The Therapeutic Power of Naming Your Own Story

I started this podcast series thinking I knew what I was doing.

I had a roadmap. ten episodes. A clear narrative arc from diagnosis to Trikafta. Beginning, middle, end. Neat. Organized. Safe.

What I didn’t expect was how honest I’d have to be. Not for the audience, though that matters, but for myself.

The Revelation in the Revision

A few weeks into writing, I had to completely rewrite my marriage episode. Not because the facts were wrong, but because I was being cruel. I was naming every fault, every failure, every moment of betrayal. I was feeding him to the lions, and somewhere in the middle of writing it out, I realized I didn’t actually want to do that.

I wanted to tell the truth, but I wanted to tell my truth. Not his failings, but my experience of the failure. What it felt like to feel like a burden. What it felt like to be an embarrassment. How the support I needed evaporated into silence.

The revision hurt. But it was honest in a different way.

That’s when I understood: this series isn’t about proving I was right. It’s about understanding why I made the choices I made. And that’s a much harder thing to do.

The Bat Revelation

Then came the bonus episode.

I’ve spent 50 years not connecting the dots. I’ve spent 50 years wondering why I’m so hypervigilant. Why I can’t relax. Why I would rather sneak around than ask for help. Why I built walls so high that even people who loved me couldn’t reach me.

Until I sat down to write about the bat under my bed.

The bat is real. I actually had one. I actually planned combat scenarios when I was nine years old. I actually snuck into my parents’ room like a ghost just to feel safe without asking them to know I needed safety.

And I’ve been carrying that bat my entire life. Just in different forms.

Naming that. Writing it out. Making it concrete instead of vague. That’s therapeutic in a way I didn’t expect. Because now I can’t unknow it. Now when I catch myself refusing help, or managing everything alone, or treating vulnerability like weakness, I can see the nine-year-old with the bat. And I can be gentler with myself about why she needed it.

What I’ve Learned

First: Invisibility is a superpower and a curse.

I spent decades being proud of how well I could hide my CF. I could be on a ski trip where nobody knew I was sick. I could run events and manage 45 pills a day and nobody noticed. I thought that was strength.

But it also meant I couldn’t ask for help when I was literally dying. It meant I minimized my own needs to the point of self-destruction. It meant I built a marriage on the foundation of me managing everything alone, including my own mortality.

Invisibility isn’t strength. It’s just very efficient suffering.

Second: Naming things changes them.

There’s a reason therapists ask you to name your feelings instead of just experiencing them. There’s a reason talking about trauma is healing. Because the moment you say it out loud, it stops living only in your nervous system and starts existing in the world where you can look at it.

I didn’t understand the bat until I named it. I didn’t understand my marriage until I wrote it down. I didn’t understand my survival strategies until I had to explain them to an audience.

The podcast is forcing me to be conscious about my own unconscious patterns. And consciousness is the first step to change.

Third: Vulnerability is not the same as weakness.

I spent 54 years thinking that admitting I was scared meant I was broken. That needing help meant I had failed. That vulnerability was something to hide.

But the response to these episodes has shown me something different. People connect with the parts where I’m most honest. They don’t connect with the achievements or the fundraising or the labs named after me. They connect with the four-year-old girl who was told she wouldn’t make it to first grade. They connect with the nine-year-old with a bat. They connect with the woman who felt like a burden in her marriage.

That’s not weakness. That’s humanity.

What Comes Next

I still have four episodes to record and one bonus. And I’m nervous about what else I’m going to learn about myself.

Because that’s what’s happening here: I’m not just telling stories from my past. I’m excavating them. I’m turning them over. I’m asking hard questions and actually listening to the answers.

This series was supposed to be a creative project. It’s become a form of therapy I didn’t know I needed.

And that’s worth everything.

Stay Fierce | The World Will Adjust

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Nicole’s Notes Podcast launches new episodes weekly. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.