Easter was last month, you say.

Yes, I know! I couldn’t help it. On March 31, I posted the drawing below of my childhood friend and me dressed up as Easter witches. This little, cute Substack note got my curious mind searching the Internet, which in turn inspired a few more drawings and eventually enough content for a newsletter. The background of this custom is both sadly dark and fascinating!

My note said, “In Sweden, kids dress up as witches for Easter. It resembles American Halloween. The Easter witches “fly” from door to door to collect candy in their teakettles. It’s still cold outside, so winter jackets and pants have to be worn as well.”

Swedish kids grow up hearing the folktale about the witches flying on their brooms to Blaakula to party with the devil on Thursday before Easter. Blaakula is an imaginary geographical place, kind of like Santa Claus’s North Pole.

After some Googling, I found this great Swedish social studies site that took me through the background of the folktale and revealed its darker historical truth: the Witch Hunts of the 1600s.

Why Thursday before Easter? According to the Bible, Judas betrayed Jesus the day before Good Friday. People believed evil spirits were especially active during this day of the year. The church, the authority and power behind the witch hunts, often used children’s (coached/made-up) testimonies as proof in their prosecutions against the women they accused of being witches. We know this because Sweden still has the church records from these trials.

There was also the Float-or-Sink test. The accused woman was thrown into a lake. Remember, it wasn’t common for people to know how to swim. If the woman floated (many women had poofy dresses that trapped air), it was proof that she was a witch and executed, but if she sank (drowned), she received a Christian burial.

My Swedish social studies source said that between 1450 and 1750, more than 30,000 people were executed in Europe for being witches.

In returning to modern times, my dad was not a fan of his daughter dressing up as an Easter witch. But not because of religious or historical reasons.

This was an obedience dilemma. I had to decide if and how I could participate in a fun kids’ Easter tradition without Dad hearing about it. The risk of getting caught was low. My childhood friend, Mats, lived on the other side of the neighborhood, and our parents were acquaintances but not friends.

With strict parents, I learned to keep secrets at an early age. But I don’t think that I was exceptionally naughty. And who knows if I kept secrets at all, or if my parents chose not to confront me. I’m a parent myself and have to choose my battles. The truth was probably 50/50, but I’ll never know for sure.

Yeller Update

It’s been a month since I self-published my first comic book, and the reader reviews have been overwhelmingly positive and encouraging!

Thank you, Margreet de Heer, my dear pen pal and Substack comic artist friend!! Magreet lives in Germany and wanted a copy of Yeller, but instead of figuring out how she could pay me 10 U.S. dollars, I suggested an exchange.

So far, I have found happy homes for 23 of my 50 printed book babies!

Message me if you would like a copy of Yeller. I donate the profits to Canine Companions, an organization that trains and places service dogs.

That’s all for this newsletter! Thank you for reading!

Today’s topic is audio recordings. Below, I have attached an audio file with me reading this newsletter. You can listen as you read my message and look at my drawings. I hope that we both get something out of this. At best, you will be entertained, if not with the content, then by me doing something that makes me uncomfortable. HA HA!! (Have you noticed that when you fake laugh, you start laughing for real?)

I’m from the cassette tape generation, better known as Gen X. I grew up with cassette players, boom boxes, and answering machines.

Maybe you can relate, but I hate leaving voice messages. My voice gets tense and changes as soon as I hear that tone that indicates the start of the recording. My mouth dries up, and things get awkward. I cringe when I hear my recorded voice. I don’t sound the same as when I hear myself talk.

Socially, I don’t have this problem. I wouldn’t describe myself as bubbly. I’m an introvert. But I really enjoy chatting, especially over a cup of coffee or with a glass of wine.

I don’t know exactly when this problem started, sometime in my young adulthood, because I loved performing as a kid.

Audio files are becoming popular on Substack

Here on Substack, some writers include an audio file with themselves reading their newsletter.

Diane Burley, a former radio reporter, wrote a Substack post on this topic for Mission: Genealogy titled “How to Make Your Family Stories Come Alive with a Voice Recording.” She says: “Offering your readers a voice recording of your work is a way to make an intimate connection with them. [···] In addition to better engagement with your audience, there is another great reason: you now have two senses working to refine your piece.”

When Kelcey Ervick accepted my story about the Swedish cartoonist Rune Andreasson for publication on her Substack, Letters to Dead Authors & Artists, she also requested an audio file of me reading it. (If you click the link, you can hear me in that audio recording, too!) We say we use our voice when we express ourselves creatively, but this was the first time I had literally connected my voice to my visual art and writing. It took several takes! But then, I just had to stop. It was not the day when I was going to fall in love with my recorded voice. I had to rely on what I had learned in therapy and give myself grace!

3 illustrated micro memoirs about cassette tape recordings

Growing up in Sweden, Svensktoppen played a weekly list of the 10 most popular songs every Saturday. I sat ready, my fingers on the record and play buttons, to capture my idols on a cassette tape.

Some of the artists I recorded from the radio got their big break through an annual national and international music competition. The national winner goes on to represent the country in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Carola Häggkvist, my 10-year-old idol, had placed 3rd in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1983. West Germany hosted the contest that year, and Carola went there, only 16 years old, to represent Sweden. The winning county gets to host the contest the following year. Sweden won the year after Carola and hosted the contest in 1985. This was the second Swedish victory since ABBA won in 1974.

The Eurovision Song Contest is like an annual European music Olympics. Swedes love it. They celebrate it as much as Americans celebrate the Super Bowl. It’s a family party in front of the TV!

During my Middle school era, Maria and I used to record pretend radio shows. We were ahead of our time in creating silly podcast-style programs. I can’t remember a single topic we covered, only that we laughed a lot.

When I was in my young adulthood, my dad would send me cassette tapes instead of written letters. Nobody could read his handwriting. He was deep into his mental illness, and listening to his messages was disturbing and painful. But how could I leave Dad’s letters unopened? My heart broke every time that padded envelope arrived in the mail with two 60-minute cassette tapes.

Yeller update

In my last two newsletters, I have been covering the self-publishing journey of my debut memoir comic book, Yeller.

Two months have passed since I first decided to send Yeller to a printing company.

I must have been so excited with this idea in February that I completely forgot that I had submitted “Yeller” as a comic to an online literary magazine in January. Or maybe I thought that it was going to be rejected, and didn’t feel like waiting around for a response. You don’t always get a rejection. Just silence.

But lo and behold, on April 2, I got an acceptance email. “Thank you so much for submitting to Fork Apple Press! The editorial team has reviewed your submission, and we’d love to publish “Yeller” in our upcoming issue of The Core Review!”

Crap! I felt foolish for a moment, and then excited for the validation. Never in a million years did I think I would be in a position to turn down an offer to be published, but I don’t regret my decision to print and sell Yeller as a comic book. It’s been such a rich experience!

I didn’t think I would hear more from Fork Apple Press, but then I got another email.

“Hi Ann-Christine Vevera. Oh no! We are so sorry to hear this, but we totally understand and support whatever decision is best. We really enjoyed your piece and appreciated the conversation it provoked. Please feel free to submit to us again in the future. We wish you all the best! Sincerely, Nico Leger, Creative Director.”

What a nice email! They didn’t have to write me back again, but they did. I was deeply touched. Thank you, Nico Leger!

Below are some more reader reviews.

“I loved it!!! I can almost feel how you felt.”

—Eva

“I loved it Ann! I especially love the pic on the back with Yeller on his mother’s lap with teddy bears. It does seem like a very strange experience.”

—Linda

“I finally got to read it last night and it was wonderful! I am curious if you ever found out what Rolf suffered from. And was his mother also a bit off kilter?”

—Kathy

My comic artist friend and fellow Substacker, Joshua Robinson, wrote this last review.

“I got Yeller in the mail yesterday and it’s fantastic! You really drew me into the story and captured that feeling of being a kid and not quite being sure what to do in an awkward situation. The way you drew your kid-self going through that cycle of emotions on the way from “oh this is nice” to “this is NOT OKAY holy crap I’m in so much trouble” worked so well, and I like that you kept the story in a child’s lens rather than overanalyzing it in adult hindsight. I always love your artwork and I especially like how you used patterns and textures in lieu of color for this project. Overall I think it’s awesome! Congratulations on getting this out into the world!!”

—Joshua

So far, I have found homes for 21 of my 50 printed Yeller comic books. The price is 10 dollars plus postage if you would like to buy one. Message me!

We have reached the end!

Thank you for hanging out with me and listening to me talk! I appreciate you! Please feel free to post a comment if you enjoy listening to programs versus reading articles, or want to say anything else about the content in this newsletter, or have any questions. I love reading your feedback.

Take care for now!

I have 5 excellent graphic memoirs that I want to share with you. A couple of the authors are here on Substack. Click on the links in my reviews to check them out! And if you want even more suggestions, read my November post, where I also present two fantastic graphic novels.

What’s happening with Yeller? If you didn’t read my last newsletter about my recently self-published comic book, you can find it here. At the end of this newsletter, I will share some updates.

Here is a list of the graphic memoirs, in the order I read them

If you’re a worrier like me and suffer from anxiety, you'll feel at home in this book by Haley Weaver.

I was impressed with Weaver’s creative way of teaching me about the multiple (good and bad) coping mechanisms we adopt to deal with anxiety. I knew many of them, but some were less obvious and made me realize that I too use them without even knowing it.

In a true memoirist fashion, Weaver offers a vulnerable and honest testimony on the page. Don’t let the pink cover and the heart-shaped Haley discourage you if you’re male; this story is NOT gender-specific. I would recommend this book to anyone, female or male, who suffers from anxiety and the many ineffective and sometimes destructive coping strategies we use to silence a part of ourselves that always gets the last word...eventually.

Next up is Liz Montague.

Maybe an Artist is the title of Liz Montague’s 2022 coming-of-age graphic memoir.

I love this title because it resonates so much with how many of us feel. We don’t want to call ourselves artists or writers. Those are people who can boast of “real” accomplishments, such as published work by major publishing companies.

If being published by Penguin Random House isn’t enough to call yourself an artist, maybe being a contributing cartoonist for The New Yorker qualifies you as one? Montague has done both! She began contributing cartoons to The New Yorker at 22.

Liz Montague can safely call herself an artist!

Here is the next book.

All Our Ordinary Stories, a graphic memoir by Teresa Wong, is about as good as it gets! I kept turning those pages until the end. Her moving second-generation immigrant story left me deeply moved and more informed.

Even though she jumps around in time, her black-and-white comic style is easy to follow. She skillfully uses large white spaces to stretch a moment for maximum emotional effect and solid black pages to communicate the beginning of a new section.

Wong’s story will stir every motherly cell in your body. Unless, of course, you’re like Wong’s mother, who avoids tough conversations and wants to know if you’re hungry and will peel you an orange.

Here is another book.

All Things Connect is a thin, 125-page, black-and-white, graphic memoir by Andre Squire. He’s a British architect, activist, and cartoonist who strives for minimalism in his life and also with this book. Though “told very simply” (his own word), his story is rich in love!

