The Everything Kid was written to illustrate how adverse childhood experiences associated with caregiver mental illness directly affects the way choices are made in adolescence and adult life. This riveting, intense, touching, and heartfelt story is about a boy who endures an incredibly traumatic childhood yet finds a way to evolve and grow into the best version of himself, taking his adversity and transforming it into life lessons that become a powerful aspect of his insightful and introspective character. This memoir details the early life of a child caught between two worlds, one of unrelenting cult indoctrination, and another of neglectful, self-indulgent narcissism, with parents who couldn't have been more different. While one parent lived a life of devotion to the Jehovah's Witnesses, the other was a prisoner of her own choices and the chaos of mental illness and substance abuse, leaving the younger version of the author constantly trying to figure out what either parent wanted or expected him to be. Alternating between households that may as well have been different planets, the author endured toxic stress brought on by hostile and unpredictable environments, dodging the wrecking balls being dropped on him by each parent from opposite sides of the crane. Living in a constant state of "fight or flight," he desperately attempted to figure out which parents' version of the truth he needed to follow in any given moment to survive. To obtain the conditional love and attention he desperately wanted, he initially coped by putting others' needs ahead of his own in his adult life, until he finally learned to let go of his attachment to the desire and need to be everything to everyone.
