I Could Control My Voice

🎙️ What I Couldn’t Control

 I couldn’t stop them.

I couldn’t undo the harm.

I couldn’t control the corporate actors who retaliated against me or the attorney who wouldn’t stay out of my inbox.

But I could do one thing.

That realization is what pulled me out of the spiral this weekend.

I had finally reached a point where I was trying to return to my life — to keep healing, to focus on my IOP treatment, to breathe again.

When Sun Life finally agreed to pay the disability benefits I was owed, I stopped my cartoon series.

I had been publicly clowning them on social media, but once they paid, I let it go.

And then, out of nowhere, their opposing counsel started sliding into my inbox like a bad ex-boyfriend — pressuring, poking, pretending it was just procedural.

It wasn’t.

It sent me right back into the place I had worked so hard to crawl out of:

the trauma spiral — rumination, fixation, insomnia, that sharp edge of panic where your brain just won’t let go of the violation.

Where you’re screaming inside your head:

“Why won’t they just leave me alone?”

And I knew, this time, I couldn’t stay there.

I had to do something.

💡 So I Started Posting

Not angry rants. Not legal threads.

I started with joy.

With petty.

With satire.

With my pets.

Because yes, I have a whole bunch of them — and yes, they all gotta earn their keep.

So I brought them into the campaign.

🐶 Luke, the side-eye dog — on TikTok.

🐕 Roxy and Spot, fighting over couch territory — on Twitter.

🐈 My daughter and Ringo, our blind cat — in a post that’s now been viewed thousands of times.

And all of them had something to say:

“Sun Life needs to pay disability benefits to people when they are ill or injured.”

That was the chorus.

🤠 Meet Cowboy Bill

Then there was Cowboy Bill — Sun Life’s opposing counsel turned cartoon character.

I didn’t invent him. I processed him.

He entered the arena when he wouldn’t leave me alone —

so now he lives in a cartoon world of villainous side-glances and law degrees made of tumbleweed.

And the more I posted,

the more I laughed.

The more I laughed,

the more I healed.

And for the first time in days,

I slept.

✨ Healing Through Humor

When I woke up and saw advocacy accounts liking and sharing the posts, I was stunned.

That wasn’t the point.

I wasn’t trying to go viral.

I wasn’t trying to be visible.

I was trying not to break.

Trying to stay whole.

Trying to avoid the PTSD spiral that nearly killed me the first time.

This is the only thing that’s helped me process all of it — using my voice.

In my own voice.

With my own style.

Through satire, storytelling, cartoons, pets, and platform.

🎓 Yes, It’s Still Me

And I know what they’re probably thinking:

“Is this really an Ivy League graduate? A triple board-certified neurologist? A public advocate? A national medical-legal expert? A former Stroke Director? Clowning us with TikToks and cartoon memes of her dog and opposing counsel?”

Yes.

Yes, it is.

Because this woman right here —

She’s multifaceted.

She survived.

She speaks.

And she’s not done yet.

🕊️ The Lesson

When I couldn’t control the retaliation,

the courts,

the silence,

or the cruelty —

I could still control one thing:

my voice.

And that voice?

It’s louder than ever.

✊🏾 Join the Phoenix Advocacy Network

✊🏾 Join the Phoenix Advocacy Network

📣 Follow PAN to hear stories from whistleblowers, healthcare workers, and survivors who are reclaiming their voices.

💬 Share your story — humor, healing, or heartbreak, it all matters.

🕊️ Use your platform — because your voice might be the one that saves someone else.

When you can’t control the system, control your voice — and make them listen.