For Peter J Cervantes, success isn't just about book sales. It's about the impact his writing has on readers. He hopes his words will help people feel less alone in their healing journey and break the silence around mental health in LGBTQ+ communities of color.

Success for me isn't something I can measure yet—my book doesn't come out until spring, and I honestly have no idea what to expect. But I know it won't be about hitting bestseller lists or getting featured in major publications. Success will be measured in messages from readers who say "I thought I was the only one" or "You helped me understand I wasn't broken beyond repair."

The success I'm imagining looks like a young queer person of color reading my story and realizing their family's rejection says nothing about their worth. It's a forty-year-old gay man finally understanding that his anxiety isn't a character flaw but trauma that can be healed. It's someone's parent reading the book and beginning to comprehend what their child has endured, maybe even taking the first steps toward repair.

I'm not naive about the publishing world—I know most books disappear without much notice. But if even a handful of people find what I've written useful, if it helps them feel less alone in their healing journey, then putting my story out there will have been worth the vulnerability and risk.

My primary goal is to add one more voice to breaking the deadly silence around mental health in LGBTQ+ communities of color. We're dying—literally dying—because we've been taught that seeking help is shameful, that our pain is too complex to address, that we should just pray harder or work harder or be grateful for what we have.

I don't expect one book to change everything, but maybe it can contribute to a cultural shift where a young Latino gay man doesn't have to choose between honoring his culture and accessing therapy. Where a Black transgender woman doesn't feel like she has to handle family rejection and systemic discrimination entirely alone.

If my writing helps even one person realize that therapy isn't weakness, that trauma is treatable, that healing is possible even when you're carrying multiple forms of oppression—then it's successful regardless of sales numbers.

The most important success would be inspiring other LGBTQ+ people of color to tell their own healing stories. My experience is just one path through the wilderness—we desperately need dozens, hundreds of different voices sharing how they found their way back to wholeness.

I spent years searching for books that spoke to someone like me—a gay Mexican guy dealing with family rejection, generational trauma, HIV stigma, and the particular hell of existing at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities. I found almost nothing that reflected my specific experience.

If my book encourages other people to write their stories, if it shows publishers and agents that there's hunger for these narratives, if it proves that LGBTQ+ people of color deserve space on bookshelves—that would be the biggest success I could imagine.

I'll be honest—I'm scared as hell about putting this story into the world. Writing it was healing, but publishing it feels like standing naked in Times Square and hoping people are kind. I'm about to share the most vulnerable details of my life with complete strangers, and I have no idea how they'll respond.

What if people think I'm too angry, too damaged, too much? What if my family reads it and feels betrayed by my honesty about our dysfunction? What if the LGBTQ+ community thinks I'm airing dirty laundry that should stay private? What if I've somehow gotten it all wrong?

But I keep coming back to the young person who might pick up my book at 3 AM during their darkest moment. If sharing my mess helps them feel less alone, then the fear of judgment becomes secondary to the possibility of connection and healing.

Since I've never published anything before, I'm learning about success in real time. I'm discovering that even getting a book deal felt like success after years of thinking my story didn't matter. Seeing my words in professional editing software felt like success. Getting cover design options felt like success.

Maybe success is more about the journey than the destination. The writing process itself transformed my relationship to my own trauma. Having to articulate exactly what each healing modality did, how shadow work differed from therapy, why breathwork accessed things traditional talk therapy couldn't reach—all of that deepened my own integration of the work.

I'm realizing that publishing this book might be healing for me regardless of how others receive it. It's my way of refusing to be ashamed of my story, of claiming space for experiences that are often marginalized or ignored.

Real success would mean contributing to conversations that desperately need to happen. I hope therapists read stories like mine and better understand intersectional trauma. I hope parents in traditional communities begin questioning whether rejecting their children actually protects family honor or destroys it.

I want young people to see that healing is possible even when your trauma is complex, even when your family rejects you, even when you feel too broken to fix. I want them to know that the statistics about LGBTQ+ suicide and homelessness aren't inevitable—they're consequences of systems that can change.

The ultimate impact would be contributing to a world where fewer LGBTQ+ people of color have to heal alone, where more families choose love over prejudice, where seeking help is seen as strength rather than weakness.

The success I'm most interested in won't be measurable for years, maybe decades. It's the ripple effects of one person healing and then being able to show up differently in their relationships, their work, their community. It's the possibility that someone reads my story and decides to break a cycle in their own family line.

It's communities where being queer and being a person of color aren't sources of shame but sources of strength and wisdom. Where our intersectional identities are recognized for what they actually are—sources of resilience, creativity, and insight that come from navigating multiple worlds.

The ultimate success would be my book becoming historical artifact—evidence of what it was like to heal from family rejection and cultural trauma during this particular moment, read by future generations who can't imagine a time when LGBTQ+ people of color had to fight so hard for basic acceptance.

Come spring, when the book is actually in people's hands, I suspect I'll learn what success really means. Maybe it's one person reaching out to say the book helped them choose therapy over self-destruction. Maybe it's a parent who finally understands what they put their child through. Maybe it's another writer who decides their story is worth telling too.

I'm trying to prepare myself for the possibility that the book will be largely ignored—that's the reality for most debuts, especially from unknown authors writing about difficult topics. But I'm also trying to stay open to the possibility that it might find its way to exactly the people who need it.

Either way, I'll have done what I set out to do: transform my pain into something that might be useful for others. Whether that reaches ten people or ten thousand isn't entirely up to me.