For nearly thirty years, Geoff Curtis built an impressive professional identity. The title. The expertise. It became his armor. It shielded him from discomfort, from admitting he didn't have the answers. When the company he worked at was acquired and his role became redundant, that armor disappeared. What followed wasn't a reinvention story. It was an uncomfortable reckoning. He realized he'd spent his entire life using work to suppress his emotions.
He calls this new stage purgatory-the uncomfortable space between who he was and who he is becoming. Most people write about these experiences from the other side. They've found the answers and emerged transformed. But Curtis? He's writing from inside purgatory. He's done pretending he has it figured out. He's ready to learn. Through his vulnerability and the stories of others navigating their own purgatories, he explores what happens when identities collapse. The stories we tell to maintain control. The achievement addiction. The delayed grief. And the depression that follows when façades crack.
This is not a self-help book. It's for anyone who has lost something that defined them. It's for those exhausted from suppressing true emotion. We've all been there. We've all hurried to escape the voids, eager to avoid discomfort. Curtis is taking the first step: saying the quiet part out loud. You are not alone.