Last up is this book.

Drafted lived inside Rick Parker for over 55 years while he worked as an artist for Marvel Comics and other companies. In 2024, at age 77, it was his debut graphic memoir. His book tells the story of a 19-year-old Parker who, in 1966, during the Vietnam War, gets drafted to serve for 3 years in the U.S. Army.

The art is really good, as expected, given Parker’s long career as an artist, but he also succeeded in returning to his inexperienced, awkward 19-year-old self in his storytelling.

Beyond the controversial Vietnam draft itself, Parker leaves the reader with many thoughts and questions about the military’s use of physical violence in their training programs during this time and the lifelong impact it left on those young soldiers’ minds and lives.

I also have a touching personal story linked to Parker’s book.

I work in physical therapy at a hospital and meet a lot of Vietnam veterans. They are easy to identify because many of them like to wear a veteran's ball cap. If it’s not worn in bed, it lies on their bedside table next to them.

In the past, I haven’t asked many questions about their military experiences, but after reading Drafted, I felt more informed and curious.

One patient shared about his father being killed in World War II, after which his mother had to be placed in a mental institution. My patient had to grow up in a Bronx orphanage. He was 2 years old when he lost his parents and 22 when he was drafted and sent to Vietnam as an infantry soldier.

When I told him about Parker’s book, my patient shared about his own writing project, a memoir about his childhood in the Bronx orphanage.

Our session together was on a Friday, and I was off the following weekend, but I felt so deeply moved by my patient’s life story that I returned on Saturday and gifted him my copy of Drafted. It was all worth it to see his eyes light up when I showed up and handed him the book.

Before I end this section, I want to give a shout-out to Jonathan Sandler, who introduced me to the last two books. He posts interviews and in-depth reviews of graphic memoirs and novels on his Subsack GraphicMemoirBlog. He is also the author of the graphic memoir I am currently reading. But more about his book in a future newsletter.

Now, some updates on my own graphic memoir project

I decided not to go with Amazon to self-publish my Yeller comic book because I wanted to control the sales, marketing, and distribution process myself.

So far, it has been a very satisfying experience.

Yeller arrived from the printing company a couple of weeks ago. I ordered 50 copies and have already sold 20, which means I have recouped the printing cost. This might not seem like much, but I feel like it’s a huge success!

Below is a rookie attempt at a marketing video that I posted here on Substack and also on my Instagram and Facebook accounts.

Last year, I did a video series about my camera shyness. This one only took two takes! I decided it was good enough and not to let myself succumb to my perfectionist tendencies.

I still have 30 more copies of Yeller if you’re interested. Remember, the profit I make will go to my favorite nonprofit, Canine Companions.

I will post more updates on this graphic memoir project in future newsletters.

There you have it. You have reached the end of this newsletter.

I appreciate you for reading and supporting my work.

Take care!

I am excited to announce that I am now a self-published debut comic book creator!

In 20 pages, I tell the story of Yeller, a man who lived in our apartment building when I was a child. He would have been a faint memory had I listened to my dad. Instead, our unforgettable meeting turned into an essay, a micro memoir, and now this memoir comic book.

This introduction from my Yeller comic book was first published as a 100-word memoir by Fiveminutelit in June, 2025. That version contained actual swearwords, but I decided to convert them to grawlixes (comic swear words) to make Yeller’s front cover a little less harsh on the eye.

The tricky parts of printing a book

In late December, when I first started thinking about a book-printing project, my initial plan was to create a 200-page graphic memoir. But a soft, smart voice inside my head advised me to “Start with something smaller.”

I’m happy that I listened.

I entered this process with no prior experience.

Believe me when I say, IT’S PULL-YOUR-HAIR-OUT HARD!

For starters, I didn’t know that book printing involves knowing the 4 times table. For all you Zine makers out there, this is probably the first thing you learn, but I have never made a Zine. If you’re confused, like I was, it means a printed book with a cover has at least 8 pages. The cover has 4 pages by itself, then the first interior pages jump to 8, then 16, and so on. My prior experience involves publishing essays, poems, and newsletters online, where you don’t have these physical page considerations.

If you’re a newbie like me, here are two experienced creators sharing their book-making processes on Substack. I wish I had read them before I got started!

How to make a graphic novel by Kat Schneider, and How to Make a Picture Book Dummy by Katie Dwyer.

Other challenges I ran into included learning how to adjust PDF dimensions and navigating technical printing details, such as DPI (at least 300 to avoid blurry images) and bleed (edges that get trimmed).

If you’re a technophobe like me, you understand my situation well.

Yeller was first an essay that I later turned into a comic. I drew the story down on paper, and it organically developed into 12 pages. At the time, I had no thoughts of making it into a printed comic book. I submitted it to a few literary magazines, but didn’t find a welcoming home.

As I explored self-publishing and printing it into a comic book, I discovered that the 12-page length created two specific problems.

Was it long enough to be called a graphic memoir?

And what would I do with the extra pages forced upon me because of the book-printing process (pages added in sets of 4)?

I could have started from scratch, made a book dummy, and redrawn Yeller. But I wasn’t mature enough for this option. Instead, I created more content. I designed an introduction, an author bio, and an acknowledgement section, pages not commonly seen in comic books, but found in most graphic memoirs.

After designing a colorful front and back cover, my new creation was 20 pages and printing-ready, but I was still pondering what to call it.

It was a hybrid between a comic book and a graphic memoir. A mini-graphic memoir?

I decided to call it a memoir comic book and had it printed in U.S. standard comic book dimensions with staple saddle-stitch binding.

Here is another preview from the beginning pages.

So how am I going to sell this comic book?

I have ordered 50 copies from the printing company that will arrive tomorrow, Sunday, March 29. If you live in the U.S., I will mail you a copy for 10 bucks plus shipping. Message me your address.

I have already found happy homes for 12 of them. Sounds like I am a dog breeder. Many authors call their books their book babies. I have comic book puppies!

Speaking of dogs, I hope to recoup the printing costs, but if I make a profit, I plan to donate it to Canine Companions.

If you want to learn more about this nonprofit organization, I highly recommend watching the 2024 Netflix documentary Inside the Mind of a Dog, narrated by Rob Lowe.

You have reached the end of this newsletter.

I appreciate you for reading and supporting my work. This was a rather technical process to read about, and perhaps not particularly interesting if you never plan to print a book, but maybe I have stirred your interest in buying my comic book?

In my next newsletter, I will review a few recently read graphic memoirs and give you an update on my Yeller sales and marketing approach.

Take care and Happy Easter!

Last newsletter, I shared about the recent death of Breeze, my 14-year-old lab-mix. Thank you for all your kind words and condolences!

How am I doing today? Better.

But here is something weird I have learned about grief: as much as we fear the heartbreak and pain of going through it, when we’re in it, we want to linger. We push on the brakes. We don’t want to move forward too soon. What’s that about?

In scrolling through online articles on grief, I came across a title that put words to how I felt. “The Grief of Moving Forward: The Fear of Forgetting” by Laurie Taylor.

Taylor is the executive director of a Texas community nonprofit that provides grief support. On their website’s About page, there is a picture of her holding a beagle. I connected instantly. Even though her article says nothing about grieving pets, she is my kind of person!

Taylor says, “Grief is love. When someone we cherish dies, love becomes so very painful that we call it grief. Somewhere along our journey, the intensity of our grief lowers and our grief begins to look and feel more like love again. The intensity of our grief was so great that we are anxious when it returns to the normal intensity of love that cemented our relationship in the first place.”

Peter Moore, a fellow Substack cartoonist, says, “Grief is such sweet pain. A tribute to the lost loved one that feels impossible to endure.” Thank you, Peter, well said!!

New beginnings

One afternoon, in the midst of grieving Breeze, I stood in our bedroom, gazing into our backyard, when a small bird helped me feel better by reminding me that after a dark period, a light period will follow with opportunities for new beginnings.

The backdrop in this home video shows the dead plants after our unusually harsh Florida winter with many frost nights. The action is provided by the cute bird building not one, but three nests! According to Google, some birds build “dummy” nests to confuse predators and protect their eggs. Nature is amazing!

Spring is in the air

I apologize to all of you who are still living with snow and cold and don’t really feel me yet, but maybe you can enjoy my drawings regardless and find encouragement in the idea of new beginnings.

For those of us who live near Daytona Beach, nothing says the beginning of spring more than Bike Week!

Another sign of spring in Florida is when you can buy bulb flowers in the grocery stores. Being a Swede, I miss the typical northern-climate spring flowers. Tulips are my favorite!

Moving forward with grief

I have started exploring more places to walk Zuzu, my Boston Terrier.

Breeze hated car rides. She had to be medicated with tranquilizers to travel.

Having just Zuzu, I’m experiencing a new freedom. She’s so easy! (I still love you, Breeze!)

Zuzu and I are off to hike nearby places around where we live. (Sorry, Breeze! I still love you!!!)

This is all

My next newsletter will be on an entirely different topic. I’ll announce some exciting news about a comic project that I’ve been working on.

Until then, take care!

I appreciate you! It’s been a rough couple of weeks. On February 16, I had to say goodbye to Breeze, my 14-year-old lab mix. She left us on a Monday afternoon.

“A long dog life,” the vet said. “You must have cared for her well.”

Here is a picture from February 2022. Breeze is the big black dog.

I never imagined myself having three dogs. But with two older dogs, I decided to prepare for the upcoming losses by adopting a new puppy. I was ready to go small and chose a Boston Terrier. She was born on Christmas Eve in 2021. We named her Zuzu after a character in my hubby’s favorite Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life.

Already four months later, Orwell, my 10-year-old brindle pitbull, got sick and had to be put down. I’m grateful to Orwell for teaching me how to grieve. I wrote an illustrated essay about it. You can read it here.

For decades, my go-to method for processing hard stuff has been to journal about it. But in the last couple of years, I have also started drawing comics about the things I write about. Drawing my world adds a new dimension to my writing. It taps into my imagination, invites play, and creates a concrete visual landscape. I have found it to be very fun and rewarding.

In making a comic about losing Breeze, I decided to create four scenes to describe my emotional experience. It was a doable two-week project in time for this newsletter.

After you left us…

A comment about the craft

I want to give creative credit to my hubby, who suggested I could draw Breeze with lighter shades of blue in each scene to show how my nervous system gradually adjusts to her being gone.

Reflection

I discovered how much I needed Zuzu to know what happened to Breeze. It felt comforting to create a comic where they talked about it. Even though I created fiction, it’s a fact that our logical reasoning capabilities and our emotional responses operate in two separate brains inside our heads. That’s why drawing a fictional comic works as a therapy for meeting emotional needs. This last part is my opinion and unscientific conclusion, but maybe a good question for a research study?!

“Death Does Not End a Relationship”

is the title of psychotherapist J. E. Moyer’s January 26 Substack post.

