For survivors of trauma, sharing one’s story can feel like opening old wounds on a public stage. The weight of domestic abuse, substance struggles, religious control, or mental health battles often comes with silence, shame, and a paralyzing fear of being misunderstood. But for Nicole Killian, author of You Can’t Count On Me: A Memoir of Unreliability, the path to healing came from truth-telling and laughter.
Killian’s memoir is raw, relentless, and funny. It’s a story of growing up amidst chaos, cycling through unstable households, wrestling with undiagnosed neurodivergence, witnessing substance abuse, surviving emotional and physical trauma, and somehow still finding reasons to laugh. Not because any of it was easy but because humor became her most powerful survival tool.
In You Can’t Count On Me, Nicole doesn’t present herself as a polished hero emerging from tragedy. Instead, she embraces the imperfections, the awkwardness, and the missteps that make her journey both relatable and riveting. Through humor, she reframes pain without minimizing it. Humor, she writes, isn’t how she hides. It’s how she holds on.
Memoir writing, for many survivors, becomes a sacred act of reclamation. It offers clarity, gives structure to the chaos, and reclaims narrative control from the people or systems that once tried to erase it. But when combined with humor, memoir transforms from reflection into connection. Readers don’t just empathize. They laugh, cry, and recognize pieces of themselves in the story.
Killian’s work is especially poignant because it challenges the idea that trauma narratives must always be solemn or sanitized to be valid. By daring to tell uncomfortable truths with wit and sarcasm, she draws attention to the absurdities and contradictions often found in dysfunctional family dynamics, toxic faith communities, and broken social systems. And in doing so, she gives others permission to speak up, even if their stories are messy, unfinished, or imperfect.
The value of humor in trauma recovery is more than anecdotal. Studies show that laughter can reduce stress, regulate emotions, and create a sense of safety and bonding in difficult conversations. For many survivors, humor is a way of claiming agency in spaces where it was once denied. Killian’s voice, sharp and self-aware, exemplifies this beautifully. She shows that it’s possible to hold grief and joy in the same sentence, joke and weep, sometimes simultaneously.
What makes Killian’s memoir stand out is not just the content but the courage it takes to tell the truth without varnish. Her storytelling is bold, reflective, and, above all, human. She reminds readers that healing isn’t linear and that being unreliable doesn’t make you unworthy of love or understanding. In fact, it might just make your story more worth telling.
For those struggling with religious trauma, substance abuse, family estrangement, or neurodivergence, You Can’t Count On Me offers a lifeline. A reminder that you’re not alone and don’t have to be perfect to heal.
Looking for a story that’s brutally honest, hilariously relatable, and deeply moving? Read You Can’t Count On Me: A Memoir of Unreliability by Nicole Killian and learn how humor can be a weapon, a shield, and a lifeline all in one.