My Journey
I'm a physician. I had 23 years of clinical experience when I hit a wall. In September 2018, I had an intracerebral bleed during brain tumour surgery. Permanent double vision. Imperfect balance. Months in treatment-resistant depression afterward.
I tried antidepressants. None worked. So I used. First codeine, then alcohol. Both as escape from the pain in my head and the weight in my chest.
Codeine taught me the longest lesson. Eighteen years of it. Not theatrical—just quiet, daily relief from being present in my own body. It was the first hunger I learned to name.
Alcohol came later, after the intracerebral bleed, as a way to escape the double vision and the depression that no drug could touch. Five months ago, I stopped.
No medication fixed it. I fixed it.
I lost both my parents and two siblings. I've sat with people at the edge. I know what psychache is—not just sadness, but that particular hunger for return, for meaning, for home that shows up as addiction, self-harm, and the things we do to numb.
Recovery is not about the absence of craving. It's about knowing what you're hungry for is not in that bottle, that needle, that behaviour. It's somewhere else. It's in presence. In witnessing yourself without judgment. In knowing someone understands.
This app is for you to track the days and remember why you're counting them. I'm here because I know what it takes.
"The wound is the place where the Light enters you." – Rumi
What Is Psychache?
Edwin Shneidman named it. Psychache is not depression. It's not anxiety. It's the specific pain of being alive without wholeness. The hunger to return. The sense that something is missing, broken, irretrievable.
Addiction looks for relief from psychache. So do behaviours that hurt. We're not broken. We're hungry.
Three Layers of Hunger
1. Neurobiological
Your brain is re-wiring. Dopamine, neural pathways, the reward system. This is not weakness. This is neuroscience.
2. Trauma
The stories you're carrying. The things that happened and the way you learned to survive them. Healing is remembering you survived.
3. Spiritual Hunger
The return home. Belonging. Being witnessed. This is the deepest layer. No substance reaches here. Only presence does.
Your recovery touches all three. Be patient with yourself.
Reflect Today
Take five minutes with one of these.
What am I hungry for today that is not in my substance of choice?
What did I do today that my past self would be proud of?
Who witnessed me today? Who did I witness?
What layer am I working on right now—neurobiological, trauma, or spiritual?
If I had unconditional presence from someone right now, what would I need to say?
What does 'home' mean to me if it's not where I've been?
This is Your Space
Nothing here is about perfection. Write badly. Be raw. This is not therapy—it's witnessing yourself the way someone who cares would. That someone is you.