not find. Honestly, I wanted to join it and stay there until he’s dead and gone. For all of us who have been hurt by people we trusted, for all of us who have ever felt unsafe in our homes, for all of us who have been relentlessly abused by a bully, every single fucking day of this demented wannabe tyrant is a thumb, jabbing into a deep bruise. It resurfaces trauma that we had forgotten about or buried or thought we had recovered from. If you know, you know and I am so sorry. I see you and your feelings are valid.
I still haven’t found my Creative Self. I’ve come across some of his abandoned camps, picked up some of his notes and used them the best I can, but he’s still not ready to come back out and risk the vulnerability he work demands.
But I have found a lot of other parts of myself, wounded parts that were terrorized, ignored, minimized, invalidated. I’ve found all of them and reparented them to the best of my ability, giving myself the dad I always deserved.
I have begun to wonder if my Creative Self isn’t really hiding, as much as it’s taking itself to a place where it is safe, and staying out of the way so I can more fully participate in my season of healing.
I don’t know that this makes sense to someone who doesn’t use the IFS therapy model, and I’m beginning to feel weird about all of this, so I should wrap this up before I decide to delete it.
Something I have struggled with for years is how much I love creating good art, how much I admire performing artists, and how much the performing arts mean to me, when I was forced into the arts against my will, and held prisoner there by my mother.
I have every reason and every right to despise acting and performing of any kind. I have every right to walk away from it forever and do anything else. The most traumatic moments of my life (and there have been a lot of traumatic moments) were all on sets I didn’t want to be on, that I was forced to be on. I have every right to put all that in a warehouse, lock the doors, and set it ablaze.
Even still, I think I was always going to be an artist of some kind. I believe, and my anecdotal experience supports, that artists do not choose art; Art chooses Artists. It’s something we have to do. It is put into us at the factory, come standard on this model.
I recently worked on camera for a friend. It was just a couple of days, but I loved every second of it, and I was sad when it was over. That’s so different from my whole life on set. No matter how great the set was (and a lot of them were really, really, great) I always had anxiety and fear that I was going to get in trouble. I was always afraid that I would fuck up and get yelled at, or that I would make a mistake and everyone would be mad at me. I guess this started when I was about 8, and persisted until … uh … a month ago.
I really do like being on the set, but I always wanted it to just be over as quickly as possible, so I could get out before someone yelled at me. (For the record, I was rarely yelled at, and at least one time I absolutely deserved it.) It’s one of the reasons I suck at auditions, and it’s one of the reasons I hadn’t been cast from an audition for well over a decade when I decided that I wasn’t going to put myself through that, anymore: every single character I read for would have this simmering rage behind it, because such a huge part of me resented, well, everything about everything that culminated in me being right here, right now, for this fucking audition where the director isn’t even watching me. Or it had this current of anxiety, of real fear that if they didn’t pick me, nobody would ever pick me. And if nobody ever picked me, I would never have a chance to make my dad love me.
Yeah, that’s not great for a wide variety of roles. It’s great for the serial killer on Criminal Minds, but not much else. Certainly not any of the roles I was called in for.
I’ve been wondering if there’s a way that I can heal all that pain and sadness, recover from all of that trauma, and clear it all away, so the only thing left in the room is me, and the Art. There is no sadness. There is no loss. No pain. No endless grappling with why wouldn’t you just let me be a kid? Why wouldn’t you let me be part of your family? Why did you abandon me as your son to make me into this?
None of that was present when I worked on this thing. None. At all. It was only joy. I only had fun. I felt safe and confident and secure and I knew in my whole body that this belonged to me. I was free and supported to make big choices, to take risks in rehearsal, to really have fun and deliver a performance that I hope will show up to the audience the way it did for us on the set.
It’s the first time in my life I have felt that way. Yes, even on Big Bang Theory, where everyone was amazing and kind and supportive, I was afraid that I would fuck up and get fired. I was constantly afraid of things that only existed in my head, ugly weeds grown from seeds my mom planted in me when I was seven, and resowed year after year after year.
I remember coming home after my first day and cautiously confiding in Anne that maybe I wasn’t going to entirely walk away from this forever like I thought. Maybe I can leave that door open, just a crack, and kinda look at it, from time to time.