He says, “We do not heal from grief by forgetting; we heal by remembering well. We acknowledge that while the heart has been broken, the connection has merely changed its form. Death ends a life—but the relationship lives on, like in an Ancient Greek relay race, as long as the survivor continues to carry the flame.”

J. E. Moyer permits me to continue making comics about dead dogs and family members. It’s a perfectly healthy way to stay connected and honor them. I’m not going to lie. Before I read his post, I had some doubts. HAHA!

***

I hope this newsletter puts a positive spin on an otherwise difficult topic. I appreciate you for sticking with me and supporting my work. I will return with another newsletter in a couple of weeks. Until then, take care!

Home video from 2022.

Rest in peace, my sweet Breeze.

In my last newsletter, I shared that my family watched Dallas on Friday nights. I will recycle a few of those illustrated pages as context for one more I created about subtitles.

Watching American TV shows

A beginner digital cartoonist

I do all my digital work on an iPad in an illustration app called Procreate. I began learning how to use the app last September. Importing pictures is my latest skill.

The Dallas scene inside the TV was a four-frame comic I had drawn on paper that I scanned and imported onto a Procreate page.

The app allows me to remove what I don’t want.

Here is the original. You saw it in my last newsletter.

I work hard on my handwriting

I feel like I’m back in second grade. My goal is to make the letters look as even and straight as possible. It’s harder to write on the iPad's glass screen than on paper. I bought a special film (a screen protector) to make it easier by giving it a more paper-like quality.

Cartoonists take pride in their lettering work. It’s a craft all on its own. Graphic memoirists handwrite their books, and I love this because it makes for a more personal and intimate reading experience.

When I get overly self-critical from perfectionism, I pick up my Dog Man book and read a few pages. The creator, Dave Pilkey, is a best-selling children’s graphic novelist, and his lettering is so fun and imperfect.

Siblinghood

Back to my illustrations about childhood. My family celebrates a ton of February birthdays. Perhaps this prompted me to create the pages below about growing up with a big sister. Her birthday is February 9, and mine is the 4th.

We’ve reached the end

Zuzu and Breeze say,…

I’m afraid of heights. Flying a hot air balloon is not on my bucket list. But maybe it’s on yours?

I started 2026 by announcing that I am writing two newsletters per month from now on. It was a big decision. I didn’t want to feel stressed out. I’m a slow writer, and I worried that I wouldn’t have enough ideas to write about. But here we are! I can do this!

I’m still reflecting on the story I created for my Swedish Christmas Calendar last month. I went back to the first day, December 1st, to see if I could add more 1980s family material on the topic of watching TV.

Here is what emerged from my memory: four more illustrated pages.

What happens to a story when you change the perspective?

Growing up, no matter how dysfunctional my childhood was, it wasn’t all bad. Sometimes it helps to enter a story from a different angle to find those fun and tender moments. I discovered this trick while working on my Swedish Christmas Calendar last month.

Up to this point, most of my memoir writing had centered around my dad because he was the main cause of my childhood suffering. But by making my mom the main focus, more fun and tender moments showed up. When I blended these positives with the darker threads of my family’s struggles, my childhood story changed into a more entertaining and loving narrative.

Of course, perspective is a creative choice. Whether a story is told with a happy or sad narrative doesn’t make it more or less authentic. Our internal story of what happened is just as accurate as someone else’s view of those experiences, such as a sibling’s. We own our reality. Dark or light point of view depends on our personality and sensitivity. The stereotypical artist is an introvert who suffers from depression.

I was reminded of the suffering artist stereotype last weekend while watching the new Bruce Springsteen movie. I hadn’t watched the trailers and naively thought I was sitting down to a movie filled with 1980’s Born-In-The-USA nostalgia. Not so much. Talk about DARK! If you’ve never experienced depression, this movie pulls you inside Bruce’s painful internal experience and shows you what it can feel like to have a mental breakdown. Very effective and skillful filmmaking! I just wasn’t prepared.

To lift us back up out of the dumps, I’ll end this newsletter by sending you a fleet of Zuzu superhero dogs.

After my busiest month since I started Substack (August 2024), I’m kicking off January by slowing things down again.

Right here, walking my neighborhood, is where I do my best thinking.

I have learned that it helps to move. When I get out of my head and into my body, I snap out of my stuck self. My stuck self is a negative doubter and a destructive perfectionist.

I am beginning to understand that my stuck self isn’t going anywhere. But when I accept her and show her some grace, I give her less power. She doesn’t dictate everything I do. Each time I take a few creative risks, I discover that there is more to me than she lets me think.

In 2026, I will embrace who I am and explore who I am when I am not stuck to who I think I am. (Sounds complicated? AI suggested this sentence instead: “In 2026, I will embrace my authentic self and explore my full potential beyond perceived limitations.” But I liked my sentence better!)

I can’t wait to discover what creative risks are in store for me this year!

December felt like a Substak firework finale. In creating my Swedish Christmas Calendar, I drew 29 artworks, posted notes daily, and sent out a newsletter every Saturday. I cranked up my productivity to the max!

My hard work was well-rewarded with the most post reads since I started in August 2024. I’m grateful and honored by this success.

Still, I’m the proudest of my July newsletter, because it describes an exciting and unexpected shift in what I create.

Before December, I wrote one newsletter per month. Some of them were lengthy, to the point where Substack said, this is too long! I was scared that posting more often would stress me out. I work full-time, and I am a slow writer. I also worried that I’d run out of ideas and material.

But December proved me wrong! I can do more than I think I can.

I also discovered that I don’t run out of ideas from writing more. The opposite is true. The more I write and draw, the more ideas pop up in my head.

Knowing this about myself, I can be a little more productive without feeling stressed or sacrificing fun and creativity, and post more than one newsletter per month.

In 2026, my goal will be to write 2 newsletters per month.

I am also nailing down a specific posting day: Saturdays.

I feel a little overwhelmed right now, but not too bad. Maybe a 7 on a 0-to-10 anxiety scale, 10 being a panic attack. No, I’m just joking. I’m excited!

How about you? Did you learn something new about yourself in 2025? I’d love to hear about it in the comments section below.

Before I end, I have an exciting announcement:

I am now a published cartoonist!! Check it out here. Read, or listen, to my fan letter to Rune Andreasson, the creator of Bamse, a Swedish version of Mickey Mouse.

Welcome back to the final week of my Christmas calendar, which I am co-hosting with my mom.

Mom loved Christmas. It was easy to create little stories for each day because she made sure our family celebrated this holiday in all the traditional Swedish ways. She ached for all of us to attend a Pentecostal Christmas church service, but Dad had limits. It was a firm No on that one! I leave this topic on Mom and Dad’s religion wars for a future newsletter.

If you’re jumping in here and haven’t read the previous weeks, you’ll understand our story better by starting from the beginning. To be extra clear, all the details about my family’s life are true, but my cartoon conversations with my mom are fictional. Both my parents passed away in 2012 (Mom) and 2018 (Dad). Here are the previous weeks: one, two, and three.

Let’s see how this Christmas calendar ends!

December 19

If you’re NOT a Swede, but were asked to name a Swedish food, you’d probably say: “Meatballs!”

Maybe you know about meatballs because you’ve had them with mashed potatoes, gravy, and lingonberry jam at an IKEA (the Swedish furniture store). There are five IKEA stores here in Florida, USA.

A Swedish Christmas smorgasbord wouldn’t be complete without a large serving plate heaped over with meatballs. It’s also my personal favorite.

Let’s make some!

December 20

December 21

For many people, Christmas involves alcoholic drinking traditions. Growing up, there was no alcohol in my home. Mom and Dad didn’t drink. Mom didn’t drink for religious reasons; it was the devil, and Dad chose not to for personal reasons. I think it scared him.

As an adult, I have adopted the Swedish Christmas tradition of enjoying a glass (or two) of hot Glögg. What is Glögg?

Google says, “Glögg is a traditional Scandinavian spiced mulled wine, similar to German Gluhwein, served hot during winter holidays, especially Christmas, made with red wine, sugar, and spices like cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger, and orange peel, often added spirits (brandy, aquavit) and garnished with raisins and almonds in the glass. It’s a festive, warming, aromatic drink perfect for cold weather, with non-alcoholic versions available using fruit juice.”

Living in the U.S., I go to the World Market store. They sell a California-made Glogg created by The Glunz Family Winery and Cellars. It has an authentic taste that reminds me of home!

December 22

Nothing smells more Christmassy than a freshly cut pine. When we still had our country cottage, Dad drove our Volvo station wagon to the woods near our property. He knew the owner and had permission to cut one we wanted. But after we no longer had our cottage or our Volvo, Mom and Dad bought trees from the vendor in the grocery store parking lot near our home.

According to Google, a Christmas tree in the early 1980s cost approximately 20-30 Swedish crowns, equivalent to around 3 U.S. dollars (current exchange rate). Seems cheap. Mom kept track of every purchase in her notebooks, but we threw those away after she died.

December 23

I don’t think our family was alone in waiting to decorate the tree until the day before Christmas. Until then, it was stored outside on our balcony, in the cold, next to a case of glass-bottled soft drinks. Sodas were only bought for special occasions.

December 24

Earlier in the month, during our gingerbread bake, I promised Mom a surprise!

Drumroll, please!! HAHA!! Here is my surprise!!!

End of week four reflection

I ended last Saturday’s newsletter with, “Life is full of suffering and challenges, but also filled with many beautiful moments. It’s hard to appreciate the love and beauty when you’re smack in the middle of hardship. It takes time, distance, and work to get there. We discover it years later if we’re open to learning and maturing from the painful circumstances.” The original Christmas story reminds us of these truths.

Do you remember the details?

Mary and Josef, a young working-class couple, are forced to travel to Bethlehem to register for the Roman census. Mary is nine months pregnant with Jesus. Josef isn’t the father. Initially, he had planned to break up with Mary, but changed his mind and married her.

Josef walks, and Mary rides a donkey for the 10-day journey. Can you imagine?

When they finally reach Bethlehem, all the hotels are full, so they have to spend the night with animals in a stable, and this is the famous nativity scene. No doctors, nurses, or epidurals available to help Mary during labor.

The three wise men tell King Herod that a new king had been born in Bethlehem, which causes the cruel and paranoid Herod to order a massacre of all baby boys. Can you imagine how Mary and Josef must have panicked? Leaving their homes and families behind, they flee the country and seek asylum in Egypt.

Mary and Josef struggled with hardship, but for millennia to come, Jesus would be remembered, celebrated, and worshiped.

Finally,

Thank you for hanging out with Mom and me throughout December and supporting the creation of this Christmas calendar. I appreciate your encouragement! More to come about my future projects with Mom in 2026.

Happy New Year to all of you!

If you’re jumping in here and haven’t read weeks one or two this month, you’ll understand our story better by starting from the beginning. Both my parents passed away in 2012 (mom) and 2018 (dad). All the details about my family’s life are true, but my cartoon conversations with my mom are fictional (though I feel like I am capturing her pretty well).

