Life after survival, beyond the false summit

Reconstructed is a book in progress about the overlooked terrain of survivorship—the psychological, relational, and nervous-system aftermath that begins when treatment ends.

When cancer treatment is over, the cheering starts. But for many survivors, this moment feels less like relief and more like disorientation. The body still feels unsafe. Identity feels fractured. And there is little guidance for how to live in the space between survival and wholeness.

I call this moment the false summit—the place where we expect the climb to be over, only to realize there is more mountain ahead.

Why This Book Exists

As a therapist and cancer survivor, I expected healing to follow survival. It didn’t.

What followed treatment was not transformation, but trauma: nervous-system dysregulation, grief, identity loss, and the quiet realization that survivorship is not a return to who you were—it is a process of reconstruction.

This book was born from the gap between what survivors are told to expect and what many of us actually experience. It exists to give language to a part of the journey that is often endured alone.

What Reconstructed Explores

This work sits at the intersection of lived experience and trauma-informed insight, and explores:

• Life after treatment ends

• The “false summit” of post-traumatic growth

• The nervous system after survival

• Identity loss and meaning-making

• Grief, embodiment, and pleasure

• Reconstruction rather than recovery

An Invitation…

This work is for survivors, clinicians, and anyone navigating life after survival.

If you’d like to follow along as the book unfolds, you’re welcome here.