Reletter
Artwork for Cracked Open

Weekly essays, reflections, and a gathering place for people willing to be cracked open by disability, caregiving, and life itself.

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Substack
PricingOnly free issuesPublishesWeekly
Issues80Foundeda year agoLast Issue12 days ago
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davidbyounger.substack.com
Artwork for Cracked Open

Latest Issues

11,700 Minutes

My daughter and me

“No one on his deathbed ever said, ‘I wish I had spent more time on my business.’”
Arnold Zack, in a letter to Paul Tsongas, quoted in Tsongas’s Heading Home (1984)

My daughter comes to say goodbye to me every mor...

12 days ago
35
31

What We're Not Allowed to Feel As Parents

A couple of weeks ago I went live again with Jeannie Ewing, who writes about motherhood and about caregiving for her daughter, who has complex medical needs and is neurodivergent. This time we talked about what we’re not allowed to say and...

14 days ago
8

The Muscle I Can Build

One Foot in Each, digital painting by Judith Alalu, 2026

I have a progressive muscular disease. My body has been getting weaker for most of my life, and the losses keep coming. Things that were once easy become difficult, and what becomes...

19 days ago
44
33

Who Takes Care of the Caretakers? Two Psychologists on Caring for Ourselves While Caring for Others

Last Friday, I did a live with , a clinical psychologist who writes here semi-anonymously about her own struggles rather than her clinical work. We spoke about what it costs to be in the role of the helper and what happens when the helper n...

21 days ago
22
15

The Good Listener

The flowers have arrived, digital painting by Judith Alalu, 2026

People tell me all the time, in one form or another, that they talked more than they meant to. “Wow, I don’t normally talk this much.” “I spoke the whole time.” “You’re such...

a month ago
28
48

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Authors

The writers behind this newsletter.

  • David B Younger

    I’m a husband, father, psychologist, reluctant expert in muscular dystrophy, and recovering neurotic. I’ve spent my life studying what happens inside people as a therapist, meditator, and through a body that made me listen.

  • Jeannie Ewing

    Slow motherhood: I think alongside my five children as we learn to show up with a good heart. Here, you can slow down, think with us, and build bridges in a frenetic and polarized world.

  • Sarah Levis

    I write about disability, power, and the wisdom of lived experience. My work challenges dominant narratives about disability and explores what those narratives reveal about agency, embodiment, and what it means to be human.

  • The Therapist Who Came Undone

    Psychologist and writer, sharing (anonymously, for now) from both sides of the therapy room. This is where the mask comes off. I write about falling apart and the messy, brave work of becoming real.

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