Let’s see what happened!

December 12

Making gingerbread cookies is a traditional Swedish Christmas activity. When you bake them in the oven, your home fills with a warm, fragrant blend of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and cardamom.

December 13

We’ll return to rolling out our gingerbread cookies tomorrow because today is Lucia!

Everyone who’s not a Swede asks, What’s Lucia? It’s a celebration. The closest comparison to this tradition would be Christmas caroling.

Growing up in Sweden, I never asked why we did what we did. I just told mom I needed a white gown and glitter, and nagged her for a crown with candles. There’s only one Lucia that leads the carolers, the prettiest blond girl in the group (naturally!). But when you’re five and in preschool, they let all the girls be Lucias.

According to Google, “Sweden celebrates St. Lucia’s Day on December 13th to combine Christmas traditions with ancient pagan ones centered on light and warmth during the darkest part of the year. The celebration honors the martyr Saint Lucy, who is believed to have brought food to Christians hiding in the catacombs and who symbolizes hope and light. The festival also incorporates older Swedish traditions of warding off evil spirits, like the “Lussi” witch, who was thought to be active during the long, dark winter night.”

December 14

Let’s return to rolling out and baking our gingerbread cookies.

You’ll need some fun cookie cutters and, of course, a rolling pin. The easiest way to bake them is to line the baking sheets with parchment paper to prevent them from sticking. The recipe from Friday makes a rather large batch, six or seven baking sheets of cookies. Divide it in half for a more moderate amount. Bake at 400°F for approx 6 min.

You’ll learn patience from rolling out gingerbread cookies. The dough is either sticky from not enough flour or crumbly from too much flour. It’s not an activity for a rage-prone individual!

December 15

Do you remember what you put at the top of your Christmas wishlist when you were a kid?

I wanted a DOG more than anything in the world. I wanted a dog so badly, I bought a porcelain dachshund for my mom’s birthday. Not because she loved dogs, she was a cat person, but to remind her which kind of dog I wanted.

Sadly, a dog never arrived under the tree. But the porcelain dachshund remained on Mom’s nightstand until she passed away. He had several old glued repairs, mostly to the back legs and tail. Originally, a cheap grocery-store purchase, but he had been dearly loved. I rescued him when I was in Sweden for her funeral.

December 16

Mom loved math. She was skilled at bookkeeping and stretching a penny. She saved every receipt and copied the amounts down in a book so she could budget our family’s limited resources.

Dad grumbled when she stepped outside her otherwise frugal ways and bought a deep freezer on credit. Mom had made an executive decision. They couldn’t afford to pay for one with cash, but with small monthly payments, they could manage, even if it cost them three times as much in the long run. She wanted to take advantage of grocery sale prices, cook lots of meals all at once, and freeze them. “Buying it or not,” she argued, “it’s expensive to be poor.”

December 17

Even with her frugal mindset and careful budgeting, Mom’s small salary only stretched so far in supporting a family of four. After a few years of struggling to make ends meet, she made an executive decision. To ask for help. Our family started receiving social assistance.

For Dad, it was another hard blow to the stomach.

December 18

I didn’t understand a mother’s love until I became a mother myself. And I didn’t understand the depth of it until I experienced an empty nest.

End of week three reflections

Life is full of suffering and challenges, but also filled with many beautiful moments. It’s hard to appreciate the love and beauty when you’re smack in the middle of hardship. It takes time, distance, and work to get there. We discover it years later if we’re open to learning and maturing from the painful circumstances.

Next week, the fourth and final newsletter in this Christmas calendar mini-series, Mom and I continue to serve up more recipes, traditions, historical tidbits, and family drama, treating you to a real Swedish smorgasbord!

This week (December 6 through 11), as you can tell by the subtitle, the story turned a bit darker. We promised family drama and Swedish food. We started in the kitchen and spent last weekend baking something sweet and super yummy!

Let’s see what happened!

December 5

To keep this newsletter’s length down, I won’t repeat the “door-opening” scene above. They’re cute and helpful for my daily posts, but here in the newsletter, they interrupt the flow.

December 6

December 7

Ready to make cardamom rolls?

Do you own a rolling pin? If not, you’ll need to run out and buy one!

There is a lot of waiting around. Make sure you have a few hours to spare.

Ops! HAHA!! I just noticed that I used “7” for two separate steps! Sorry! I think you are a smart reader and can follow the order anyway.

December 8

Sweden, my country of origin, is dark in December. For a month, it feels cozy as we light candles and decorate with Christmas lights. But the rest of the winter, January through March, the days feel short, cold, and dark.

When the Spring finally arrives, and the sun starts to warm things up, Swedes look like little moles coming out of their holes. The coffee houses and bars have to hurry up and drag tables and chairs outside for their sun-deprived customers.

December 9

Growing up in Sweden, December was dark outside and, for me personally, gloomy indoors. Inside our apartment, Dad’s mood shifted with the seasons. But it hadn’t always been that way.

My childhood had two distinct periods, before and after Dad’s produce farm bankruptcy.

From age 0-6, I lived through a period of normalcy and prosperity with two working parents. Then, from age 7-17 (when I moved out), my family endured hardship because of Dad’s chronic unemployment and mental health problems. Sometimes he spent days in his pyjamas and needed a lot of Mom’s attention.

December 10

Do you know someone who has had to file for bankruptcy? Unless you’re a hardboiled billionaire, it’s a traumatic event. My dad was a sensitive and passionate small business owner.

When his produce farm went belly up, my parents lost everything, except our apartment. Under Swedish law, a bank can’t make a person sell their home. A law saved our family from homelessness. And lucky for us, Mom still worked a full-time job.

But Dad never recovered mentally; the weight of humiliation caused him to isolate and cut off all contact with friends and relatives.

As a seven-year-old, I lost a country cottage near a lake, a place where our family spent the summers and where I had a community of friends. I lost my grandmother and relatives on my Dad’s side.

And, I almost lost Dad to suicide.

December 11

Before Dad’s business failed, we celebrated Christmases with my grandmother, my aunt and uncle, and my cousins on my Dad’s side.

But after Dad cut off all contact, I didn’t see them again.

Not until 2018, when my cousins came to Dad’s funeral. Almost forty years had passed since we saw each other. It was a nice reunion. Reconnecting with them made grieving Dad and processing my old childhood losses much easier.

End of week two reflection

This week was dark. Shame is a powerful and dangerous silencer. Dad demonstrated this truth. But the more times I share about my childhood, the less power it has on me.

I hope you continue to follow my Christmas calendar as Mom and I move forward with more food, traditions, historical tidbits, and family drama, treating you to a real Swedish smorgasbord!

I’m doing something different in December. I created a Swedish Christmas calendar and will post daily until December 24. If you miss a day, no worries, you will receive a newsletter on Saturdays, with all the week’s posts. This is the first one and includes my initial November announcements and stops on December 4.

Let’s get started!

November 11

You are invited to join Mom and me in December as we open one door per day in our Swedish Christmas calendar.

Behind each door, Mom will take us through her version of creating a Swedish Christmas smorgasbord. I can also promise some family drama and some good gossip.

Obviously, I don’t have the divine power to bring Mom back to life. She passed away in 2012. But as a cartoonist, I have the power to recreate her on the page. And I don’t mean it in a ghost-hunter-like way when I say, I believe she will be with us in spirit.

November 18

This is a friendly reminder! You are invited to join Mom and me in December as we open one door per day in our Swedish Christmas calendar.

November 30

This is a friendly reminder! You are invited to join Mom and me in December as we open one door per day in our Swedish Christmas calendar

.December is tomorrow! But today is the first Sunday in Advent.

Sweden is fairly secularised these days, but holiday traditions connect Swedes to their historical roots in the Lutheran Protestant Christian faith. A modern Swede might be an atheist, but they still light their Advent candles in December because it’s tradition, and because it’s cozy when it’s cold and dark outside.

Mom honored holiday traditions, but she wasn’t an ordinary Swede. She was a deeply religious Pentecostal woman who loved Christmas. It was a holy time of the year for her. Even when Dad said, “Don’t bother with Christmas,” and “We can’t afford it,” she didn’t budge. She did the best she could to celebrate.

December 1

Do you remember your childhood living room?

We didn’t get a color TV until the 1980s, when the old one died with a spark and a boom.

Every December, the Swedish television company aired a 24-episode children’s special called The Christmas Calendar. They sold the paper Christmas calendar in the grocery stores, which, of course, was a must-have! After you had watched an episode, you pulled out your paper calendar and opened a door.

One year, the TV show was aired in 3D, and the paper calendar was sold with 3D eyeglasses.

The Christmas calendar has 24 doors because Swedes celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. That’s when relatives will gather, and that’s when Tomten (Santa) arrives (dads or uncles in Santa costumes) and gifts are opened.

December 2

Mom was a practical and strategic peacemaker.

December 3

Mom loved Christmas. Per her rulebook, we couldn’t start decorating until our apartment had been cleaned from top to bottom. I hated cleaning, but I loved helping her bake all the pastries and candy. Mom made almost all our food from scratch.

December 4

Growing up, planting grass for the nativity scene was a fun tradition. I loved unpacking the box with the stable, sheep, camels, palm trees, and the figurines of Josef, Mary, baby Jesus, and the shepherds. Mom taught me that Jesus was the reason for the season, but she never explained the grass. And I never asked.

Now, after I drew the picture, I am curious. Why did we plant the grass?

According to Google, “The history of using grass in nativity scenes is rooted in the original nativity scene created by St. Francis of Assisi in 1223, which included a manger with hay. Later traditions and symbolism incorporated various plants, with grass representing prosperity and the “grass of the field” mentioned in biblical descriptions of the Bethlehem setting. The practice also connects to a German tradition of planting wheat on St. Barbe’s Day (December 4th) that is meant to grow by Christmas and symbolizes the coming harvest.”

End of week one reflection

What possessed me to start this project? Who makes her dead mom into a cartoon character and draws comics featuring her in fictional conversations?

I have discovered that my Christmas blues improve with creativity, so every year, I intentionally look for something that inspires me and can trick me into engaging in the season. This year, I was inspired by Kelcey Ervick’s new Substack, Letters to Dead Authors and Artists. I took the idea of writing to dead idols and ran with it. Thank you, Kelcy!

Also, Thank You to all of you who follow me and cheer me on! I appreciate you! Stick around for three more weeks of Swedish Christmas drama, baking and cooking, and historical tidbits.

This year, I discovered the graphic memoirs and novels. They make excellent gifts for anyone, but especially for the people in your life who might not read longer texts than cellphone messages or social media posts. They’re not just for kids anymore. Graphic fiction and non-fiction for adults have exploded the book market in recent years.

Before I begin describing my top six graphic books, let me tell you how I have organized my list. Each book is presented with its front cover, followed by my review, and the back cover with the blurb. Why paraphrase what the book is about when the artist/author already worked so hard writing the blurb perfectly?

