I was born April 21, 1971 in Baltimore, Maryland, but I grew up in nearby Glen Burnie. I also spent plenty of time with my paternal grandparents in Manassas, Virginia, so I feel like a native Virginian as well as Marylander. I am very proud to be a Southern lady. My granddad once told me, “Never forget you’re a Southerner!”, and I have not.
I married my husband, Eric on September 24, 1998. Together, we are the parents to several wonderful cats. You can see our family by clicking here: Cynthia’s Family. Eric and I share a love of animals, classic cars, NASCAR, drag racing, monster trucks and more. Together we have four cars we are trying to restore – his late grandfather’s 1969 Chevelle (no, it is not for sale, so do not even bother asking.. lol), my first car which is a 1978 Buick Skyhawk, my 1970 Oldsmobile Delta 88 and my late Granddad’s 1969 Plymouth Fury.
I also enjoy electronic gadgets, music, crochet, knitting, movies, thrift stores, learning about the Victorian era and exploring my Native American Indian and Irish heritages. My paternal grandmother’s grandmother was full American Indian, so I admit, I do not have much in me, but I am proud of it anyway. My husband is mostly German as am I, so we also enjoy exploring that heritage as well.
I always enjoyed reading (especially scary/suspenseful stuff) and writing as long as I can remember. I honestly never expected it to be a career, even though I always thought it would be a wonderful one. In eighth grade, my junior high school had a poetry contest. I won first place. It was a huge confidence booster for me. I wrote a few more poems through high school, and thoroughly enjoyed creative writing classes. After graduation, I only tinkered with the occasional poem until about 1994 when I started writing poetry more frequently for a few years. Some of the poems I wrote have been published at: www.Poetry.com
In 1999, I started a small ministry for people with depressive disorders. I suffered all my life withdepression, so it seemed the natural thing for me to do is help others with depression as God helped me. I discovered during this time that the bi-monthly newsletter I sent out was my favorite part of running this ministry. I wrote the entire newsletter, but coming up with little encouraging articles was my favorite part. I gave up that ministry in 2002, and began writing more, as that is where I felt God was leading me.
I really got serious about writing books a couple of years later. One day, I was working in one of our gardens outside, after cleaning our house. As I was digging around, I told God, “I can’t wait ’til tomorrow when I can goof off and write instead of working all day!” Loud and clear, I heard His voice say, “Writing isn’t your reward – it’s your purpose.” I never heard His voice so clearly before, so I realized the seriousness of this calling, and decided it was time to focus on writing to glorify God. I have asked for His guidance on what exactly to do, and He has given it to me.
In 2011, I first learned about Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Suddenly, my entire life made sense. I had struggled with the relationship with my parents for years. In spite of trying to fix it, it never got better. Learning about narcissism taught me that I alone could NOT fix the relationship, and was not the problem as my mother always told me.
In 2012, I had my first flashback. Other symptoms of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or C-PTSD, appeared, too. I always had lived with depression, anxiety, sleep troubles and nightmares, but suddenly I became moody, had more nightmares, more sleep problems, anxiety got much worse and then the flashbacks showed up. I thank God He showed me what was going on because the symptoms were terrifying at first.
I learned everything I could about both Narcissistic Personality Disorder and C-PTSD. Suddenly it seemed clear what I needed to write about. I felt God was telling me to write my autobiography, and I did.
Writing my autobiography was a tough decision and an even tougher process to do. I also was concerned about my parents finding out about my book. Thank God, he kept that from happening. He also enabled me to start my blog, expand my website, create my Facebook group and write more books about narcissism.
Having suffered a great deal of narcissistic abuse in my life, my greatest desire with my writing is to help other survivors. (You can read more details about my storyhere ). Developing Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or C-PTSD as a result of the abuse lit a fire in me to focus on helping to teach others about this awful disorder, narcissistic abuse and about Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I have loved animals (admittedly, more than many humans) since I was born, and I also plan to use my work to help people realize that animals are God’s gift to humanity, worthy of our love and respect.