God, what a week. I owe you all an apology for disappearing for several days. Writer’s block hit me hard, and while that happens sometimes, this break was different. I’ve had five drafts sitting half-finished, but this one has been looming in the background.

Give me a second—I need to step back into the wasteland.

For me, the wasteland has always been a kind of refuge. I hate the term “safe space,” but let’s be real—even the loudest critic of safe spaces has one. Fallout has been mine.

Lately we’ve had the seasonal event *Invaders from Beyond*. It’s not a favorite of mine—the rewards feel stale, like I’ve already collected them all. Still, I’ll jump in and play. The premise is simple: aliens in flying saucers trying to extract brain waves from Appalachia’s finest. You meet Homer Sapenstein, the disembodied quest giver, take out waves of aliens, and eventually defeat the general so the world can rest easy… until next hour. It’s ridiculous and unrealistic, but that’s the point. Fun in its own weird way.

But my mood hasn’t been just about gameplay. I’ve been more withdrawn than usual. That’s because of anniversaries—two of them, close together. Not the good kind. In the world of PTSD, anniversaries usually don’t mean celebration. They mean bracing for impact.

I’m not going into detail. Trauma is trauma, and you don’t need the specifics to understand. What devastates one person might look survivable to another. We do too much “trauma comparison” in this world, trying to decide who deserves to be hurt more. It doesn’t work that way. Your pain is your pain, mine is mine. Both are valid.

I will say this: one anniversary marks a brutal sexual assault. The other… I don’t want to talk about. And that’s enough.

Aftermath is my whole life now. Coping, adjusting, surviving. I’ve worked hard to replace unhealthy habits with healthier ones. I’ve built a support system that helps keep me grounded. But anniversaries drag up ghosts, and even years later, they demand attention.

One thing trauma taught me, oddly enough, is empathy. I don’t know when empathy became such a dirty word, mocked as “woke.” It’s not soft or weak. It’s simply recognizing where someone else is in their journey and offering understanding. Sometimes that means help. Sometimes it means silence and presence. Either way, it matters.

The worst part of trauma, at least for me, is the constant urge to apologize—for nothing. For existing. For taking up space. It’s a reflex I wish I could kill, but it clings as tightly as the trauma itself. And it’s common. I’ve noticed so many people with PTSD do the same thing. We apologize just for being.

So yeah, I buried myself in the wasteland today. Knocked out some daily quests, ran solo because most of my friends are on event fatigue by week two. It was quiet. Almost peaceful.

But anniversaries still sting. I wish I could call my mom and hear her say it’ll be okay, just one more time. I always tell people: cherish your mom and your dog. They’re gone sooner than you ever think.

And as Fallout reminds us, *war never changes*. But maybe we can.