The cover of Ouch, Narcisa: a girl in a mustard sweater sits at the edge of a cliff beside a crooked wooden house, her back to it, watching a blazing pink and orange sunset.

For the ones told they
were the problem.

Ouch, Narcisa.

If my father was a hurricane, my mother was climate change.

Tell me when it’s out

A memoir by S.

you knew the mood from the sound of the dooryou were praised on Wednesday, destroyed on Fridayyou packed a bag in your head for yearsyou shrank and still got blamedyou wanted a life that had nothing to do with heryou still check whether you were the problem

I was fourteen, maybe fifteen. I told my mother, casually, the way teenagers share daydreams out loud, that I thought I might want to live in another country someday.

Silence.

Then she gathered my documents, my actual papers, held them out to me, and said with full cold aggression:

“Here. Go.”

I thought I had said something clumsy. I filed it under intense, and kept going. But she was calibrating me. Teaching me the cost of wanting things, before I had even made a real choice.

She said go. It took me almost two decades to believe I was allowed to.

What’s inside

Written over four years, while I was falling, still hoping, barely alive, and then rebuilding. Spoiler: I made it. Coming early 2027.

  1. A girl in a mustard sweater falling inside a tall canyon, arms out, slightly confused, already below the rim.
    I

    Free Fall

    All the years I didn’t know I was in the air.

    I don't remember the edge. I was born mid-air, and everyone around me called the falling "family." If my father was a hurricane, my mother was climate change. This part is the house, the two of them, and the cult that held Sunday lunch.

  2. A girl in a mustard sweater hanging from a pine branch growing out of the canyon wall, holding on for dear life.
    II

    Hoping on the Way Down

    The last branches, and the leaving.

    They say the third time’s the charm. I tried boundaries, compromise, controlled distance. I twisted the relationship into every shape I could find, looking for a version that didn’t make me want to die. This part is what I found instead.

  3. The same girl on the canyon floor, cheek in the dust; the walls rise out of the top of the frame.
    III

    Not Dead

    The part where I thought I was dead.

    I left, and then I replayed it on a loop for months, with grief and anger trading shifts until I honestly couldn't tell which one was working that day. Then it finally hit me that I was never the anxious one, I was a kid living in a house where staying on alert was the only thing that kept me safe. Knowing that felt amazing, and then it made me furious.

  4. From behind: the girl and a small goat walk side by side as the canyon opens into a pink-orange sunset.
    IV

    Rehab

    Learning to stand on legs I didn’t know were broken.

    I did my own rehab slowly and mostly alone, surrounded by people who were pretty sure I'd jumped. Nobody handed me a net, so I wrote one. And here's the thing nobody warns you about: peace feels a lot like boredom at first.

The same wound, twice

First the scene, from inside the house. Then the mechanism, named so it stops being about your personality. Start with either. I never know which one hits first.

Detail from the cover: the crooked wooden house.
The essay

Uncontrollable People Become the Problem

The role wouldn’t stay still. Tuesday’s golden child is Friday’s problem. Becoming a person was the thing that made you the enemy.

The mechanism, so it stops being personal.
Detail from the cover: the girl sitting alone at the edge of the cliff.
From my life

In My House, the Cult Looked Like This

Fourteen years old. Documents in her hands. “Here. Go.” Then the years it took to find the seam between her thoughts and mine.

The proof, so you know I was in it too.

Of course you’re hypervigilant.you were raised by someone unpredictable.

Of course you have trust issues.you were lied to by the person teaching you what truth looks like.

Of course you still wonder if you’re the narcissist.you were trained to police yourself first.

Of course you feel guilty for protecting yourself.you were trained to put their feelings above your survival.

Of course you’re exhausted.who wouldn’t be?

Are you the scapegoat?

A little test with 116 questions about the house you grew up in. Take it lightly, and don’t be shocked when it reads you like a diary.

Take the scapegoat check

Free, private, and about ten minutes. Your answers stay in your browser. I’m a scapegoat, not a therapist, so this is for reflection only and it isn’t a diagnosis.

A young goat looking straight into the camera.
In our universe, a scapegoat is:

Stubborn. Sure-footed.
Survives in mountainous terrain where other animals would fall off.

A goat in a pink knitted sweater, long blonde hair, pearl headpiece, eyes closed
the author, probably
Plot twist
The scapegoat became the author
Generation
Millennial, with a boomer parent
Favorite coping mechanism
Humor
Took forever to quit
Rumination
Forever practicing
Self-compassion

Hi. I’m S.

Short for Scapegoat. My real name starts with S too, which is either a cosmic joke or just life staying on-brand. I’m not on the cover on purpose. I’d rather you meet the work first, and keep a version of me that’s only yours.

Don’t let the humor or the pink fool you. That’s my coping shelf. It’s there to make the unbearable bearable. Underneath, I’m intense. I take things apart under bright lights and follow them all the way down, because understanding something is how we become sovereign over it.

This book is where I bled in ink. Rage-typed at 3am. Too vulnerable for my own good, and I survived that too, and wrote my way back to myself. But I didn’t write it alone. I wrote it knowing you were out there somewhere with the same grief in your bones. Most people will never understand what binds us. In these pages, we’re family. Not that kind. The kind you actually want to keep.

With you, alwaysS.

You found the others

The net I wish I'd had.

While I was falling, nobody handed me a net. So I made one: the book I needed, and the people who should have been there. There's room in it for you.

What you want to hear about

No spam and no fake countdowns, just me letting you know when something's real. You can leave anytime, no guilt trip included.