Here are my four favorite graphic memoirs

What to Expect When Your Parents Grow Old. This could have been the title of Roz Chast’s graphic memoir. I felt right at home. Her parents could have been my physical therapy patients at the hospital where I work. This is a worthwhile read for anyone with aging parents.

With that said, this book is not some dry caregiving guide. Far from it! It’s a hilarious and entertaining graphic memoir that is also heartbreaking and moving.

My favorite pages show a drawing of her dad with antennas, or “feelers” as her mom called them, and one of her mom screaming, “I’m going to blow my top!!!”

Chast writes, “...he was kind and sensitive. He knew that my mother had a terrible temper, and she could be overpowering. She had a thick skin. He, like me, did not. She often accused my father of “walking around with his feelers out.” In many ways, my father and I were more alike than my mother and I.”

I love the comical language and drawings. And yet, the content in Chast’s graphic memoir is about as serious and real as you can get. It’s about death and dying.

“Can we talk about something more PLEASANT?”

The next book is about women’s soccer and feminism.

The Keeper delivers a tight-knit, handwritten (!!) story of how Title IX changed the lives of American women. Kelcey Ervick’s story is perfectly entertaining, thought-provoking, and educational.

I don’t have a lick of athletic talent, but I am on Ervick’s team!

My daughter (picture below), a Gen Z, is also on her team.

Matilda played youth soccer as a little girl, then basketball in high school, and is now working on her PhD in a male-dominated business field. I’m so proud of her. She belongs to the new generation of women opening doors for those following closely behind her.

Kelcey Ervick is also the writer of two wonderful Substacks that I can warmly recommend: The Habit of Art and Letters to Dead Authors & Artists

Next, a book about traveling to Japan.

The Spanish author/artist, Amaia Arrazola, went to Tokyo on a month-long artist’s residency in 2017. This beautifully handwritten and entertaining travel sketchbook is filled with drawings and reflections of her experiences of the Japanese culture. It’s a creative and educational book that brings East and West together into an illustrative discussion. Very cool!

I found this lovely graphic travel memoir browsing the Strand bookstore in New York City. They have a huge selection of used and new comic books, graphic novels, and memoirs. If you are in NYC and love bookstores, this is a must-visit place!

Next, a memoir that might be a tricky Christmas gift for someone else, but a perfect gift for yourself. If you’re like me and grew up in a dysfunctional family, you’ll feel right at home in this book.

Maradou’s graphic memoir reads like a movie. With her compelling storytelling and comic-style drawings, she has created a page turner that is hard to put down. She takes you inside her therapy sessions and lets you follow the detangling of her childhood trauma and mental health journey. Maybe I bonded a little extra with Mardou’s story since we are both European Gen X women who married American men. In this book, she also describes her physical journey from her birthplace in England to her new life in the U.S.

Here are two of my favorite graphic novels

I discovered the cartoonist K. (Katharine) Woodman-Maynard here on Substack. She showed up in my feed, and I was instantly intrigued and drawn in by her beautiful art. I subscribed and have followed her tail-end preparation in publishing this adapted graphic novel. She is the first artist whom I have pre-ordered a book from.

Natalie Babbitt, the author, published Tuck Everlasting in 1975. It’s easy math, 1975-2025; this makes K’s graphic adaptation the 50th anniversary edition of the book.

In waiting for K’s book, I bought the original novel. Unfortunately, it has a slow start, and I put it down after 53 pages. But this is why graphic novels are so great. They are perfect for impatient and visual readers. I quickly raced through K’s book in a few nights, and it’s 100 pages longer than the original! It was so well done! It reads like a beautiful movie. Be ready with the tissues, I teared up at the end.

I can also warmly recommend K. Woodman-Maynar’s Substack: Creating Comics

Last but not least, another book I discovered in New York City, this time at Midtown Comics.

This fun bookstore is tiny in comparison to the absolutely ginormous size and breadth of Strand, but equally a gem. And by the way, this is why visiting New York City is so much fun: it has so many gems!

I really enjoyed Dogman! When I tell people, it appears I’m not the right gender and age group for this book. I get comments like, “My son has all the Dogman books, and the Captain Underpants books.”

The Dogman market is for eight-year-old boys, but I don’t care.

There is a moving autobiographical page at the end of the book about the author-illustrator, Dav Pilkey, where he shares about having ADHD and dyslexia as a kid and being sent out of the classroom by his teacher to sit by himself in the hall because of his disruptive behaviors. It was during this time that Dogman was born. Dave Pilkey let his trauma fuel his creativity, which eventually transformed him into the man he is today —an international bestselling children’s book author.

So there you have it. Six awesome Christmas gift ideas! There is a book for the worrier, the traveler, the caregiver, the feminist, and two fiction choices for the kids in your life, or the kid in you!

If you read to the end, I appreciate you! Thank you! Give me a like if this newsletter was helpful. And please, I’d love to read your thoughts and feedback in the comment section below.

I will end with a bonus: my homemade Christmas card!

It’s easy for me to become a hermit. I blame my dysfunctional childhood and the fact that I am an introvert. I need alone time to recharge my social batteries.

But sometimes, my hermit behavior is plain laziness, or just fear of venturing outside my comfort zone, or fear of asking!

Reflecting on the deeper meaning of vacations and our inner need for exploration

Vacations help us grow as individuals. Humans are born explorers. I knew this already. But to help me be more specific, I Googled “the deeper meaning of vacations.” Here are a few things mentioned in the AI Overview: beyond relaxation, they provide us with mental resets, detach us from the daily grind, and boost our confidence. We also practice self-care, gain new perspectives through experiences, and reconnect with nature.

I can’t agree more. Of course, there is much more that can be said here, but for the sake of my discussion in this newsletter, it’s enough. I wanted to highlight the benefits because it’s easy to get stuck in the inner world of negatives and excuses.

Matilda and I like to visit local coffee shops and bakeries (we’re dead hard pastery snobs!), go shopping, eat at local restaurants, wander around museums (more Matilda, I like the gift shops!), browse outside markets, hang out at parks and listen to free concerts by local musicians, and check out the night life, their shows and pubs.

We have visited American cities like Washington and New York together, but after reaching adulthood, she has gone to places like Tokyo and Paris without me.

Before I blink, she will have her own family! It felt urgent to book some time with her and not waste an opportunity.

I wanted to visit a “bucket list” kind of place.

They say, “All roads lead to Rome”. I was ready to find out how.

The power in asking

“It never hurts to ask,” they say, but who are we kidding with that old expression, because it sure stings a little when you get a rejection!

It was last year during Christmas vacation when I blurted out my request. We were hanging out watching TV together. My ask was spontaneous and felt dreamy and out of reach.

“Hey Matilda, have you made any plans for spring break yet? Wanna go to Rome? I’ll pay for our ticket and hotel!”

I remember Matt (my hubby) raising an eyebrow and chuckling. It was a surprise question for him too!

Matilda is a super busy young lady. We’re so proud of her. She’s in graduate school working on her Phd and barely has time to breathe, but the year before, she and a friend went on a trip to Iceland for spring break. It was likely she had made plans already.

Surprisingly, she had not. She said,

“Sure, Mom, I’d love to go to Italy!”

Why Rome?

The food. I love spaghetti and meatballs!

Nobody has asked me “why Rome”. But here is my motivation anyway: I wanted to go there and experience the empire vibe, walk the cobblestone streets, stand inside the Colosseum, and see with my own eyes what has made it so famous. I wanted to visit the Sistine Chapel and look up at Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling and say, “Aww…”

There is no “What happens in Rome, stays in Rome.”

Here are some entertaining videos and pages from my illustrated travel journal (Be aware: I’m a terrible speller!).

New art supplies!

I went fully digital this month. I finally bought an iPad and downloaded Procreate, an app for creating drawings and animation. Some of the art in this newsletter was created digitally with my new tools.

I hesitated to buy an iPad for several months because #1, I’m a technophobe, and #2, I thought the traditional art supplies (somehow) would be more therapeutic since they are more tactile. Perhaps I was thinking of the thing people say about reading electronic books: they would rather have a physical book in their hands. But after drawing on my iPad for a month, I don’t think it’s the same thing at all. Drawing is drawing, whether it’s digital or analog. But the result is different. If I paint a watercolor on paper, I have a “real” watercolor painting; however, the best I can achieve digitally is a print of one.

If you read to the end, I appreciate you! I hope you enjoyed the mix of text, pictures, drawings, and videos as much as I enjoyed creating this month’s newsletter.

I’d love to read your feedback in the comment section below, or leave me a “like”.

I feel rebellious when I read stuff like this on social media because it skips over the beginning part, the trauma and suffering, and oversimplifies the difficult work involved in figuring out who we are and what life skills we need to learn to heal and have healthy relationships.

Growing up in a dysfunctional family stunts our social and emotional growth.

Our childhood, often generational, trauma keeps us prisoners to our learned dysfunctional patterns and turns us into hyper-independent loners, addicts, and angry control freaks who don’t play well with others.

Unless we make intentional efforts to change, we remain in survivor mode, sometimes until we die.

1978. Dad’s Nightly Drama

A cascade of unfortunate events and generational trauma led to my dad’s situation, and his inability to deal with them resulted in mental health issues and chronic unemployment.

Dad would wake up in the middle of the night and start ruminating on something that bothered him. Then he would need to discuss his worries with Mom. If she couldn’t soothe his anxiety, it spiraled into frustration and anger. He would start shouting and crying, and on bad nights, threaten with “I should just do away with myself.”

After bad nights, Mom had to call in sick to work for fear that Dad would follow through on his suicide threats.

It was easy to draw this four-frame comic because the scene is so familiar. It shows my childhood wound as one night, but in fact, it happened on repeat, several times a week, for long periods at a time, and for years, until I moved away from home at age 17.

Marriage Is for Life

Dad could never let anything go. It irked him that Mom pushed forward without seeming bothered by what other people thought of her.

Mom stuck it out with Dad. She was raised to be a good girl and a dutiful Pentecostal wife. She believed divorce was a sin, so leaving Dad was not an option,…yet.

I Inherited Dad’s Sensitivity Instead of Mom’s Blinders

Eventually, my little worrying self grew into my teenage angry self. Teenage me saw my parents’ flaws and hated living at home. Teenage me was better and smarter than my parents and would never be like them.

Most of my teen anger was directed at Mom, because she was the sane one, the “real” parent. She was the responsible one, the provider and caregiver. Dad was Mom’s other child. The baby whom I couldn’t compete with and who dominated all her time.

By the time I was 13, I was sick of being embarrassed and decided to take matters into my own hands.

But...

That time when he almost hit me, I realized his delusional world was real to him.

I didn’t know anyone with a dad like mine. Fear and shame kept me from sharing my family situation with anyone.

The books I found at the library were thick and filled with difficult words and theories. They had nothing to offer a young girl like me. I remember standing there feeling hopeless and alone.

