p.s. — you're allowed to laugh.

Do stories about trauma *have* to be sad? 

I recently shared that I’d submitted a series I’d written called Everything Is Fine to the Sundance Episodic Lab. 

Everything is Fine, or EIF for short, is a half-hour episodic comedy drama, with an emphasis on the comedy. Think 90% shenanigans, 10% gut punch. 

It’s a comedy drama about an isolated abuse survivor who finds herself all at once struggling with PTSD, kicked out of her traditionalist Chinese mother’s house, and surrounded by an eclectic group of college roommates — introduced by a long lost childhood friend. 

Welp, that sounds suspiciously personal. Is this… about you? 

Sort of. Not quite. Let me explain. 

I began imagining the world of EIF in 2020 as a means of creating a reality where victims of sexual violence could receive justice in a way that I (and so many of my personal friends) never did. 

If I couldn't get justice, I would create a version of me who could.

But when I started writing toward this pinnacle — a legal win against the man who’d scarred me — I didn’t feel like I was translating pain into fiction. I felt like I was erasing what had saved me in reality: a chosen family so welcoming, so funny, and so real that I felt alive again.  

So I decided to tell a story — not hinged on a case outcome — but centered on the many ways a survivor could heal, whether systems of justice succeeded or failed. 

Though the characters and events are fictional, this is, by far, the most personal story I've ever told on paper. It draws from my own experience of coming to terms with sexual violence and familial trauma in an immigrant household in the conservative, purity-cultured, Christian South. 

Nearly a decade removed from my sexual abuse, I still grapple with the implications. But, on the whole, I’m happy and healthy — two things I honestly thought I could never be again. 

Are you sure this is a comedy? 

Positive. 

Comedy has always been my favorite genre. I turn to comedies when I’m bored and want entertainment, but also when I’m depressed and need cheering up. 

But something I’ve noticed is that people actively going through trauma are rarely depicted in brighter comedies — a notable exception being Mindy Kaling’s Never Have I Ever, a series I personally adore. But for the most part, there’s a pretty strict dichotomy in media: either you’re going through it and do nothing but cry in the dark, or you’re doing pretty okay and are subsequently allowed to have fun. 

And on the one hand, it makes perfect sense. Abuse isn’t funny. And SVU has told us that sexual abuse, in particular, is “especially heinous” (DUN DUN).  

But on the other hand, this dichotomy can easily be internalized as this harmful divide: fun, love, and laughter are for people who’ve never been abused or who’ve somehow already found a way to become unaffected. 

And for people who’ve suffered abuse with far-reaching and long-lasting effects, healing can often feel improbable, if not impossible.

But amidst crushing shame and consuming sorrow, some very loving, self-described weirdos saved my life. They never undid my trauma (they never could). But they did give me a million buoys — a million small, silly, ridiculous buoys — so that the grief wouldn’t swallow me whole. 

For me, fun wasn’t just permissible in my healing as a sexual violence survivor; it was pivotal. 

Steph… are you okay? 

I figured I’d go ahead and cover this. If you’ve cared to read this far, I’m assuming you probably know me and care about me to some degree, and I’m guessing at least some of you may be learning about my experience for the first time. 

The basics: I’ve been in and out of therapy for nearly a decade now, I have a robust support network of people I trust, and I write all of this from a place of safety.

In truth, writing EIF has been largely cathartic for me. I feel privileged to have the ability, time, and hindsight to write a tragically optimistic story that I get to share with the world, because the anguish that threatened to take me out didn’t. 

This story is a love letter to my mom, my friends, and every girl I’ve ever been. 

And I can’t wait to share it with you.