Episode 40

bonus
Published on:

18th Nov 2025

When Family Feels Like the Wilderness 🌲💔

Today’s Disaster Diary comes to you from the floor of my childhood bedroom–turned–home office, because I needed to feel grounded in the one room that has always felt peaceful and safe.

I talk about feeling physically run down, emotionally raw, and deeply reflective as I sit in that space and reach for my Brené Brown books, especially Braving the Wilderness. Her words about not belonging in your own family crack something open for me, because that’s exactly what this season feels like.

I unpack the tangled mess of:

  • Caring for my mom when she will not care for herself.
  • Feeling like the only “available” adult, and still somehow not enough.
  • My aunt going quiet instead of having a hard conversation, and how that echoes the way my dad’s sister cut me off years ago.

I read and reflect on Brené’s idea that not belonging in our family is one of the deepest hurts we can experience, and how the “third way” — owning our pain and turning it into empathy — is the one I keep choosing, even when it hurts like hell.

There’s talk of job hunting in a saturated market, trying to figure out how to work while managing constant appointments, skipping movement because I feel like garbage, and still tracking protein like the strong bariatric girlie I am.

It’s vulnerable, unpolished, and tender — a real-time snapshot of what it feels like to navigate caregiving, grief, and being the black sheep who keeps choosing compassion anyway.

See you tomorrow for the next installment of the Disaster Diaries. 💛

Key Takeaways

  • Sitting on the floor of her childhood bedroom/office, Sacha reflects on feeling physically unwell, emotionally vulnerable, and deeply alone in this season.
  • She shares how her aunt’s silence and exclusion mirror painful treatment from her dad’s sister, reopening old wounds around not belonging in her own family.
  • Brené Brown’s Braving the Wilderness offers a framework: own the pain, transform it into empathy, and choose compassion instead of numbing or denial.
  • Caregiving responsibilities, a saturated job market, and constant appointments make work feel impossible, adding another layer of stress and stuckness.
  • Even on low-capacity days, Sacha leans into honesty, nearly hits her protein goal, and chooses to keep going — imperfectly, but still moving.

⚠️ Content Note:

This episode includes discussion of family estrangement, painful comments from relatives, caregiving stress, job loss anxiety, and feeling like you do not belong in your own family.

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🏷️ Keywords / Tags

family estrangement, not belonging, Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness, caregiving stress, aging parent care, job search anxiety, Great Recession echoes, empathy and compassion, bariatric life, protein goals, mental health, vulnerability, Disaster Diaries podcast

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📌 Standard Disclaimer

This podcast reflects personal experiences and opinions and is for informational and peer-support purposes only. It is not medical, mental health, legal, or financial advice. Please consult qualified professionals for guidance specific to you.

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About the Podcast

The High-Functioning Disaster
High-functioning on the outside. Hot mess on the inside.
You’ve got the color-coded calendar, the competent job persona, the “I’m fine!” mask down to an art—and a mental load heavy enough to throw out your back. Meanwhile, life? That's a hot mess express—total chaos with zero chill and a full tank of emotional baggage. And what makes it even worse? Nearly no one’s talking about it.

Welcome to The High-Functioning Disaster, a podcast for people who are doing their best to hold it together while navigating burnout, grief, trauma, anxiety, caretaking duties, family drama, body image issues, and a to-do list that never quits.

Host Sacha Holder isn’t the disaster (neither are you!)—life is. And this show is about making space for that truth and giving ourselves permission to say it out loud. Every week, Sacha explores what it means to be deeply human in a world that keeps demanding more. Sometimes she’s flying solo, sometimes she brings along guests and friends—but the vibe is always real, raw, unfiltered, and grounded in radical self-acceptance and permission to be human.

We talk boundaries. Body image. Mental health. Emotional labor. The moments where everything feels like too much—and the ones where we catch our breath and keep going.

This isn’t a self-help podcast. It’s a self-permission podcast.
Permission to be exhausted.
To not have it together.
To be honest about what’s hard—without needing to package it as a “lesson.”

Because you don’t need fixing.
You need space to fall apart—and still be seen.
Because some of us are just trying to make it through the day.
And here? That’s more than enough.
New episodes every Monday. Come as you are. Seriously.
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About your host

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Sacha Holder

Sacha Holder is a project manager, podcast host, and bariatric patient who’s not here to pretend it’s all perfect. With over a decade of professional experience and a whole lot of lived experience, she creates podcasts that tell the truth about what it means to live, heal, and grow — through chaos, and curveballs, while keeping it together (mostly).

She’s the voice behind Life in the Bari Lane, a bite-sized bariatric podcast for real people navigating post-op life, and The High-Functioning Disaster, a show about showing up even when everything feels like too much. Through humor, honesty, and zero judgment, Sacha builds community through conversation — because no one should have to figure it out alone.