The Consequences of Growing Up Too Fast

Meet Anki (my Swedish nickname), 17-year-old me.

With my dad chronically unemployed, my mom couldn’t afford to make the teenage me feel like she belonged in the world. I started working summer jobs at age 12 to have some spending money.

I bought the Levi’s jeans, the Nike shoes, and paid for the perm and the Marlboros with my own money. I smoked Marlboro Light 100s because they cost the same as the regular size and were less bad for you.

When Dad smelled cigarette smoke on me and asked if I smoked, I lied and told him my friends did.

Mom didn’t want me to pierce my ears. She said, “If God had wanted you to wear earrings, he would have created you that way!”

When I sassed back, “Why didn’t he create us with clothes?” Her mouth pulled together into a thin line, and her eyes answered me with a long, stern look.

A consequence of growing up in a dysfunctional family, I married the first boy I fell in love with. But I am not sorry. Apparently, we were meant to be together. We worked out. In 2026, we will celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary.

My husband and I met for the first time when we were teenagers. I was a 16-year-old Swedish exchange student, and he was a 19-year-old American college student.

A year and a half later, two weeks after my 18th birthday, we got married. It was a tiny ceremony at the courthouse on a day when the judge had an opening in his schedule, which also happened to be my dad’s birthday, February 19.

Because I gave my parents and sister in Sweden minimal notice about my upcoming nuptials in the U.S., there was no time for them to make arrangements to attend the ceremony.

My mom didn’t call me on my wedding day, so I called her at work.

“Mom, I’m getting married today!”

“I know.”

“Aren’t you happy for me?”

After a long pause, she said,

“I left your dad yesterday. I didn’t want to call and ruin your day.”

Sometimes, life is so sadly ironic.

Today, I cry when I think about that phone call. I feel her pain. As a mom to a 25-year-old, I would want to attend my daughter’s wedding. But I give myself grace, because I have learned that it takes a mom to understand a mom. 17-year-old me was clueless.

Fast Forward to 2025

Meet all four of the 52-year-old Ann.

Last month, I wrote about my worrying and catastrophizing self, my inner 5-year-old who wants to bring her raincoat everywhere. In this newsletter, I explored my inner angry teen self. And I have written about my issues with perfectionism before.

My husband asked why the perfectionist looks unkept. My explanation is: She’s an ugly, mean troll, an inner bully. She’s not a younger me. She is something entirely different.

Depending on the situation and time of day, one or two of these three (the worrier, the angry teen, or the troll) will dominate my emotional life. The real-time me struggles with staying level-headed and grounded in her mature self.

The psychology people borrowed the bandwidth term from the technology world, where it refers to (as per Google) “how much data can flow through your connection at once, similar to how a wider highway allows more cars to travel at the same time. Higher bandwidth means more data can be transferred, leading to faster download and upload speeds and a smoother online experience…”

I like the bandwidth metaphor. It helps me understand my situation as well as the work I need to do to achieve a smoother and more rewarding life experience. But it takes effort and practice, one day at a time.

And, obviously, look at me, I’m 52, the work is never finished!

If you read to the end, I appreciate you! Thank you! And please, I’d love to read your input in the comment section below.

Below is a screenshot from a weather update in my Facebook feed from today.

The warnings about Erin have appeared for over a week every time I open Facebook or scroll through my Apple News app. Unless she makes some crazy turn, the spaghetti models have consistently shown that she won’t come near the coast of Florida. She’s not a threat! But the frequent updates keep appearing.

Last year, we were hit by Hurricane Milton, and the news and weather updates became increasingly dramatic and frightening with each day and hour.

The clickbait news and weather updates on social media and news TV channels seem to get worse and more dramatic every year. There is no mercy when money can be made on clicks and views. Media companies capitalize on people’s worst fears. They spend billions figuring out how they can keep us glued to the screen, scrolling to find out what awful things might happen to us.

It’s disgusting!

But you can stop scrolling and watching the news, or ignore it, you say.

The hurricane season starts in June and ends in November!

I agree with those who say the media scrolling is addictive, and quitting an addiction is tough! But not only that, I can’t control everything that happens around me. I work in a hospital with televisions switched on all day in patients' rooms. I’m exposed like a non-smoker to secondhand smoke. And because I’m a sensitive person, I’m affected by the fear spread among my coworkers and patients.

Also, I’m an essential worker. That means I can’t evacuate during a storm. I have to stay here and work.

I love where I live and what I do, but the weather updates make my stomach turn into a hard knot. I have PTSD from living in Florida with 7 major storms in the last nine years.

Childhood catastrophizing

I grew up in Sweden, where we don’t get extreme weather like we do in Florida, but I was born a sensitive person and became a worrier early in childhood.

It is the summer of 1978. I am 5 years old. Mean-Birgitta refuses to let me wear my raincoat on our daycare outing to the kiddie pool at the park. It is sunny. But who knows if a storm will surprise us later in the day? I just want to be prepared.

Mean-Birgitta wrestles with me to remove my raincoat from my body. After she wins, she places it on a high shelf and says I can have it back when we return. I am crying and tugging on her arm to have it back. I feel violated and panicked from losing what makes me feel safe. Mean-Birgitta says I am ridiculous and ruining the fun day for everyone.

When I told my mom about the incident, she said, “If Birgitta had let you wear the raincoat, you would have taken it off yourself when you started to sweat.”

Mom never confronted Mean-Birgitta. Life was the way it was.

Perhaps my weather worries at daycare were caused by a dramatic event I had experienced with my big sister?

To be honest, these two events could have happened years apart. I could have been six or seven that time we were alone during a summer thunderstorm. It’s easy to see the cause and effect. I was freaked out after the thunderstorm, which threw me into a period of wanting to carry a raincoat everywhere. But these two events can be unrelated. When I think back on my childhood, my memory seems compressed into one year: when I was five. But whatever the case may be, they are two examples of childhood catastrophizing, and two weather-related memories I can’t forget.

Hurricane Matthew in 2016

My husband, daughter, and I moved to Florida from Sweden in 2007. We bought our house in 2012, an old (1959) ranch house in a neighborhood filled with century-old oak trees.

After living in Florida for five years, we had heard stories about the legendary storms, but they felt like myths, catastrophic events from a distant past. The last hurricane that impacted Florida was Wilma in 2005, when we lived in Sweden.

When we shopped around for houses, we fell in love with our property because of the giant oaks. We didn’t think of them as a threat. It was difficult to imagine anything impacting those big, tall, majestic, solid trunks.

In 2012, our street had a canopy of oak branches. It was like driving through a tree tunnel. After a decade of major hurricanes, most of those trees are gone, and the tunnel only exists in our photos and memories.

When Hurricane Matthew developed in the Atlantic in 2016, Florida hadn’t had a hurricane for eleven years. It was our family’s first experience with a hurricane.

Entries from my 2016 diary

Wednesday, Oct. 5.

People are starting to take the storm seriously. They are saying it’s probably going to be bad. Matt told me to fill up the Jeep after work. Long lines. Some gas stations were out already. I bought supplies at Walmart: water bottles, flashlights, and batteries. Some people are picking up sandbags. Will we need sandbags? They say, fill up your tub with water so you can use it to flush the toilets. Why won’t we be able to flush the toilets?

Thursday, October 6.

Matt and Matilda are out of school and work because of the storm. They boarded up the windows on the house. Our neighbors have generators for when we lose power. Should we have bought one? They’re very expensive. What is a cat 4 hurricane like? You won’t have hot water and electricity, they say. The Dollar store was out of cans, granola bars, and matches. We brought the lawn furniture and flower pots into the garage, and anything that could blow around during the storm. Matt filled the freezer with ice bags and prepared coolers for our food. Good thinking!

Greg [next-door neighbor] said that he tried to evacuate to Tampa during Hurricane Charlie, but the traffic was so bad he was stuck on I-4 for ten hours in the storm. Matilda [our daughter] said we should pack small overnight bags in case we have to leave the house quickly during the storm. So we did.

We were ready to hunker down and await Hurricane Matthew. My husband thought it was comical that our first hurricane had his name.

Friday, October 7.

Expect tropical storm winds and rain starting around 2 AM. Expect the worst part of the storm to arrive around 9 AM. At 6 AM, we still had power, but it was time to take our place in Matilda’s closet. The eye of the storm would be ten miles offshore around 10 AM. If it “wobbled”, it could turn right for us and make landfall. I prayed it would “wobble” out to sea.

The aftermath

At 3 PM, the first pickup trucks started to pass on the street, lookie-loos videotaping all the wreckage in our neighborhood. Our roof was intact. We had survived. Matt made gin cocktails. We toasted to being alive!

Worrying doesn’t help!

I hate when people call me out on worrying. I understand that it doesn’t help! I don’t like worrying. I know that I’m a worrywart. But what have I learned that helps me? Of course, it helps to limit my screen time. I try to scroll past the news and weather updates quickly. However, like any addict, I fall off the wagon at times and find myself sucked in by a headline that my brain tells me is an update or story I should “inform” myself about. Any recovery work is a daily, moment-to-moment, intentional effort.

It helps to read positive and encouraging personal stories or research articles.

Dom, my psychologist friend, writes wonderful daily updates and a weekly newsletter on her Substack, Mind Matters. I love her work! This week, in her post, The Art of Letting Things Be, she reminded me about the importance of self-acceptance and self-compassion. This is exactly what I need to read. Dom gives me a daily mental health boost that lifts my spirit and keeps me going.

This is all, folks!

If you read to the end, thank you! As always, I love to read what you have to say, so if this newsletter provoked any thoughts or emotions, please feel free to share them in the comments below.

My journey on Substack began a year ago when I set out to connect with other memoir writers and readers, as well as those interested in mental health recovery. I didn’t anticipate discovering a new continent, the Land of Comics.

The woman in the purple drawing didn’t exist twelve months ago. I was an aspiring memoir writer who had just published my first memoir essay, Fixing Dad, in a literary magazine. My art studio consisted of a laptop and my favorite chair.

I’m still an aspiring memoir writer, but today, I’m more excited to think of ways to tell my stories with images instead of words. My husband, Matt, says that I am a happier person since I started drawing and watercoloring. He’s right. I’m a new person. And there is no going back.

With that said, I felt lost for a few months, wondering what I was doing, “distracting” myself with drawing more than I was writing—until I discovered the graphic memoir. This was my solution. It’s the perfect fit!

How it all started

Last summer, when I posted my first Substack newsletter, I would never have foreseen what I’m doing today. I would never have predicted that I had an inner cartoonist waiting to emerge.

Up to this point in my life, I haven’t been into comics at all, except for The Far Side jokes that turn up in my Facebook feed, and I like the Maxine character on the Hallmark Greeting cards (do they count?), and I’ll watch an occasional Disney movie.

So, how did this personal transformation happen?

I’m fairly certain it’s God’s doing, and thanks to Substack and the artists I've met through this platform. But more specifically, I’ve learned that personal transformations like these often happen because of a want-need-situation. What starts as an initial want turns into something that grows and fulfills an underlying need.

