Author’s Note
The following excerpt is reproduced exactly as it was written when I was seventeen years old. No edits or revisions have been made. Character names, including my own, have been changed for this publication. What remains is the memory as I understood it at the time I was living it.
This was written in reflection, not from inside the trauma. Even then, I was observing, tracing pattern, and constructing narrative. I was not confessing. I was practicing authorship over my own life.
I did not begin writing this book in adulthood. I began it as a teenager. I am publishing it now because I am no longer afraid of what telling the truth might change, cost, or expose. The distance between the writing and this moment was never about readiness. It was about safety.
This is not where the story starts. It is one of the places it was already being written.
Your Hostilities
Chapter 34, Age 17
In the process of writing my life, I have made many drafts, revised and reread. I’ve never wanted anyone to read it though and edit it. My words are for me, I believed, but that couldn’t always be the case. I started writing this story originally as a school assignment for my freshman English honors class. I had finished my first version and made it into a published book. I made a hard cover, bound the pages together, and lined the inside with expensive gold leafed paper. I stamped the title on the cover with my name and turned it in to my teacher. I was nervous for someone to read it and know all my secrets. I didn’t really plan on including much of the stuff I did, but while writing it, I got carried away. I was anxious to hear what she had to say about it after reading it.
She pulled me aside in class a few weeks after its due date. She had my book in her hand. “Lorraine, after all the stories I have read throughout my years of assigning this project, I have never read one as moving as yours. Never have I been brought to tears by a student’s work. You have talent Lorraine. You have passion. You hold onto that no matter what.” She handed the book to me. I took my seat and I knew I must’ve been gleaming with pride.
I kept my pride concealed by hiding the book in my drawer under a bunch of unfolded clothes. While I was writing the book, my mother always wanted to read it, but of all people, I did not want her reading it. There was too much in it that I didn’t want her to know about and things that would hurt her if she read.
Lyanna came down to visit me from Santa Cruz. It had been months since I put the book away and I had forgotten about its existence. She was going through my wardrobe trying on new clothes I had gotten since she had last visited me. I went across the street to the neighborhood convenient store to get something. When I came back she wasn’t in my room. I called her name, but she didn’t answer. I went into the living room looking for her and there she sat on the love seat, leaned up against the over-stuffed pillows, her arm bent on the armrest and her cheek rested on her close-fisted hand. Her eyes relaxed on the pages of my book and she was completely still unless she moved to brush a piece of fallen flaxen hair from her face or to turn the page. I sat across from her on the leather chair and watched her expression on her face as she read.
She didn’t stir or acknowledge my presence. I sat there silently the entire length of time it took her to read my book from start to finish. From her eyes tears would well and fall. I saw in her the same tears that I endured when I was living the stories she read. I sat there amazed, watching this girl, a character in the stories who knew everything about me and my past, cry as she relived my life through my written words.
I watched and my heart seized beating. I was struck with the same pride I felt when my teacher handed back my book. Watching her, I got to see the affect my book can have on people. I was proved that all the hard times I went through weren’t really hard just in my head, and that other people could see the sadness in my life and I wasn’t alone in that. She finished and closed the back cover to the book, holding it in her lap and sitting stilly as she soaked up what she read. She didn’t have to say a word.
After Lyanna left, I returned the book back to its spot in my drawer, again to hide it from my mom. I wasn’t to touch it again. Another few months went by before it was once again disturbed. I was going through a down. I felt depressed all the time and I was just looking for a way to escape all the pressure I was feeling. I went into my parent’s medicine cabinet and opened the child proof lock on my mom’s Vicodin prescription. I took as many pills as I thought she wouldn’t notice and hid them in my room.
I had just finished getting ready for school when I decided today is a day that I don’t want to feel. I got into my hiding spot and took out a couple pills, accidentally dropping one on the floor without realizing. I took them during 1st period and I was high until lunch. The rest of the day my body and mind was numb, exactly the feeling I was looking for.
When I came home my mom was crying. She had seen the pill on the floor and worried proceeded to search the rest of my room for anything else she should be concerned about. She always said she would respect my privacy unless she had probable cause to search. A Vicodin pill on the floor was understandable probable cause. She didn’t find any other drugs like she expected. Instead what she found hidden under some clothes in my drawer broke her heart. She took the opportunity to read my book.
