My mother forced me to become an actor when I was seven, and then refused to let me quit, even though I literally begged her to stop making me work. She used and exploited me to get things she wanted for herself.

I sincerely believed acting was something I wanted to do, because my mother manipulated and gaslighted me my entire childhood. I was completely brainwashed. By the time I was old enough to realize that not only was it not my idea, but that I didn't have to be an actor any more if I didn't want to, I was terrified I would be the huge failure my abusive father always made me believe I was, so I kept trying to be an actor well into my 30s.

In my 40s, I decided to retire from acting on-camera, and use what I'd learned over the years to work as a voice actor, audiobook narrator, and writer. I'm a New York Times bestselling author! And number on audiobook narrator!

I just turned 50 in July. I'm still doing the performing and entertaining work I'm pretty good at, but I'm only doing it on my terms. My favorite thing I'm doing right now is hosting The Ready Room, the official online destination for all things Star Trek universe.

I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life. I'm truly thriving. I've been married for almost 24 years, I have two wonderful children and a daughter-in-law I love like my own. It's a really good life, but I'm not going to lie: I had to crawl through a LOT of shit to get here.

As If Everything Wasn’t Bad Enough

Every election until he dies is going to be January 6. You get that, right? He’s never going to leave. He will never follow the law. He will never uphold the Constitution.

He is a criminal. He is a rapist. He is corrupt to the core. He is a fascist. He is evil and stupid and is the same sundowning old man we saw during the campaign. He’s still the liar who went on and on about people eating pets. He’s still the leader of the coup. If America truly believed in the lies they teach us about our history and our government, he would be in prison right now, for the rest of his putrescent life.

None of this was a secret. The stupid fucking idiots and the deeply evil racists who voted for this piece of shit knew it, and they voted for him, anyway. A lot of them voted specifically because they knew that.

Fuck them.

I will never forget, and I will never forgive them for what they did to us.