I really believe that Art chose me. I don’t know why, and I don’t know that I would have chosen acting if I’d been supported rather than controlled and manipulated. But I do know that when I am in a cast, when I am preparing a role, when I am discovering moments in rehearsal, and when we are putting it all together on the set, on the stage, or in a sound booth, it just feels right. It’s a place where I fit. And if I’m going to choose to be there, I will make that choice for me, to make me happy or satisfied or even just healed. I won’t make that choice from a reactive place. It will come from a thoughtful, empowered place.
I don’t know that I’ll ever be cast in a movie again, or be asked to be part of a series. But I do know that if I am, whatever choice I make will be entirely mine.
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Dude. DUDE. Yes. I feel really seen here and I feel like I see you. Not all of you, obviously, but I recognize a lot of what you’re expressing and describing. Thank you for writing this and posting it. And I’m going to leave it at that before I write a million more rambling words about what this post made me feel.
Just want to validate your reaction to our current administration. I have a friend our age (I’m a bit more than a month younger than you) who has CPTSD along with other physical and mental issues. She lives in Portland about 3 blocks from the ICE facility. She’d post beautiful pictures of walks in that area (it’s definitely not on fire), but the helicopters were almost too much for her. She uses FB as a lifeline to her friends for support and to see that there’s good in the world. Some days she says she’s going to go off FB, but we all hope she stays so we know she’s OK. I have a job and a family to distract me, while she’s basically retired and living alone. It’s rough, but we get through this as a community. I’m glad you posted so you can know that we’re here for you too!
I love the way you write and share your life with everyone. I’m sorry those terrible things happened to you as a child. You have somehow managed to stay empathetic and kind through it all. There aren’t any shortcuts through life and the best thing to do is just keep going bc isn’t it fun to think what might be around the next bend? Thanks for not deleting this post. Good job!👏
I haven’t been able to read or write since Covid. I thought it was just me.
Definitely not just you. I’ve been struggling with writing regularly for the better part of a decade. This post from Wil makes me want to write, so I’m going to go open a notebook. I hope space opens up for you soon!
Keep writing, keep resting, keep recuperating, and keep finding those moments of joy wherever you can!
I’m about a year and a half into my EMDR and it’s amazing not only how wonderful it is to work through painful trauma and come through it healthier, but also how I feel doing simple things. I get more joy and really appreciate the beautiful.
I also had no idea how hard it was going to be. I protect my energy on EMDR day and make sure I’m set up to care for myself afterward with hot tea and food and a relaxing evening doing nothing.
I’m so glad you’re seeing these results! I celebrate that with you and I hope we all continue to heal.
I’m very lucky, and very grateful, that I can take the whole day off when I do EMDR. And I have needed recovery days for my brain the way the rest of my body needs them for exercise more regularly than I expected. I’m so happy to hear that you’re doing the work for yourself, and also making the space to recover. More of us need to do that.
Felicia Day is just the coolest, isn’t she?
I mean, I have no idea really but her whole public persona is endlessly cool while still keeping such a human interface that is rare even for people who are not living their life under a bit of a lens.
It is very… joyful that you found a chance to act and enjoy it. I’ve always enjoyed your work so much and had such a sense of frustration for you that you were never or rarely able to enjoy doing it like you should have been able to. I hope you get more chances for a really supportive and safe situation to do stuff that you love. Even if you don’t get back into it very much, the rest of your work is crushing it and is really enjoyable, but there is always a feeling of happiness to see someone get to do something and really love it when they thought that chance was gone.
Wil, I feel every word of this post so hard, ESPECIALLY with regard to your reaction to the election — how your creative self had to retreat for safety as a result. You always articulate unspeakable things I’m feeling so beautifully. And btw FUCK Paramount for dropping Ready Room without any warning or thanks. I absolutely loved Ready Room. Paramount doesn’t deserve you. Love you.
It makes me very happy that you published this even though it’s unedited. I hope you never let the worry about how you should do something (a wise therapist advised me to stop “should-ing” on myself) stand in the way of pushing something out there that you need to say, especially in this format. I appreciate hearing what you wrote, and I connect with it in a variety of ways. Thank you.
