It started with one song.

I never planned a whole album.

I just needed to get the pain out of my body and turn the noise in my head into something I could hear.

The first single, “Learning to Laugh Again,” nearly broke me, and the songs that followed did break me.

I would write, create, collapse, disappear for days, then come back and do it again.

Each time I was triggered, it took everything not to reach out to her.

That’s what a trauma loop is.

Your body screams, “Get out, she’s unsafe,” then is ready to go back into it the next morning.

The addiction is real. Betrayal changes your brain.

In the beginning, the back and forth isn’t controllable.

You know it doesn’t make sense, but you get stuck in a loop.

Some people stay stuck looping for years, or even longer.

Betrayal trauma hijacks your sense of safety, love, and logic.

Reality cracks. You lose all sense of color. You think and speak in black and white.

When you’ve been gaslit, lied to, and manipulated, your reality shatters and you obsess over the pieces.

In case you’re wondering, yes, I was open to trying to save the relationship.

It was over three and a half months of trying, therapy, prayer, research, counseling, meditation, and writing.

I read those twenty pages of texts hundreds of times.

I filled multiple journals hunting for the source of the pain and trying to figure out how all of this could happen.

The pain from the initial trauma sent me to the hospital. For five hours I lay there, thinking I was dying, that my heart couldn’t handle all she had done.

I wouldn’t wish that pain, or how alone it felt, on anyone.

I’m just a regular guy who’s been through trauma before, but this one nearly erased me.

Writing these songs became my therapy, a way to pull every buried layer to the surface, feel it, release it, and let it stop owning me.

This album isn’t an attack on the woman who betrayed me. It’s a record of survival.

Literally survival.

It’s my experience during the most difficult period of my life.

Losing your best friend and the person you loved in such a devastating, disrespectful, and heartless way that slow-dripped on your heart for months would wreck any human.

They say betrayal trauma is the most profound and painful human experience.

As someone who has experienced multiple rounds of trauma in my life, I can tell you it’s true.

This experience was like taking every bit of pain I’ve ever felt in my life, multiplying it by a thousand, and living with it for months on end.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours using every healing modality I knew and sought out others to do more since the betrayal happened.

A lot of things helped, but it was going through hundreds of pages and journal entries to find words for what I felt and turn them into songs that became the hardest, and most healing work of all.

Now that the songs are finished, I feel like a different man.

A weight has been lifted off my chest.

I can breathe.

I’m able to revisit the trauma in new ways to continue to heal, and it’s working.

Life is already unfolding in unexpected, but very welcome, ways.

Betrayal trauma isn’t only emotional; it’s physical.

Anxiety, insomnia, panic attacks, and body-level panic that feels like dying.

You grieve not just the other person, but the version of yourself who trusted.

And yet, healing is possible, slowly, painfully, beautifully possible.

Music became the bridge between the worst thing that ever happened to me and the person I’m becoming.

I’m not using trauma to define me. I’m using it as fuel to grow and to become the best version of myself.

That’s what I want for you, too.

These songs are my map out of hell.

I’m sharing them with the intention that they help someone out there feel less alone as they heal from betrayal.

I see you.
I feel you.
You’re not alone.

What someone did to you is a reflection of their character, not yours. I know it hurts like hell. I know it feels like you’re dying.

But you can transmute this energy into growth, to shed layers you no longer need, to awaken pieces within you that you didn’t know were there, to take that one ember, that one spark inside of you that remains, and use it to build an inferno inside your soul.

You will laugh again. You will rise from the ashes. You will become stronger. You can unlock a new purpose in life.

Keep going.
Keep healing.
Trust that God has bigger plans.

If you’re in betrayal trauma right now, you’re not crazy and you’re not broken.

Your body is reacting exactly the way it should to danger and loss, but don’t face it alone.

Reach out to a friend, to family, or to a therapist or coach who understands this level of pain.

There are people who can help you.

Surround yourself with them the best you can.

Keep creating.
Keep talking.
Keep moving.

Healing isn’t always fast, but it’s real.

Stay strong.