Hope Architect

Real stories, real healing.

Welcome to hope.

Hey There!

I'm Kierin, a 31 year old self proclaimed nerd, relatively average martial artist, dog dad and spend my days working as a Lead Architect within a boutique consulting firm. Im generally solving complex problems at work, be it business, technology integration or strategic, I sort of do it all. 

At the age of 18 I left my hometown of Gladstone and moved to Sydney (Of all places!) with no clue about what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be and what on Earth I was going to do with my life. I've just passed thirteen years since I moved to Sydney and I look back on the journey I've had with so much gratitude. I'm grateful to the nineteen year old me who realised something was wrong and couldn't live with the daily suicidal thoughts, or the obsessive thinking about whether or not I loved someone, or whether or not I would depersonalise on the spot and lose my sense of self. Hell even as I write this I actually don't remember what the above used to feel like, it honestly feels like a different person. I guess, thats because it is. I came to Sydney trying to solve the question of who I was, little did I know I'd have a hell of a lot more to solve than just that. 

Four years ago, I started this blog to share my journey through childhood trauma, inspired by my dear friend Billy Ward, who tragically took his own life in 2013. Billy's loss was the catalyst for my own healing journey, and his memory continues to inspire and help thousands. I began writing about the challenges I faced, such as abandonment, dissociation, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), loneliness, and other deep wounds. Turning to therapy was the scariest but best decision I ever made. Over the past twelve years, I've come to know and love myself deeply, and I wanted to share my story in the hope that it might help you on your own path.

I started this blog during the final years of the major part of my recovery, and it's now been four years since my last 'official' therapy session. These past four years have been wrought with challenges, losses and a ton of learnings about who I am in relationships, be it friendships or romantic.

This blog is one part stories, where I go into detail about the tools and the journey as I moved through the major parts of my recovery from CPTSD and another part guidance. The guidance section is posts designed to share some of the tools that I have found extremely effective within my life, tools that I use everyday. 

I will be forever grateful to every single person who helped me in this journey, be it the first partner I had that showed me genuine love, the office Mum(s) who took me under their wing, my therapist (Trudy) who literally saved my fucking life, my wonderful family (Mum, Dad, Jason, Alex, Bec, Tegan, Ash, Connor, Saige, Lucas, Grandma, Grandad, Nana) and all of my wonderful friends. 

You have all taught me what real love is. 

Even If I couldn't feel it when you were giving it to me in the time that some of you were here

  • grief and the things left unsaid

    These past few weeks have been filled with the largest amount of pain I have ever experienced in my life. Burying my Mum and watching the grief that has washed across my family has been an absolute fucking tidal wave. I spent years preparing for these moments, working hard to know internally that the relationship…

  • thank you and goodbye Mum.

    TW: I speak of death in this story. Please stop reading here if that is uncomfortable for you, I won’t be offended. đź’ś Growing older brings you many things; the joys of watching your nephews and niece grow old, the sadness that comes with burying grandparents as it becomes their time to go back into…

  • Mother’s Day

    I didn’t choose to write this today, something literally compelled me to come to the keyboard and put what’s going through my mind into words. An energy inside of me knows that this will help someone whether they are at the start or the end of their journey, whereas something externally is guiding me to…

  • becoming secure

    A few years ago I wrote a story titled the love inside of you and in that story I go in detail about how I let go of a past partner that had, for a long time being a major pillar in my life. While at the end of writing that story I felt like…

  • the past year

    Finishing therapy almost two years ago was a wonderful but terrifying feeling, I had no idea what I was going to do for the hour that I would no longer be sitting in my therapist’s sun filled room. Quite a few people have asked me why I haven’t written in a while and I really…

  • the gifts of therapy

    Everything we come to know in life isn’t everything we think it is…the gentle breeze that flows from one tree to another, the hand that touches another’s as they walk down a tree covered park, the memory of a kiss in a stadium of cheers as the world sneaks away… leaving only the two of…