NOVEMBER 2024

It all started with The Moose.

I was working on a newsletter about my struggle with perfectionism and wanted a picture to go with my story. The Moose was my 4th-grade teacher, and he was a tall, mean, old man. The school photo I had of him was boring and didn’t show his true nature in action.

A voice inside my head whispered, You could draw a picture of him in action.

I decided it couldn’t hurt to try. When I showed my drawing to my husband and daughter, they both liked it and encouraged me to use it for my story.

With a droplet of confidence, the idea of me drawing illustrations for my newsletters was born. Sometimes, a single moment can spark a lifetime of impact.

FEBRUARY 2025

By February, I was subscribing to Katharine Woodman-Maynard’s Substack newsletter. She is a cartoonist and graphic novelist who creates beautiful watercolor comics. She inspired me to start experimenting with watercolors and encouraged me to sign up for a Zoom comic-making workshop that she guest-hosted. The fruit of this workshop was my very first comic strip.

APRIL 2025

Every Spring, the Christian hospital where I work organizes an art contest for the employees. The categories for this contest include: paintings/drawings, poems, and photos. And the theme is not surprisingly: faith.

When I saw the flyer with the call for submissions, that whispering voice returned inside my head. You can submit a watercolor painting!

I’ve ignored this contest in the past, and I would have dismissed this suggestion had I not had a light bulb moment. An idea popped into my mind that I instantly loved and couldn’t shrug off. I felt inspired to paint a scene involving one of the therapy dogs that visits the hospital.

I even had a ready title in mind: God Is Dog Spelled Backwards.

My excitement over the idea and the message I wanted to convey successfully carried over into my finished artwork. I was happy with the result and felt confident enough to submit it.

All the submissions were posted on a long wall outside the hospital cafeteria where employees and visitors could vote on them for a month using a QR code. My dog painting won second place in the People’s Choice voting. There was also the Judges' Choice, but they chose other pieces.

I was proud of myself, and at the same time, surprised by this new cartoonist I was changing into. It wasn’t the Me I knew. I don’t make paintings and do art contests! But I approved. I liked the new me and was excited and curious about what I would do next.

In her book, Making Comics, Lynda Barry says, “When I work with little kids, I draw alongside them, sometimes copying them and sometimes just drawing to see what shows up. I don’t say much about drawing–and I’m not there as a teacher. To me it’s a language immersion class. Kids speak image. They are fluent in a way that allows me new understanding about a certain state of mind that twins itself with certain activities. It’s something I can’t learn by talking about theory or by talking in general. This is a different sort of language. This language is what I’m trying to teach in my comic classes. This language moves up through your hand and into your head. Young children are native speakers.”

Comics are fun and different because anyone can do them! They’re more about creating images that express emotions and action than being drawn perfectly. There is a child cartoonist inside all of us waiting to be discovered.

MAY 2025

I am so grateful to Substack writer Amy Cowen for introducing me to Lynda Barry’s work. In May, I came across her invitation for a Making Comics read-along in my Substack feed.

Her gentle and relaxed approach drew me in. We would connect weekly to loosen up, find our inner creative child, and work on strengthening our creative habit.

I immediately subscribed to her Substack, Illustrated Life, and signed up.

Her invitation attracted several people who all wanted to read-along and do the drawing exercises. Amy initiated a weekly group chat where we could share our drawings and give each other encouraging feedback. She emphasized that no negative or harsh critique was allowed to make it a safe space to share our work. I loved this emphasis because I had bad experiences with haters in writing groups. They can do a lot of damage!

Here is a typical example of a Lynda Berry comic drawing exercise.

Here is the comic memoir story that turned up on the paper while doing this exercise.

If you think this drawing looks messy, notice the instructions; Lynda Berry only allows 3 minutes per frame.

What is the story about? I vaguely remember a merry-go-round incident from when I was 3 years old. It probably looked like fun. And my daycare lady meant well by letting me ride it. But once it started circling, I screamed my head off. They had to stop it to remove me.

I have a love-hate relationship with the time component in Lynda Berry’s exercises because it forces me to draw fast and ugly. But that’s the whole point! The perfectionist in me can’t stand it. She wants to work slowly and is never satisfied. I call her my inner troll. She lives in a dark cave deep in my forest of shame.

JUNE

I purchased and read my first two graphic memoirs!

After reading Past Tense by Sacha Mardou and Can’t we talk about something more PLEASANT? by Roz Chast, I felt warm and happy and at ease. I had previously wondered what I was doing, “distracting” myself with drawing comics instead of working on writing, but now it all made sense. It was preparing me for my new home!

I love these two books. Great art, of course! But also, Maradou and Chast master the balance of creating hilarious, moving, and heartbreaking storytelling.

I find the graphic book structure to be well-suited for memoir because our memory is a collection of images, a bunch of lived fragments: “action strips” or “one-liner” moments. When we think back on our lives, or tell a story, these memories link together like scenes in a movie inside our head, which translates well to making comics. Also, the easy (how people talk) language makes the graphic memoir accessible to a larger audience. For all of these reasons, I’m so smitten with this genre!

Other discoveries that have fueled my transformation from writer to cartoonist

• I do all my writing in the morning. At night, I will sit there and chew on the same sentence or paragraph and get nowhere. It’s a complete waste of time. But I can draw or paint watercolors! Even listen to music at the same time. This is huge for me!

• Drawing and watercoloring are like meditation. I get out of my head and into my body. It helps me relax.

• Drawing comics, just like writing stories, helps me deal with my unprocessed emotions, i.e., it’s therapeutic.

• All the support and positive responses to my drawings and paintings from my family, friends, and art community on Substack have helped my motivation and confidence to continue.

This is all, folks!

If you read to the end, thank you for taking part in this journey with me. As always, I love to read what you have to say, so if this newsletter provoked any thoughts or emotions, please feel free to share them in the comments below.

“I’ll go and check us in,” Matt says and leaves while I stay in the van.

After watching Matt cross the parking lot and disappear inside the animal hospital, I turn in my seat and glance at Orwell, our ten-year-old pit bull. He’s lying on top of paper-training pads, still in the same position I had placed him in before we left the house.

I can’t understand it yet. It doesn’t feel real. How will I be able to let him go?

I swallow hard. It hurts to see him like this. I look up instead and shift my gaze to the busy road outside. The sun is shining, and the drivers are wearing sunglasses. For them, it is an ordinary Tuesday morning. I’m jealous. I want to be one of them. I want to be on my way to someplace else.

I turn my head and glance at the animal hospital. Matt is still inside. I start to regret showing up early. We could have spent those extra minutes at home. But that’s not who we are. We don’t feel comfortable cutting it close. But what if they tell Matt that we have to sit with Orwell in the waiting room?

If they tell him we must sit in the waiting room, I won’t do it. I’ll refuse.

I imagine the other dog owners watching us and being nosy. I can’t handle their stupid questions today.

Matt returns. He opens the driver’s side door and sticks his head inside.

“They have a room ready and will take us straight back.”

I exhale and nod. They care and understand. I can do this.

In the exam room, the light is dim, and the stainless-steel table is covered with a fleece blanket. I place Orwell on his side on the table. He doesn’t have the strength to squirm the way he usually does during vet appointments, nor does he appear to want to. He seems content, holding his head up with his brown eyes open and alert.

Matt sits down, but I can’t leave Orwell’s side. This is it. His time left with us is down to minutes and seconds. When I stroke his back, I can feel his ribs and vertebrae as hard bumps under my hand. I start to shake, and my eyes overflow with tears that drip down on his brindle fur. I wipe them away and kiss his head. Then he leans into my embrace, and I feel my heart tear apart.

The door opens, and the young female vet tech who brought us back returns with the vet, a clean-cut man in his forties wearing a white lab coat. He is new to us, so he shakes our hands and says his name, but I forget it as soon as he moves on to examine Orwell.

The vet runs his hand over Orwell’s trunk and legs and comments something about muscle atrophy before he listens briefly with his stethoscope. Then he takes a step back and looks up at me. His eyes express compassion as he speaks with a dry voice.

“First, I will inject him with medicine that puts him to sleep. This will cause his tongue to hang out, and his eyes will stay open. Then, after a few minutes, I will inject him with the medicine that stops his heart.”

I look down at Orwell and my eyes fill up with tears again. The moment is here when I must trust the process, be brave, and submit to the pain in my heart.

Orwell was two years old when I adopted him from the Humane Society

His owner had surrendered him. The adoption card stated they couldn’t afford him anymore. But even after being abandoned and living six weeks at the shelter, his spirit wasn’t broken. He was still capable of showing trust, loyalty, and unconditional love to another human, and we bonded immediately.

When it was clear to us that we needed to put Orwell down, Matt showed his love by offering to take him to the vet himself. And I wanted nothing more than to say yes. I relied on him to rescue me from painful situations, but this time I turned him down. Every cell in my body screamed, Orwell deserved better. I needed to grow up and show up during his last moments in life. Yet, it felt right and impossible at the same time. How did I overcome the fear and pain of letting him go?

Searching for answers, I turned to Google and typed “How to deal with loss.” A video with grief expert David Kessler drew my attention. He said that we could get stuck if we suppressed or judged our feelings and warned against following what our modern society instructs us to do: “be strong”, “get over it”, “move on”, “you shouldn’t feel”, “find closure.” He recommended instead to: “…go through the process. When we run from grief, we’re in the pain longer.”

‘Go through the process’ and don’t run. Kessler’s words lingered in my head.

My whole life, I had been either a runner or a product of my mother’s grin-and-bear-it way of dealing with life’s problems. For decades, I had thought of myself as a strong woman, a survivor. I was fine. But now I was beginning to realize I had believed a lie. I had a false idea of who I was. The ground beneath my feet felt soft and mushy. I needed to learn a new way to deal with life’s problems and discover my genuine strengths. I wanted to be brave for Orwell. Thankfully, Matt was ready to support me on this journey.

The vet is waiting for my consent to get started

I need another minute. The pain in my chest is overwhelming. I take a deep breath and gaze down at Orwell on the table. Even now, a dying dog, he is trusting and loyal. He helps me feel safe and gives me the courage to show up for him. Then I look over at Matt. He doesn’t need to speak. His eyes say: I love you, I’m here for you, we are doing the right thing.

I wipe away my tears and turn to the vet and nod.

“Go ahead,” I say.

“It’s the best decision for Orwell,” he says and pauses before he continues to speak with a slightly higher pitch. “Stand here by Orwell’s head,” he directs me with his hand. “I want you to keep petting him.”

Stroking Orwell’s face and neck, I feel his muscles relax. Then, just like the vet had warned me, his tongue rolls out, and though he has disappeared into a deep sleep, his eyes remain open but no longer alert and active. I lean down to rest my cheek against his head and start sobbing.

A few minutes go by, then I hear the vet’s voice above me.

“Orwell’s heart has stopped now.”

