A fambush is exactly what it sounds like—a family ambush. But it’s so much more, too. It’s when all your hard-earned growth and adult boundaries are ripped away in an instant, and you’re pulled back into the roles, wounds, and power dynamics of childhood, helpless to stop it. A single comment or action can rattle your nervous system. You’re not responding from the present, but from years ago. How is it that we can come back into presence and agency from this place.

I was 22 and unraveling in ways I could not yet comprehend when I first met Pat Mahoney. He wasn’t famous or a sought-after expert. Google him today, and you’ll find a dated WebMD profile with no reviews, no photo, just a generic silhouette of a man with a stethoscope. But to me—and to countless others—Pat showed us the way back to ourselves.

Culturally, I’ll always be Jewish. My anxiety a daily reminder, though well worth the rights to the jokes. Culturally, I’m also White. I’m first generation White. I’m the first in my family to walk around thinking that I’m White before thinking I’m Jewish. My mother was denied jobs because of her last name. That’s not been my story.