The realization every time you think you’ve reached the top that it’s just a pause and The Work never ends is hard, but then you look around at all the new perspective you unlocked in the climb. Ideally, it makes the next climb (or season of life) a little less daunting. Maybe your Creative Self is at the next stop hoping you’re okay down there.
I’m one of the people that your words have helped. You make me feel less alone, less broken. Thank you for being brave enough to share your journey. I hope you find the inner peace that you crave and so richly deserve.
So much of this resonates with me as a friend said very similar things in regards to the Tangerine Toddler. And again I’ll say this, if I ever get to meet you, I just want to give you a hug and let you know it’s all going to be alright.
Art will always be there inside artists when we’re ready for it to grab us again as it hauls itself into the world through us.
Ghosting sucks. PS Wars is eternal 😉
Will, no matter what happened in the past, your future will always be in your hands. And you have the strength and insight to move forward in a positive way. I will keep you in my prayers. And p.s. I really miss The Ready Room!
Doing things truly of your own free will (no pun intended) makes such a difference. I’m happy for you that the work you’ve done is paying such great dividends.
Wil, I loved every word of this. Thank you for sharing a piece of yourself with us.
I’ve tried to write a response several times and deleted. All I want to do is support you and will only address the blog in a way I can.
Looky, there is nothing wrong with you. Nothing. Your parents haven’t controlled you for a long time and my father hasn’t had me living in fear for an even longer time. My brother Anthony, who passed in Sept. 2023 got me away from him by helping me move away, but yes, abuse definitely lingers, it reverberates. You are a good actor Wil, and despite your early-in-life loathing of being forced to act, you instinctually know how to create character. That Hyde persona (no Jekyll) you played on The Big Bang Theory was choice. I laughed like a drain every time you made an appearance. If you want to do more now, do it, it will be a big old stick in the eye of your demented, graceless parents.
I wouldn’t share everything they did to you. Keep some of it close to your chest. Why? You are a fully functional adult even if you still struggle. You got an effing raw deal, I got an effing raw deal. Asking yourself why they would do that to you is nothing but a vicious circle. They did it because they are sick people. Why was my father physically and mentally abusive? Why would a father abuse his daughter? SICK. I’m embarrassed that person was one of my parents. Of course it makes you feel like an outlier, not normal. There is a tragic, sick thing my father did when I was a young teenager, in front of me, having to do with the Collie I grew up with. I’ve never told anyone except a therapist that story.
As the Stoic Marcus Aurelius said, “The best revenge is to not be like them”. And this not only refers to your parents but the alleged friends who ghosted you and anyone else who harms and tries to harm you. I’m sorry your journey has been so difficult. Keep yourself in the light.
Hi Wil,
I’m over halfway through Still Just A Geek and just yesterday, I subscribed to your blog. I would like to say that I’m only commenting because I love your writing, which I do or because I’m a huge Trekkie, which I am, but the truth is I’m writing because I have been blown away by the overwhelming similarity between our lives with our parents, right down to stealing money from their kids. I so relate to the struggle of disentangling ones reality from the reality that ones parents put in their head. I’m 59, and just this past summer with the passing of my mother (my father past the year before) have I begun to feel that I am finally able to fully participate in this life on my terms. I am also a writer, but spent most of my life as a professional dancer turned studio owner before I could get here. Mainly, because dancing was the one thing no one in my family could compete with. I come from very smart, artistic people who competed viciously with their children. Well, with that part of us that wanted to write (me) or be a fine artist (my older brother), dancing was not in their skill set. However, they did get me to self-sabotage any real major success I could have had as a dancer. My husband was a working musician. He is 56 and is just finding his own voice musically, as his mother, still to this day, acts as if he isn’t even in the room, and she has spent his entire life trying to get him to put his guitar down. He isn’t the lawyer she had hoped for. I could go on and on. Truly, I’m agog over the similarities that I’m reading and how much you echo conversations that my husband have had time and again. Not that you have to by any means, but if you’re interested, here is a link to the blog I posted when my mother died https://constancemalloy.com/2025/07/26/the-past-is-unlocked-in-the-passing-of-my-parents/ I wish you well. Sincerely, Constance Malloy P.S. Keep up the good fight!
