Broken Mirrors, Steady Ground

Broken Mirrors, Steady Ground

At three years old, Alex Parkview walked up to a teenage neighbor girl and announced, “Hi, my name is Alex Parkview and I’m nine years old.” He knew he was lying. She was pretty, and pretty made him want to be bigger. That moment—bold, impulsive, hungry for attention—set the pattern for everything that followed. In this raw and unflinching memoir, Alex traces a life of fractured reflections: three marriages that crumbled under pressure, two combat tours in Iraq that left invisible wounds, chronic pain that demanded steel in his spine and soon his hip, and the unrelenting echoes of PTSD that turned quiet rooms into battlefields. From a precocious kid chasing girls and escaping into video games, to a young husband enlisting to provide, to a father fighting to stay present through chaos, loss, and rock bottom—Alex learned to hold the pieces together without letting them cut deeper. Through trails that grounded him, music that structured intensity, ancient prayers that anchored chaos, a black cat named Erebus who sensed episodes coming, and the unwavering love of two daughters who witnessed it all, he forged containment: a way to live with what persists instead of being consumed by it. Broken Mirrors, Steady Ground is a testament to survival—not as triumph, but as deliberate, daily choice. For anyone carrying unrelenting weight—veterans, chronic pain warriors, parents holding it together on fumes—this is proof that even a cracked reflection can still show the way forward. Mature Content Warning: Contains explicit language, sexual content, violence, substance use, and discussions of suicide and trauma.