A therapist asks Elliott what is causing her depression, opening the book's central inquiry into mental illness.

Elliott's sister Missy reveals the Mohawk word for depression, giving Elliott language to understand her own suffering.

Elliott identifies that her depression checklist mirrors the documented effects of colonialism on Indigenous peoples.

Elliott recalls being taught at school to feel ashamed of her Indigenous heritage.

At age 25, Elliott reads her first book by an Indigenous woman and feels profoundly seen for the first time.

Elliott begins dating Mike, a young white man she has long had a crush on.

Elliott confirms she is pregnant at a walk-in clinic after missing her period by a month.

An adoption worker pressures Elliott to disclose her family's history of mental illness, upsetting her in front of Mike.

Elliott decides to keep her baby rather than pursue adoption after the upsetting meeting with the adoption worker.

Elliott is on a family vacation when she learns that Gerald Stanley was acquitted for killing Colten Boushie.

Elliott's family moves in with her white maternal grandmother after falling into homelessness.

Elliott's grandmother throws the mixed-ancestry children out because of lice but allows fully white sister Teena to stay.

Elliott discloses her experience as a sexual assault survivor and examines the impossible expectations placed on survivors.

Elliott finally acknowledges that she has severe depression and anxiety, a realization she has long resisted.

Elliott reveals her father's physical and emotional abuse and connects it to Canada's colonial extraction mentality.

This pool tracks the most pivotal events in Elliott's essay collection, from her opening confrontation with depression to her final revelation about her father's abuse. It follows her discovery that her mental illness mirrors the documented effects of colonialism, her fraught entry into the literary world, and her teen pregnancy with Mike. It traces her family's years in poverty and homelessness, her grandmother's racist treatment of her mixed-ancestry children, and her growth as a survivor of sexual assault. The pool moves through her gradual recognition of her own depression and anxiety before ending with her connecting her father's abusive behavior to Canada's colonial extraction mentality. Together, these events form the backbone of Elliott's central argument that personal trauma and systemic oppression are inseparable.

The headline moments shaping Elliott's identity and argument.

Elliott's mother feels threatened by her husband's deepening connection to Indigenous identity and actively pushes back against it.

Elliott learns to use her white appearance to shield herself from mistreatment directed at visibly Indigenous people.

Elliott gives birth to a baby who appears white and feels a complicated mix of relief.

Elliott distances herself from college classmates, unable to face potential judgment for being a teen mother.

Elliott visits her child at Mike's mother's home and hears them say something that sounds like 'mama.'

Elliott compares the gentrification of her former Toronto neighborhood to the colonial displacement of Indigenous peoples.

Elliott and her younger sister Missy are caught shoplifting at a convenience store.

Elliott describes her family's years-long battle with lice as a symbol of their persistent, grinding poverty.

Elliott connects the sugar in cheap packaged food to the systemic barriers that trap poor families in unhealthy eating.

Elliott links the starvation of First Nations children in residential schools to the intergenerational health crises Indigenous Canadians face.

Elliott writes a brief letter to Mike acknowledging the cycles of violence they both survived to build a life together.

Elliott describes the cases of Cindy Gladue and Amanda Knox to show how women are punished for not performing grief correctly.

Elliott describes her mother's pattern of vibrant mania followed by weeks of completely unresponsive catatonic depression.

Elliott watches her father repeatedly force her mother into psychiatric institutions without her knowledge or consent.

Elliott criticizes Canadian Prime Ministers for repeatedly pandering to Indigenous communities without following through on their promises.

This pool captures the significant but secondary events that deepen Elliott's portrait of life as a Haudenosaunee woman in Canada. It begins within her family dynamics — her mother's resistance to Indigenous identity, Elliott's own painful choice to pass as white, and the bittersweet experience of giving birth to a white-appearing child. It moves through the social pressures of teen motherhood, the gentrification of spaces she once called home, and the everyday poverty her family navigated. It also explores the systemic failures affecting Indigenous health and food security, the intimate letter of love she writes to her husband, and her father's repeated institutionalization of her mother without consent. The pool closes with a critique of Canadian political leaders who have consistently failed Indigenous people.

The secondary moments that fill out Elliott's world.

Elliott traces a thread of suicidality running through her own life and the broader history of First Nations peoples.

Elliott describes how European settlers deliberately demonized Indigenous peoples to justify colonial greed and the erasure of Native histories.

Elliott describes feeling as though she is drowning when forced to choose between her white identity and her Indigenous heritage.

Elliott feels tokenized by white editors who reduce her to her Indigenous identity rather than engaging with her actual writing.

Elliott writes about her turbulent homelife for the first time in her final year of studying English Literature.

Elliott compares dark matter's invisibility to the way racism against Indigenous people goes unseen by those who refuse to look.

Elliott's baby brother Jon is burned by hot tar during a violent incident involving their drug-addicted uncle Jerry.

Elliott calls the police during the hot tar incident, and her family erupts in fury at her for exposing family secrets.

Elliott connects her own empty-calorie childhood diet to the science of epigenetics and trauma passed down through generations.

Elliott asserts her right to intentionally forget her sexual assault rather than perform public grief for others to believe her.

Mike begins experiencing severe bouts of clinical depression in university, and Elliott vows not to handle it as her father did.

Supporting Mike's mental health gives Elliott new insight into the dynamics of her parents' troubled relationship.

Elliott shows how the 'too Native or not Native enough' critique is used to police and silence Indigenous writers.

Elliott describes white photographers who documented Indigenous people as a vanishing curiosity, reinforcing colonial myths without their consent.

Elliott poses direct questions to readers, asking them to examine whether their own desires are rooted in colonialism and capitalism.

This pool focuses on the key discoveries and emotional shifts that change how Elliott understands herself and the world around her. It opens with her tracing suicidality and colonial violence through First Nations history before following her struggle with the impossible double bind of biracial identity. It moves through her tokenization in the literary world, her first confrontations with racial injustice, and the violent incident involving her brother that forces her to choose between family loyalty and safety. The pool also charts her evolving understanding of trauma — through epigenetics, sexual assault, and Mike's depression — and her growing recognition of how colonial systems replicate the dynamics of abusive relationships. It ends with Elliott turning to face the reader directly, asking them to examine their own complicity.