I wrote and sold a short story some time ago and figured that in the unlikely event it was ever made into a movie or series that the ideal lead actor for it was you. Your life experience of being harmed and harmed and harmed, then working on healing these harms; and managing the “simmering rage” that built up was…well…the life of the story’s main character.
Wil, thanks from every ounce of my heart for being an amazing human. ❤️
I enjoyed reading your blog today Wil, your writing makes me feel so grounded. Thank you for writing. I’m looking forward to the next one.
Please be careful with IFS based therapies, Wil! I just read an article in The Cut about IFS that was extremely concerning.
https://www.thecut.com/article/truth-about-ifs-therapy-internal-family-systems-trauma-treatment.html
I just gotta say that I hated seeing you in that Criminal Minds role. Like, it felt wrong and possibly dangerous to ask you to go to such a dark place. So, it’s interesting now to see your words about that period in your journey. What you share is always enlightening and inspiring–thank you.
I’ve been a fan a long time and I can tell, I can see the difference in how you engage with the world and your people and your work and it’s awesome (Fan of you from The Guild, The Big Bang Theory, your books/blog, @midnight which I really miss, your updated book, and eventually after I had two kids Next Gen, slightly out of order). I appreciate It’s Story time with Wil Wheaton so much not just because it’s well acted, not just because it makes a long car ride more enjoyable for me and engages me with authors and stories and worlds I’d never know otherwise, but because it’s such a great idea and it’s your idea. I’m so happy for you for that! I love people brave enough to chase ideas like this down, life and fear and circumstances get in the way and I’m just so damn happy for you. You’re amazing, season 1 is good but season 2 is next level—your performances—you elevated, BIG TIME. Please don’t over do it, you are doing amazing work and I’m so glad to hear you say what I’ve seen over the years of you healing.
Hi Wil, I’m glad you didn’t delete this. 💖 Sending you love, Kathy
I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that the JOY and FUN you felt on that thing were because you were PLAYING with other people (i.e. in authentic relationship) rather than PERFORMING a role.
Big squishy hugs, Wil! That trauma you endured as a child really messed with your mind for awhile, but thank God you are healing from it. You were ALWAYS enough! Your parents failed you miserably, but none of it was ever your fault. Ever. You are enough. You are worthy. You are loved. You are brilliant and kind and, yes, you are an artist. I know a lot of artists, and it is true – you don’t choose art. It’s how you are wired. I married an artist – he is kind, smart, creative, and also so so vulnerable. So much self doubt. I have to make sure I’m always on his cheer-leading team. And my kids are artists. Raising artists is like being a mother-bear on high alert all the time. I worry that I’m too much a helicopter, but if I’m not always cheering them on, and walking with them when others are unkind, and helping them get back up, I don’t know if they will have the confidence to do what they are capable of. They are capable of so much good and beauty – like you are. …. And that orange demented person will eventually be gone and, optimistically, enough of the US population will wake up from its delirium to bring healing to the country.
You are awesome for writing and posting instead of deleting. Always fun to see someone elses thought processes. Keep it up!
This really has been a sucky year – not only because my news feed is always full of thumbnail images of that gaping hellmaw, with the confusing weave of alleged hair of uncertain color.
I’ve been on leave from work while recovering from a health issue; just found out my 29 years with the company has come to an “unceremonious and surprising ending” – along with my health care coverage. Fortunately, I’m an Old and Medicare is an option, and I’ll be fine. But the Current Political Ferment is a huge time suck and source of stress; abductions took place near me and I ordered whistles. But since Bongino’s Basterds have bugged out to Charlotte, I guess I won’t be whistling on the barricades with my rollator and cane til at least March.
I wish you joy in every endeavor, every gig, every little thing, and I hope you keep healing. We’ve gotten this far in the Year from Hell, it’s almost over.
PS my gravatar dates from Wootstock in Chicago, the cartoonist from that show was kind enough to mash up Hobbes with a Guy Fawkes mask for me.
