The Method in My Madness: How I Structured “The Inheritance of Patterns”

When people hear I’ve written a book about trauma, they often assume it’s just an emotional dump—raw feelings splattered on the page with no particular organization. The reality couldn’t be more different.

Creating “The Inheritance of Patterns” has been a delicate balance between authentic emotional expression and deliberate structural design. Let me pull back the curtain and show you how this book came together.

The Four-Part Framework

Early in the writing process, I realized that simply describing my traumatic experiences wasn’t enough. I needed a consistent framework that could bridge from personal hell to practical transformation.

After many false starts, I landed on a four-part chapter structure that appears throughout the book:

1. MY PERSONAL HELL: Where I share raw experiences from my life
2. THE WIRING THAT FUCKS YOU UP: Where I break down the neurobiological impact
3. BREAKING THE PATTERN: A practical, five-step approach to change
4. REALITY REWRITES: Transformational statements that directly challenge core beliefs

This wasn’t just an organizational choice—it reflects the actual process of healing from trauma. You can’t skip steps. You need to acknowledge what happened, understand how it affected your development, learn specific approaches to change, and finally replace destructive beliefs with more accurate ones.

The Evolution of Voice

One of the biggest challenges was finding the right voice for this material. Too clinical, and it would lose the emotional truth that makes it relatable. Too raw, and it would become overwhelming, even retraumatizing for readers facing similar issues.

If you flip through the book, you’ll notice my voice shifts between sections:

• In MY PERSONAL HELL sections, the writing is visceral, sometimes fragmented, heavy with sensory details.
• In THE WIRING sections, the tone becomes more measured, but still accessible—translating complex neurobiology into language anyone can understand.
• In BREAKING THE PATTERN, I’m more direct and practical, like a guide pointing out the path.
• In REALITY REWRITES, the language becomes declarative, designed to bypass intellectual resistance.

These shifts aren’t accidental. They’re deliberate attempts to match the form to the function of each section.

Writing for Different Learning Styles

I don’t know about you, but I’ve thrown plenty of self-help books across the room when they offered nothing but vague encouragement or, alternatively, drowned me in technical jargon without practical application.

To avoid both traps, I consciously designed each chapter to serve different learning styles:

• For those who learn through story and emotional connection, the opening narratives provide that pathway.
• For those who need to understand the “why” before they can change, the neurobiological explanations serve that need.
• For practical, action-oriented learners, the five-step protocols offer concrete steps.
• For those who process through reflection and mantra, the reality rewrites provide concise reframing.

You don’t have to engage with every section equally. Some readers will skim the personal stories and dive deep into the protocols. Others will find the narratives most healing and adapt the practical steps to their own needs.

The Challenge of Vulnerability

I won’t lie—there were many moments during the writing where I thought, “Do I really need to include this? Couldn’t I just skip the most humiliating parts?”

The paper bag “gunshot” incident with my father. The belt beatings that left marks. The discovery that my biological father had watched me from the football stands before taking his own life. These aren’t stories I enjoy telling.

But every time I tried to sanitize the book by removing the most painful details, something essential was lost. The problem with trauma is precisely that we try to skip the most uncomfortable parts—both in our telling and in our healing.

So I made a commitment: I would include exactly the level of detail needed to convey the pattern, no more (I’m not interested in trauma voyeurism) and no less (I won’t sugarcoat for comfort).

The Four-Phase Arc

Another structural element that might not be immediately obvious is the four-phase healing arc that spans the entire book:

• RECOGNITION (Chapters 1-4): Identifying patterns and their origins
• REFRAMING (Chapters 5-7): Understanding patterns as adaptations rather than flaws
• RECLAMATION (Chapters 8-10): Retrieving authentic aspects of self that were suppressed
• REINVENTION (Chapters 11-14): Creating new patterns through practical implementation

This progression isn’t arbitrary—it reflects the actual sequence of trauma recovery. You can’t skip from recognition directly to reinvention any more than you can skip from kindergarten to college. Each phase builds essential capacities needed for the next.

The Writer Behind the Words

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of writing “The Inheritance of Patterns” has been maintaining my own regulation while diving repeatedly into traumatic material. There were days when I could write for hours, and days when I had to stop after a single paragraph because my nervous system couldn’t handle more.

I developed what I now call “contained exposure writing”—deliberate practices for engaging with traumatic material in ways that promote integration rather than retraumatization:

• Writing in timed sessions with defined beginnings and endings
• Having grounding resources immediately available
• Alternating between emotionally intense and more analytical sections
• Scheduling support immediately after difficult writing sessions
• Setting clear container boundaries around writing time

Without these practices, I doubt the book would exist. You can’t write effectively about trauma when you’re in a triggered state, but you also can’t capture its reality from complete emotional distance.

In the End, It’s About You

Despite all this careful structure and deliberate craft, I want to be clear: this book isn’t about showcasing my writing abilities or establishing myself as some kind of trauma expert.

It’s about creating a lifeline for people still trapped in patterns they didn’t choose but can’t seem to escape. It’s about putting precise language to experiences that may have seemed nameless until now.

“The Inheritance of Patterns” is ultimately a book about recognition—about seeing clearly what has controlled you from the shadows. Because you can’t change what you can’t name.

I hope that reading it will feel less like being lectured and more like having someone walk beside you, shining a light on the path ahead, saying: “I’ve been here too. It’s hard as hell, but there is a way through.”