becoming sober.

return Severe trigger warnings for: self harm, suicidal thoughts, sobriety, etc.

There is many things I have wanted to do in my life. Being sober has never been one of them. Unfortunately for me, two major things have transpired for me in the past month. #1 - I've stopped smoking weed after 6 years of being an almost daily stoner. #2 - I reached out and talked to my mom and am working to build a relationship after going no contact with her in 2019, ending 6-ish years of silence.

Usually on Medium, I'm able to take the trauma or emotions I have and craft something with it in reverse. Perhaps it's an especially raw essay, or a more restrained post like my TWA Flight 800 post.

Recently, I haven't been doing that. Writing here used to be a private place for me where I would just throw things into the void with no anticipation of ever having them heard. In some ways, it still is that. The harder thing is that more people IRL are finding this and bringing it up to me. I don't mind that at all - it actually makes me feel very flattered and very loved. But in other ways, it has silenced me a bit. I worry about VC's in the future finding this (they already have), or being under the microscope further.

There was a point in my life where my mental health and my suicide attempts were the most "marketable" thing about me. When I was 16, I started getting traction for a number of reasons for my mental health app and work in the space. Before I even had space to process what it meant to have multiple suicide attempts before a driver's license, I was giving TED Talks and headlining conferences in front of 12,000+ people. I had people coming to me and begging me for help for their mental health, or for their loved ones.

I took on so much pressure with little to no support systems in my life, and I spent the next 6 years building the non-profit I dreamed of and drowning for it. I don't want that to be this. I don't want to "content create" my struggle, I just want to struggle without thinking of the greater narrative of me or the implications for my online life.

All of that to say: I have wanted to not share my life more personally for right now because it's a fucking dumpster fire, and I don't want to turn it into a spectacle. Spectacles immortalize, and there's nothing I want more than to be far from my life as it is or ever was. I don't get to be a fucked up 24 year old on the internet. People who want to work for me will look me up and find this. VCs will research me, and potentially prospective clients. The messiness that perhaps made me endearing and authentic is also a major liability. I don't need suicide attempts at 16, addicted to drugs, misc, when people Google me. I don't have time to weave this narrative into something digestible and "brand safe", because I just need to live this. So, I went dark writing personal stuff for the past couple of months.

It also has just hurt. It hurts to have spent the past 14 years in and out of therapy and to still be in a position where I struggle like this. It hurts to have been almost 10 years since my last suicide attempt and to still be haunted by suicidality - the phantom of twisted empathy. It also deeply impacts my life: can I genuinely fall in love with someone if I cannot commit to a life for myself? What if I want a kid? Should I get married or follow my dreams? These are all aspects of my life that are made complicated with suicidal ideation, a dream of a commitment that renders all others impossible.

I also know that I have deeply hurt and scared people with my suicide attempts, no matter how much time has gone since my last. My trauma ripples out and is carried in the bodies of others who are afraid to leave me alone, who blow up my phone or who can't trust me around ledges.

Someone who is willing to leave once is a flight risk forever.

This past year of my life has hurt like no other, and that cuts deeply given the context of the rest of my life. Last fall, I was traveling for a conference and was staying in a penthouse with a balcony. I had to physically separate myself and self-medicate because I had an unstoppable urge to throw myself over the ledge onto the fire pit 30 stories below. I came home and placed myself in weekly therapy.

A few months after, I relapsed on self harm for the first time in 5 years in January 2026. I took a knife and tried to cut through a tattoo I gave myself on my leg.

Needless to say - smoking and drinking was supposed to 'disable me' to prevent these kinds of thing from happening. It has not.

There's a number of stressors in my life that have taken me to this place, and I just can't talk about them. Nor is it fair to the other people and entities involved for me to do so. I'm someone who employs people who need me to be alive to keep employing them. I'm someone who has a face in a legacy industry who needs to stand impenetrably. I can't crumble. There will be no one to pick me up. That's been one reason why I've struggled with being sober, because the pressure of my life has become incredibly isolating and crushing.

