For years, I did everything right. I built a life that looked good enough to hide the truth: that underneath it all, I was still trying to outrun a childhood I couldn’t fully remember.
"Cardboard Houses" is a story of surviving childhood sexual abuse, spiritual manipulation, and emotional erasure—and what it really takes to reclaim your life when the stories you thought were true fall apart. It’s about memory, dissociation, rage, dark humor, and the slow, sacred work of coming back to yourself.
I wrote this book for the women who’ve been silent too long. For the ones still piecing it together. And for the ones who are done blaming themselves for what they didn’t choose.
If you’ve ever tried to dress up your pain in perfection, this book is for you.
If you’ve ever collapsed under the weight of your own survival strategies, this book is for you.
And if you’ve ever wondered whether healing is still possible—whether joy is still possible—this book is my answer.
A Memoir of Survival, Collapse,
and Coming Home to Yourself
coming soon!
Because surviving isn’t the finish line.
Because building a life that looks fine on the outside doesn’t mean you feel safe inside it.
Because something in you knows: holding it all together is not the same as healing.
This book is for the woman who’s been living with a question she can’t quite name.
Who remembers everything—or almost nothing—but carries the ache either way.
Who’s tired of managing, performing, or pretending, and is starting to wonder if there’s something more.
"Cardboard Houses" isn’t about fixing yourself.
It’s about seeing yourself clearly—maybe for the first time.
It’s about reclaiming joy, feeling whole in your own skin, and finally building a life that feels like home.
The woman ready to live a life beyond what she currently knows.
who this is for...
anne piombino
Healing isn’t just crystals and vision boards. Sometimes it’s crying with snot on your face. Sometimes it’s rage.
And sometimes—thank God—it’s funny as hell.
sing up to follow the journey!
Annie Piombino is a trauma-aware life coach, writer, and speaker who helps women unlearn the stories that kept them small and remember who they were before the world told them otherwise.
A survivor of childhood sexual abuse, spiritual manipulation, and decades of silence, Annie brings raw honesty, dark humor, and deep compassion to every conversation she leads. After reclaiming her voice and healing what once felt unhealable, she created a six-month signature program that distills her 30-year journey into a practical, soulful roadmap for others. Her work blends grounded tools like parts work and journaling, with nervous system wisdom, intuition, and sacred irreverence.
When she’s not writing or coaching, Annie can be found behind a camera, painting in her studio, or spending time with her husband and son. They share their home with a dog and two cats—one of whom was semi-feral and spent two years pretending not to care before deciding bedtime snuggles were her idea all along.
'Cardboard Houses' is her first book.