No, that’s something that happens to a lot of artists – I guess? I mean it did me. I’m a visual artist and I spent a few years not long ago writing instead, because I realized I wasn’t actually able to make visual art just for myself. I would just stare at a blank space and nothing would come because I wasn’t making it for me, I was making art for other people, to get a pat on the head and be told how good I was. (And maybe even get paid!) When that didn’t come, when people would just take one look and say “Nice” and then move on, I was left with very little emotional reward for good work. I wondered if I was fulfilling my mother’s dreams of being an artist rather than my own. Like you, it took a while, but I did come back to it. I started making things with the idea that no one else had to see it but me, so I could make whatever I wanted. Still writing as well though. I think when you start the arts at a young age, there may be a time you have to step back and make sure you’re doing it because you want to, not just to be a good dog.
Thank you Wil for posting this. It reminds me of a song Cynthia Erivo released this year, “Replay” and a lyric about being a work in progress. I am so glad you know you can say yes or no to a role or project and take joy in the ones you do choose. I hope you and Anne and your family have a wonderful Holiday season and a Hopeful New Year.
Wil, you are an amazing human creator. Whatever your process, keep doing it, you amaze me.
Today my kiddo and I listened to your two most recent episodes of “It’s Storytime…” and while they were both disparate and unique experiences, the most recent story moved us both to a degree that I have feel I have to share.
We recently had to send our beautiful 10 year old Tabby Oliver to the rainbow bridge and the loss is still very palpable. My 19 year old kiddo is taking it harder than I am, but I’m not doing well.
The story about the Swarm and 6 brought us both to tears. After it was over I cursed your name ala Sheldon Cooper. But in truth, it was an acknowledgement of your impact on our lives.
We are happy to have you in our lives, and for sharing a little of you and your life.
Thank you Wil, once again for being you.
I know exactly what you mean by the urge to talk about the thing before the thing is really the thing!
I know you weren’t asking for solutions or suggestions. I will, however, offer this in case you ever are in the future, or if anyone else in the community is.
It’s voice recognition. So, instead of telling Anne or us or anyone else about the thing before the thing is really the thing, talk to the computer. It doesn’t have to be beautiful or perfect or in order or any of that nonsense. It just has to happen.
Do weird voices for the characters if you want to. Send them on some side quest that never ends up on the finished page. Give everyone a pet fainting goat and see what happens. You do you.
What you will get out of this is some more development of the thing, while it’s still a proto-thing. Maybe you get a better understanding of the characters. Maybe someone is suddenly the villain. Or maybe the fainting goats overthrow the entire character hierarchy like your own personal French Revolution in 2D. Again, you do you.
It also gives you a semblance of a road map but with room to play and even discard it if it turns out you don’t like it. And then you get back to writing, so the proto-thing can turn into the actual thing.
‘Cause I think talking about the thing before the thing is really the thing is our minds wanting to take a break from one form of creativity (writing) and switching over to a verbal form of creativity. Voice recognition gives your brain a quasi-break while still being creative and moving the project forward. Perhaps most importantly, it makes a record, so your talking about the proto-thing doesn’t get lost like a fart flying into the ether.
This doesn’t have to be just for fiction writing. It can also work for blogging or any form of content creation. As always, you do you.
Oh, and PS Google does a lot of things awesomely well, but their voice recognition on their docs files should be sent to the cornfield by a young Bill Mumy in Twilight Zone. The one in good old Microsoft Word is a ton better.
But it will still make errors. You may do better than I do because you’re a dude and voice recognition tends to do better with lower voices. Plus I have the Noo Yawkah gene, so I swallow the D in and, that sort of thing. You also have to tell it the punctuation, e.g. Ask me about my puppy, Jake. Ask me about my puppy comma Jake period. Voice recognition will also, often, just type out your punctuation. Be prepared to do a lot of find and replace.
It’s not perfect, but it’s something.
Hope this helps and wasn’t overstepping, and makes some sense. Happy creating and I hope you keep on turning proto-things into things!
Not sure that this will translate from me to you but here it goes, the phrase came up on my facebook reminders from 11 years ago and is as true today as it was back then – time is precious waste it wisely.