“I’m not even mad about the pills anymore after reading that. I can understand now why you feel the way you do. I can understand your pain and what you’ve been through. I’m so sorry… I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She was crying and holding me and I was trying to remember all the chapters in the book. I was trying to imagine which stories made her cry but I couldn’t remember so I just assumed the whole book did.
It’s not your fault mom. I don’t blame you for anything. You did the best you could’ve with me. The only thing I do blame you for is staying with Ivan as long as you did.
I smiled at her so she’d understand it was a joke, and she smiled back. She kissed me once more and left my room.
A couple days later I opened the drawer and took out the book to read it for the first time. Inside was a folded piece of paper I didn’t recognize. I unfolded it and saw my mother’s handwriting.
Lorraine
My dearest. I can’t say sorry enough times to make up for all the things I didn’t do or the times I thought about myself or others before you.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry…. I love you. I just want you to know. And I’m always going to be there for you. And I will always do right by you. Always.
Love, Mother
I wish I could take back all the pain you felt. I wish I had a big Boo Boo Bunny.
I broke into the heaviest flow of tears. Reading it made me realize how much I loved her, how much we’ve gone through together, and how much I appreciate everything she’s ever done for me. Every time I reread her note I feel achy and I love her even more. I wish she did have a big Boo Boo Bunny though. I still have so many boo boos that need healing.
Choose Where You Go Next
About This Series
How the Fuck Did I Get Here? is a memoir-in-progress told through interconnected chapters. It unfolds through immersive autofiction scenes, present-day reflections, recovered journal entries, and memory fragments that surface when the story demands them. Each piece stands on its own, but together they trace a life moving from numbness to presence, from survival to integration, from splitting oneself in two to learning how to live whole.
This is not a story about healing as a straight line or a clean transformation. It is about what happens when you stop running from yourself and begin asking the questions you were never taught how to answer. When you sit with what surfaces instead of rushing past it. When breaking generational cycles means learning to hold strength and softness at the same time.
This is the heroine’s journey unfolding in real time. The messy middle. The ongoing practice. The daily choice to stay present, even when every instinct tells you to disappear.
How to Read This Series
This is a choose-your-own-adventure memoir. Throughout each chapter, you’ll see key words and phrases underlined as hyperlinks. Click them to discover other stories exploring the same themes. Or browse the tags below to find what calls to you.
This interconnected web lets you:
Follow specific themes across the series
Discover related chapters organically
Navigate by what resonates with you
See patterns and connections emerge
Start anywhere. Follow the threads that call to you. Each chapter stands alone, but together they reveal the larger story.
About the Author
Alisa Sieber is a writer, former Marine Corps pilot, and mother exploring the intersections of healing, motherhood, and breaking generational cycles. Through raw, embodied storytelling, she examines what it takes to move from armor to integration, from choosing between strength and softness to learning to embody both.
She writes openly about complex trauma, postpartum depression, military identity, and the ongoing practice of staying present. Her therapy is her writing: public, accountable, and in real time.
She lives on a small farm in Northern California with her husband, two daughters, and too many animals. She’s building Chez Serendip, a cultural sanctuary and intentional community space centered on movement, creativity, and transformation.
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How the Fuck Did I Get Here? is a personal essay series exploring generational trauma, healing, and self-transformation. Through raw storytelling and deep introspection, it unearths the past to understand the present: reckoning with the cycles we inherit and the courage it takes to integrate what the world tells us to split.
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Real talk: This shit is hard.
Breaking cycles. Staying present when it’s unbearable. Learning to hold anger and love simultaneously. Some days it works. Some days it doesn’t. Most days, somewhere in between.
If you’re doing this work too (asking the uncomfortable questions, sitting with what doesn’t resolve, practicing integration even when every instinct says run), join the subscriber chat. That’s where we process between posts, share what we’re learning, and stay present together.
And leave a comment below. Not to perform insight or prove you’ve healed. Just to be witnessed. To witness others. To let the messy middle be exactly what it is.
Healing isn’t linear. Let’s stop pretending it is.
You’re not alone in this. Your presence here reminds me I’m not either.