# Re / Membering: What Haunts & What Heals Speculative fiction/literary horror & essays on trauma, faith, & grief. Stitching ourselves back together with what once scared us. Always narrated. Page: Feed: --- ## [The Inheritance | Rereleased](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/the-inheritance-rereleased) _2025-10-23 · Carrie King_ Now with video read-aloud included! A surreal horror short story about family, faith, and a house that remembers everything. A gothic tale steeped in religious trauma and domestic decay. ## [The Inside Girl](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/the-inside-girl) _2025-10-08 · Carrie King_ When I was fourteen, I tried to smoke grass—literal grass—and accidentally set a field on fire. A true story about shame, the dangers of religious sheltering, and the impossible longing to be “in.” ## [How to Feel Like a Failure in 50,000 Unwritten Words or Less // Part 4](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/how-to-feel-like-a-failure-in-50000-3c9) _2025-09-02 · Carrie King_ Buttering Your Squid Slide and Dipping a Baby Toe into the Sea of Medication — as always, fully narrated ## [How to Feel Like a Failure in 50,000 Unwritten Words or Less // Part 3](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/how-to-feel-like-a-failure-in-50000-2e4) _2025-08-19 · Carrie King_ Eight Pages of Proof, A Brick Wall of Graham Crackers, and the Arrival of Wild Woman--Oh, and an ADHD Diagnosis - as always, fully narrated ## [How to Feel Like a Failure in 50,000 Unwritten Words or Less // Part 2](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/how-to-feel-like-a-failure-in-50000-a8b) _2025-08-06 · Carrie King_ A Spotlight of Focus, Creative Constipation, and a One-Car Garage Worth of Shame - as always, fully narrated ## [How to Feel Like a Failure in 50,000 Unwritten Words or Less // Part 1](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/how-to-feel-like-a-failure-in-50000) _2025-07-22 · Carrie King_ An overachieving gal's descent into 17 years of good intentions, shutdowns, and undiagnosed ADHD — as always, fully narrated! ## [The Inheritance: A Gothic Tale of Faith, Family, and Rot](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/the-inheritance-a-gothic-tale-of) _2025-07-08 · Carrie King_ "Seek and ye shall find." A surreal horror short story about a house that remembers everything—steeped in religious trauma and domestic decay. ## [The Audacity of Wanting](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/the-audacity-of-wanting) _2025-06-24 · Carrie King_ A personal essay on the fantasy of being "discovered"—and how I'm making it happen for myself. On purpose. With everything I've got. ## [Bait & Switch: A Slice of Memoir about Fathers, Fictions, & Feeder Fish](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/bait-and-switch-a-slice-of-memoir) _2025-06-10 · Carrie King_ Yo-Howdy, Dear Reader! I've narrated this one for you too! ## [Not My Cross: What the Church Burned into Me](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/not-my-cross-what-the-church-burned) _2025-05-27 · Carrie King_ A narrated true story about childhood trauma in a Christian school, where obedience was demanded, harm overlooked, & the body remembered what the church ignored. ## [Save with community-voted codes (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/Bk4xBSJj30x0) _2025-05-27 · **Sponsored**_ Search thousands of community-verified coupon codes — 100% free, no account needed. ## [How the Light Looked](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/how-the-light-looked) _2025-05-13 · Carrie King_ I don't remember your face or your name. But I do remember which way is north and how the light danced across your shoulder. A lyrical piece on light, memory, and the way we come to understand others by how they shape the light around them. ## [Who Is Doing All of This Well?: What Our Bodies Remember](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/who-is-doing-all-of-this-well) _2025-04-29 · Carrie King_ Modern life demands everything--but our bodies weren’t built for this. A personal essay on modern overwhelm, evolutionary mismatch, and saying no to shame. (And if you like, I can read this to you!) ## [Sleeping My Life Away](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/sleeping-my-life-away) _2024-08-20 · Carrie King_ or Mario on Autoscroll - I’ve spent a lot of my life in bed. Or wishing I were in bed. ## [La Vie en Rose Fluo](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/la-vie-en-rose-fluo) _2024-07-08 · Carrie King_ It was my first day learning how to ski. I had never skied, on land or on water, or engaged with anything that remotely resembled a sport. The body I had successfully walked around in for nearly a decade now felt like a network of cavernous rooms, mysterious and sticky with anxiety sweat. ## ["Hide It Under a Bushel--NO!"](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/hide-it-under-a-bushel-no) _2024-06-24 · Carrie King_ If people are giving Liz Gilbert 1 star ratings, what I am doing trying to please everyone? ## ["Oh How Maddening!"](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/oh-how-maddening) _2024-06-20 · Carrie King_ In Defense of Earnestness Dear Reader, A few years ago, I was writing a provider spotlight piece for a medical publication. I met with the doctor via Zoom to ask a series of get-to-know-you questions so I could best prepare myself to write the piece. ## [Turning Over the Soil of a Decade](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/turning-over-the-soil-of-a-decade) _2024-06-18 · Carrie King_ On Turning 40: The best thing just happened. A door opened, and I slipped through it. It was so easy it happened in my sleep. (I had very little choice in the matter, but I like to pretend I did and that I would have chosen it anyway.) The only sadness I feel is the nostalgia of leaving behind a decade-long friendship with my 30s. I turned 40, Dear Reader. ## [The Goal is Delusion](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/the-goal-is-delusion) _2024-06-12 · Carrie King_ “Please tell me the truth. Don’t bullshit me—I’m as serious as a heart attack: Is my writing any good?” She sat across from me, blinking. She knew I meant business. I knew she would tell the truth, and I waited. ## [Licking Ourselves Up Off the Floor](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/licking-ourselves-up-off-the-floor) _2024-06-11 · Carrie King_ On Radical Self-Love ## [Real SIMs for AI Agents (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/yh0PnZRvk4su) _2024-06-11 · **Sponsored**_ Pass 2FA and verifications with real carrier numbers via our API. ## [Writing Our Own Rubric: On Resisting and Creating Our Self-Made Structure](https://carrieschaeffer.substack.com/p/writing-our-own-rubric-on-resisting) _2024-06-09 · Carrie King_ Why do I constantly invalidate myself?