Oh, Wil. You don’t know me but I graduate with my psychology degree in May, and my goal is to do EMDR, IFS, and somatic therapy. My parents don’t think psychology is a worthwhile degree. I’m 41 now and just finishing, I’m doing the thing, because of this awesome guy here sleeping. His childhood was… not great. His parents don’t think mental health is real. I’ve watched him find himself through therapy. Through finding his parts, and learning how to lead them, and be friends with them, and how to take on the burdens and learn the things they want him to know. It’s a beautiful thing and I’m blessed to help in his journey.
And we find the day after therapy isn’t bad. It’s like 2-3 days later when he finishes a software update and suddenly he’s crying because I love him and craving Arby’s.
Big Mom Hugs.
I get it 💕 Sending hugs 🤗
Yet again, reading your words has opened a space for me to be me as I am. Thank you x
One of the huge things I take away from the things like this that you share with us is the feeling of not being so alone. I see YOU! I hear YOU! Thank you.
Mimi here,
“I have every reason and every right to despise acting and performing of any kind.”
Yes. You do. Completely and without argument.
Your mom forced you to be that. BUT. What you created is yours. Your performances are yours. Not hers. She’s nothing. I am proud of what you created when being treated the way that you were. That’s something so hard for a child. A child. That little boy still needs hugs.*
*I’m also an IFS therapy recipient. I see you.
Your words are so important. They make such a profound, positive impact and offer optimism to people who share your pain or to those who love people who experience it. I feel gratitude for your words, for you.
I also was devastated at the ignominious cancellation of Ready Room. Really like I was for Prodigy. As much as I love Trek (and Doctor Who for that matter!) the way TV is made now sucks in a lot of ways.
And I too am a naturally creative person. I have to be making things to be happy. But between perimenopause, a traumatic death, COVID, this “president” and the cult that worships him, all my creativity died. I’m working my way back into it now, after years and years, but it’s an uphill slog. And I’m not sure I will ever get back to the productivity I had only 6 years ago. But I’m trying. And I’m so glad you are too. I’m LOVING the podcast. I hope it lasts forever.
I am in a hurry and have to get back to work, Wil, but I wanted to leave a quick note to say this resonated with me in several ways. I’m only just now learning how much of my behavior is trauma response. So. Anyway. Thank you for writing it, and I’m glad things are getting better for you.
Wil, I’m sorry that on camera acting has been so traumatic for you. I have to say, on The Ready Room, when you were interviewing the other actors, you looked the most relaxed and actually enjoying yourself that I’ve ever seen you on camera. I really loved those interviews on TRR–just you and the other actors/writers/producers finding common ground. It never looked awkward or stressful. Maybe that’s a direction you could go in the future–not acting, but being yourself and interviewing others on camera.
So many things are important here, thank you for sharing. I delight in seeing you on the ready room or any screen, but also here. This is just a short note to give well-wishes and hope you can keep creating in whatever form.
Thank you for sharing, Wil. I relate to so much that you have gone through and still going through. The election, being ghosted by friends… We are more connected and alike than we are not. It’s not easy but we need to keep moving forward. Stay safe and healthy!
I’m just commenting to say: keep going. I’m no Trekkie and I’ve not seen any of the films you’ve been in (shocking, I know) – but I’ve read a lot of your writing the past few years and it’s refreshing: an actor, a famous person, being honest and open and relatable. We all love what you do, even this blog post is a form of Art.
I wish I could find the words that describe just how deeply this post went for me. As Kevin Smith says in his People Magazine YouTube video: “Trauma is Trauma, is Trauma.” Suffice it to say – I have tears. And I have an ache. Not a bad ache. A good ache. The ache that signals relating, in understanding, even if there are no words.
That’s the challenge of writers, to find words that best described our experiences, our thoughts, our emotions, knowing full well there are no words, ever, to adequately fit what we want to say.
Just know I appreciate this post, and the effort it must have taken to get it out on the blank screen.
Thank you.
Hi. I don’t know what you worked on with your friend, but it really sounds like a break-through moment for you. It’s hard to share rough ideas and be vulnerable as you are in this writing. So, as someone who has her own set of things to deal with, I just want to thank you. I feel encouraged.
-Sharon
I see you Wil. And you are loved.
thanks for sharing. it does help to know other people are feeling similarly stricken in these times. i appreciate you.