Days earlier, Orwell’s health had suddenly deteriorated

He became too weak to stand and stopped eating and drinking. I debated whether to take him to the emergency room, but he was an old dog with chronic health issues. I didn’t want to prolong his suffering with aggressive treatments. And yet, I was unprepared for how hard it was to care for him while he was dying. Thankfully, Matt stayed grounded and able to take charge.

“He’s suffering,” he said softly. “We need to put him down.”

“Ok.” I sighed. “I know.”

He was right. But how did I let Orwell go? I couldn’t imagine him dead.

The night before our appointment, while I sat on the floor with Orwell and tried to feed him pieces of meatball that he persistently refused, Matt reminded me that we had another tough decision to make.

What did we want to do with Orwell afterwards?

“It’s up to you,” he said.

Leave Orwell at the animal hospital, or take him home?

My chest burned. I couldn’t decide. Neither option felt comforting.

“Let’s just take him home,” Matt said. “I’ll dig a hole in the back yard.”

I exhaled and stroked Orwell’s head.

“Yes. Let’s take him home.”

Holding Orwell in the vet’s office after he passed, I am grateful that we are not leaving him there

I am not emotionally or physically ready to say goodbye. It’s too soon. I can’t leave his warm body on the table, his eyes open and tongue hanging out, and walk out. For once, my heart and mind are in solid agreement. It feels right to take him with us and let him do his forever rest in our backyard.

After Matt parks in our driveway, I climb over the seats to Orwell in the back. He’s rolled up in the blanket we were asked to bring to the appointment. I unfold it and press my cheek against his head and stroke his body while I cry some more. Matt stays in the driver’s seat. I appreciate his quiet presence and acceptance. There is no rush, no schedule to keep. I take the time I need.

After about ten minutes, I notice how Orwell’s paws are blue, and his body no longer feels warm. I’m surprised how fast it happens. So, this is what lifeless looks like. It’s easy to see that Orwell’s body doesn’t belong to him anymore. He no longer resides inside it and has left. He is gone.

As I sit up and dry my wet cheeks on a tissue, I feel a shift inside my heart from a raw pain to a soothing peace. I realize how the worst part is over. I can physically let go now. I turn my head to Matt and say,

“I’m ready.”

We bury Orwell in the backyard. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and I feel calm and grateful for how beautiful our last day turned out. I showed up for Orwell, and I am proud of myself. I let myself feel all the emotions. I didn’t hold back. I broke down and felt it all until I didn’t have anything more to feel. No avoiding or pushing down, no trying to “be strong”, or stoic, or private with my feelings. I cried openly and made sure all my needs were met. I stuck with it until the end. But I didn’t do it alone. Orwell’s trust and Matt’s support gave me the courage I needed to endure the process. It's clear to me that this is a better way to deal with loss and will help me heal completely.

A day or two later, still proud of myself, my emotions felt off

I couldn’t pinpoint what it was until I heard her venomous voice inside my head.

Congratulations, you just put more effort into grieving a dog than you did your parents. What is wrong with you? Certainly, you value your parents more than a pet.

I recognized my old feelings of guilt and shame returning. My friend and family comforted me by saying that my relationship with my parents was more complex than my relationship with Orwell. Telling myself that I was a terrible daughter was self-abuse. But if they were right, why didn’t I believe them?

Returning to Google, I found an article titled “Self-Harm is Not Always Visible: Emotional Self-Harm through Damaging Coping Mechanisms” by Natalia Tage, Ed.S., LPC, ACS, CCTP. Tage writes, “For many of us, our inner critic can wreak more havoc on our mental health than it would if someone were to criticize us in person.” And she says, “…we believe it when we are self-critical.” She explains, “Some of us have an inner critic that is much harsher than others, and typically this is formed early in life from the things we hear or experience as we are growing up.”

I realized that grieving is more complicated than following a recipe. I had a lot more work to do in figuring out my past issues before I could change and grow.

Self-awareness was a necessary step in the right direction, but the ultimate goal would be to learn self-compassion, a foreign language for someone like me who only speaks self-criticism.

Please leave a comment below if this newsletter provoked any thoughts or emotions. I’d love to read your input.

None of this is news to me. I have owned many dogs and have not been good at this selection process for myself.

My first puppy was a beautiful German Shepherd. At eight weeks, he looked like a wolf cub. I named him Elvis. I thought the name was cute and funny, but never underestimate the power of a name. The universe was telling me something. But I wasn’t ready to hear it. I was in love!

Elvis turned out to be a bad boy. (As if dogs can be bad, they are just acting out what is natural to them, but bad for us!) His crazy behaviors and my lack of experience turned it into a disaster. At six months old, he was out of control. Luckily, the breeder agreed to take him back. I called her crying and explained how I didn’t want my money back, but that I had tried everything and couldn’t handle him anymore.

It still hurts to think about Elvis. I blame myself for failing him, for not having what it took to be his pack leader and train him to be obedient. I felt guilt and shame for returning him to his breeder, and for a long time after, I told myself that I didn’t deserve another dog.

But what’s the truth? Why do I think this way?

I live under the thumb of a hateful inner bully. I’m not allowed to make mistakes. But as I reflect on my problems with self-loathing and perfectionism, I recognize that there is another perspective that I could adopt and that would serve me better. My therapist told me that I need to practice self-compassion. She said that I can replace the harsh criticism with grace and forgiveness. So if I follow her teachings, I should be able to tell myself, Ann-Christine, you are a good person; you did the best you knew how, but Elvis and you were not a good fit.

So, I’m not a misfit?

Yes, you are!

Rome wasn’t built in one day. This self-compassion stuff is like a foreign language. It requires lots of practice, much like the drumset I bought recently and haven’t touched in two weeks.

I’m a work in progress.

Born sensitive

Returning to the dog documentary, my ears perked up when the dog experts said some dogs are born anxious.

I think 50% of all dogs in the shelters are anxious dogs. They are problem dogs like Elvis: barky, destructive, have separation anxiety, whine and pace, can’t be calm, and are difficult to obedience train. I used to volunteer as a dog walker at a dog shelter and met a lot of Elvises there.

If dogs are born anxious, is it the same with humans? Are we also born anxious?

Since I grew up with a dad who suffered from mental illness, I have always been obsessed with seeking answers to life’s big why questions. Dad was nervous, anxious, paranoid, a worrier, and in periods severely depressed and suicidal. But why? Why was Dad the way he was?

When I asked a psychiatrist one time, he answered that my dad was probably born “sensitive”.

What about nature versus nurture?

Depending on the article or book you read, psychologists or medical doctors tend to emphasize a person’s biology (nature) or environment (nurture) as the cause of their behavior. Or a mixture of both. And recently, social media influencers have added their voices to the mix, but not always in a helpful way.

I watched a short video on Instagram, a snippet from the Mel Robbins Podcast interview with Dr. Gabor Maté, a medical doctor, addiction specialist, and bestselling author. She asked him about the links researchers have found between ADHD and addiction.

She said, “What does your research and experience show about childhood and conditions and the connection to addiction?”

After defining addiction and discussing what it is, he goes into what, in his experience, is the issue. He asks Mel Robbins, “But what’s wrong with it? Right about it? What did it [alcohol] give you in the short term that you wanted?” She answers the common things people say, like feeling more confident and relaxed in social gatherings. He corrects her and says, “Help with suffering.” And continues to tell us his mantra, “So addiction wasn’t a disease that you had. It wasn’t your primary problem. It was an attempt to solve the problem of emotional pain and isolation.”

Then he tells her to reframe her question. “Don’t ask why the addiction, ask why the pain. If you understand the pain, look at the person’s life, rather than their genes.”

For a non-expert searching for answers to life’s big why questions, it’s easy to feel comforted by Instagram videos like this one. They are well curated, short, and to the point, but they don’t leave room for complexity. I find the satisfaction short-lived, probably because these videos are not created to show a nuanced discussion. They are made to generate clicks and followers and market books.

Society’s impact on who we become

In society, little consideration is given to a person’s nature or nurture. Anxious or sensitive people are problem people who don’t fit into the mold we call “normal”. They are often shamed, stigmatized, and hated for not behaving like everyone else and lacking the toughness and willpower to change and conform.

Growing up, I wanted a “normal” dad who was employed, didn’t cry at night, and didn’t threaten us with wanting to “do away with himself” whenever life didn’t go his way.

In my young adulthood, I was satisfied with the psychiatrist’s answer. Dad was born sensitive. It made sense. My head was filled with all the stories he had shared from his dysfunctional childhood, and I had lived to experience several of his adult struggles with trauma, unemployment, a failed business, and dropping out of school. In his view and experience, the world was conspiring against him. Nobody could be trusted. Everyone had an agenda for speaking to him. He was always fearful and seeking protection, which he found by isolating himself.

Inheritance

I never met my grandfather. He died the year I was born, but his influence and power over my dad made him feel like an invisible ghost who ruled our home. And here I am, drawing pictures and writing about him.

Growing up, I learned of my dad’s previous selves through the stories he shared from his life. He liked to talk, and I liked to listen. The voice of a hurt little boy touched me the deepest. He shared stories of being hit and bullied by his dad, and told he was weak and never good enough.

Dad’s childhood story about a family trip to the woods is hard to forget. As I’m reconnecting with my own creative child through watercoloring and learning to draw comics, I decided to use my imagination and draw my interpretation of what happened one day in the woods.

Substack writer Leon Macfayden says, “CPTSD isn’t just about what happened. It’s about what never got repaired. What never got acknowledged. What you were forced to carry in silence.”

What is CPTSD? Psychotherapist Pete Walker, and author of COMPLEX PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, says, “Cptsd is a more severe form of Post-traumatic stress disorder. It is delineated from this better known trauma syndrome by five of its most common and troublesome features: emotional flashbacks, toxic shame, self-abandonment, a vicious inner critic and social anxiety.”

Walker says emotional flashbacks “are sudden and often prolonged regression to the overwhelming feeling-states of being an abused/abandoned child. These feeling states can include overwhelming fear, shame, alienation, rage, grief and depression. They also include unnecessary triggering of our fight/flight instinct.”

Walker explains, “It is important to state here that emotional flashbacks, like most things in life, are not all-or-none. Flashbacks can range in intensity from subtle to horrific. They can also vary in duration ranging from moments to weeks on end where they devolve into what many therapists call regression.”

I can relate to what Macfayden and Walker say about CPTSD above. It describes Dad’s suffering well, but also my problems with anger, fear, perfectionism, and having a wicked inner critic.

After my grandfather passed away, he left behind so much unresolved trauma. Dad never found a way to heal. For myself, I am grateful to be in a much better place, but I still obsess over the reasons as to why we turned out so differently. And yet, I am not free. There is a small fear inside me, a fear of becoming Dad. Perhaps I must live with my inheritance, but I hope I don’t ever have to struggle mentally the way he did.

Please leave a comment below if this post provoked any thoughts or feelings. I’d love to read your input.