Writing My Memoir Wasn’t Cathartic—It Was Torture

"The process broke me so completely that I suffered a stroke."

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Writing can be a release, a way to transform pain into something meaningful. But that wasn’t the case for me. When I sat down to write about my experience as the target of a sadistic stalker, it wasn’t catharsis I found. It was torture. Sentence by sentence, page by page I relived the worst moments of my life. The process broke me so completely that I suffered a stroke.

Why am I doing this? I asked myself and it didn’t take long for me to answer my own question.

I remembered how alone I felt during my experience. How frustrated I was at the lack of resources. Well-meaning websites tell you to keep a log—which is absolutely essential—but I craved more information. The more I researched stalking, the more irritated I became at how stalking is romanticized for entertainment in movies and books.

I wrote Unfollow Me to sound the alarm. To illustrate what it’s really like to live as the target of a sadistic stalker.

But publishing my true crime memoir meant confronting an uncomfortable truth: I played a role in my own story. Not because I was weak. But because I had been raised to see the best in others. I grew up in a time where our culture taught young females to minimize threats, doubt their instincts, and extend compassion.

Growing up in the Deep South, kindness and forgiveness weren’t just virtues. They were expectations.

“Grace and humility are what make us human,” my grandmother used to say as she pushed me on a tire swing strung from an old oak tree. I can still picture the cows grazing in the pasture while her words settled over me like gospel.

Those words didn’t just shape me. They blinded me. These are the elements the stalker exploited. Each red flag I dismissed wasn’t carelessness—it was me trying to be the “good human” I’d been raised to be. I thought I was extending the proverbial olive branch. After all, I had seen the caring side of the man who stalked me.

This book is not just about what happened to me. It’s about what happens every day to people who have been conditioned to doubt their instincts, to excuse cruelty, to swallow fear in the name of “being nice.”

When it came time to decide whether I would publish my memoir, I nearly didn’t. I knew it meant more than exposing my stalker—I would have to expose myself, flaws and all. My blind spots. My vulnerabilities. The humiliating ways I rationalized danger because I thought being forgiving made me strong.

I consulted family. Friends. Even a literary attorney. And still, the weight of the decision pressed on me. Was I ready for strangers to dissect my life? To leave their comments, their judgments, their stars—or their silence?

Over time, I realized something deeply important: if my experience—however difficult—could make someone else feel a little less alone, then maybe it was worth sharing. My words might be describing someone else’s pain. Someone who hasn’t told anyone yet because they feel like no one will believe them. The one who lives in fear and isolation, silenced by stalking.

If my voice reaches them, then silence doesn’t win.

This post initially appeared on the Silver Dagger Book Tours website.