I have simply run out of ways to repackage the stress into something edible.

I have some people I have opened up to about this, but for the most part it's been a private affair I haven't shared with any of the people in my life, sans therapist. Most people nod and don't know what to say when you say you're getting sober. It's like getting pregnant in your mid-20's. Is it congratulations, or indicative of a darker turn we didn't know about that will get rougher in the future? There has been slight proudness and well wishes. It is mostly just awkward glances or words unsaid that people don't want to peer into. Maybe they just don't know how to.

It feels like there was a great reckoning where I split off into a separate reality from everyone else. I'm here and I'm trying to be sober, and I'm around people. But they don't really see me. The return of some darker mental health struggles with depersonalization has reared its' head. I'm here - but I'm not really alive. Or if I am, maybe no one else is. In some ways, I've lost more touch with reality more than ever through sobriety.

I just have to breathe through it and not make rash decisions, and wait to come down to Earth again.

When I took shrooms for the first time in 2023, the big thing I took from it was that I should stop smoking weed. I didn't. I've wanted to be sober for a number of years, not because my "addictions" were unsightly or damaging my relationships. In fact, I would say I'm a pretty fucking productive stoner. I wasn't having financial problems from it, nor was I harming myself or going over the top.

I was giving myself a soft suicide. I was not going to kill myself because that would be selfish and harmful and wrong, but I have not exactly been living a life. It was a slower, more acceptable death. And that's why I chose it again and again.

This is also a terrible time in Amanda History to be getting sober, as there's many stressors continually getting worse in almost every area of my life. But that's also why it's a good reason - because right now might be the best it is for a while.

I'm publicizing this not to become a "sober" person in the way most people think of it, where it's evangelicalized a bit and turned into a purpose in and of itself. I'm doing this to get back to my purpose: of which, making content of my struggles is related but not the primary vessel. I want to build software that helps people again.

I'm also a bit out of options. I've moved around, a lot. Tried a lot of therapy, yoga, drugs, different forms of relationships. I've turned journaling, going no contact, mending relationships, making friends, losing friends, screaming, painting, exercising, building a tiny house, building a company, traveling, clubbing, losing myself into reading.

I have turned every corner around this pain, but not stopped and stared at it. I want to be through the constant winter of this life, this is hopefully my final step into spring. I shared and wrote a lot about my trauma and processing it over the past few years. I'm not in a place where I'm ready to do that more for now. I just wanted to write this because it's been a lot to go through, and I have disappeared off writing for a bit while I deal with this. I also in some ways don't feel here: writing is my attempt to be here.

Being sober is fucking terrible. I feel deeply raw. I'm barely sleeping. I'm writing this because I'm awake in the middle of the night, again. Just as I feared, I'm dealing with a constant barrage of self-harm urges and suicidal thoughts, and crying multiple hours every night.

In other ways, I have found that I'm stronger than I could be. I'm finding a lot of joy in just walking around New York. I sit in silence in front of my open window and I just watch people exist. I can sit with the urges and watch them sweep away everything but me. I listen to the same songs and watch the same videos, and rewatch Season 2 of Bridgerton with manic intensity. I'm treating my brain with kindness and tenderness. I buy a lot of candles, and dress up in outfits for Reddit so that I feel like at least something will see me. I keep feeling the desire to run and hide in the forest for extended periods of time.

There's a tenderness in facing pain that I have not held in a long time. I feel a level of emotionality that is both painful, and deeply gratifying because it enables me to feel authenticity in emotions that I have otherwise avoided. I feel like the love I have for others is deeper, and I'm able to connect more with others. There is a lot of emotional dexterity I've been able to re-engage, and that itself feels promising and daunting.

I have a new product idea, and I am more excited for that than I have been in a very, very long time. It's probably the most exciting thing I have ever come up with in my life. I want to do it justice, and I know it will take time and patience from me. I'm trying to build a life among and within it all, one I choose more than any other option.

There is more, but this is all I want to share. I am not good, but hopefully I will be ok. I am not hopeful, but I am curious. That's all I have to be for now.