Allison Holker Realized to Search Assist After Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss’ Demise (Unique)

Since her husband, Stephen “tWitch” Boss, died by suicide in December 2022 at age 40, Allison Holker has endured an emotional tsunami.

Early on, she felt grief so deep her bones ached. Shortly after got here an unbridled rage.

“The final two years I used to be hit with blow after blow after blow,” Holker, 36, tells PEOPLE solely on this week’s cowl story, on newsstands Friday. “I’ve been attempting to launch all this anger, and I am studying there’s at all times going to be a second once I get actually unhappy or actually offended or get actually confused.”

In her weak new memoir, This Far: My Story of Love, Loss, and Embracing the Mild (out Feb. 4), Holker — who’s opening up for the primary time concerning the painful demons she found her late husband was going through in his remaining days — particulars falling for the charismatic Montgomery, Ala., native after her personal tough childhood, grappling with emotions of betrayal after his dying and discovering goal in serving to others who’re struggling silently.

“It actually hurts me that Stephen held every little thing in for so long as he did,” says Holker, who stays protecting of her late husband’s reminiscence. “He was at all times so robust for everybody.”

After his dying, Holker began the Transfer With Kindness Basis and has teamed up with the Nationwide Alliance on Psychological Sickness in his honor to assist psychological well being initiatives. She needs everybody — particularly their daughters Weslie, 16 (her baby from a earlier relationship), and Zaia, 5, and son Maddox, 8 — to really feel protected opening up about their vulnerabilities.

“It is necessary for me to share the reality to make issues simpler for another person,” she says. “I need somebody that perhaps is fighting their very own psychological well being and having questions of in the event that they need to take themselves to the opposite aspect — do not do it as a result of you are going to have an effect on far more folks than you ever knew. For those who simply ask for assist, somebody may provide help to discover the sunshine once more.”

Holker and her youngsters started intense remedy in 2023, and she or he admits it is solely just lately that she’s realized “it is okay to not be okay.”

“When Stephen began being at his lowest, he would attempt to open up just a little bit about issues, [but] he was very cautious about his wording. I want he would’ve felt snug asking for assist, needed to go to remedy and speak to his associates or family members,” she says.

“I do not need to fall into the identical triggers Stephen did. For the final two years, I felt like I needed to get my household via every little thing, and I spotted I have not taken a second to additionally heal myself,” Holker continues. “I am attempting to permit [help] now in my life. Let a therapist assist me, let my daughter assist me, let my associates assist me. I am struggling just a little bit with it nonetheless, however I am placing my finest step ahead.”

A lot of her core recollections with Boss now really feel clouded by trauma, however she’s labored exhausting to compartmentalize. “I must do not forget that we nonetheless shared such a fantastic love, and he was such a fantastic dad,” she says. “I do not need each reminiscence to show into one thing so unhappy or one thing I am so mad at.”

She’s additionally began to simply accept she’s going to by no means have all of the solutions. “I am not going to have closure. My youngsters aren’t going to have closure. That is nonetheless one thing I am nonetheless attempting to know myself, which is why remedy is fantastic,” she says.

Her daughter, Weslie, is now across the identical age as Holker was when she began pursuing her dance profession. “The No. 1 factor I need to do for Weslie is give her the power to deal with something that she is going through,” says Holker, who grew up poor and confronted intense bullying whereas working as a janitor at a dance studio in her teenage years.

“That is actually what I need for my youngsters. Simply hold taking steps ahead. Issues are going to return hit you, and that is okay,” she says.

A 12 months in the past they settled into a brand new home — which seems like a contemporary begin.

“I used to be beginning to really feel so heavy carrying all these feelings and recollections in my final house. It was an enormous second for our household to determine collectively that we have been going to maneuver ahead,” she says. “I knew that we wanted lighter vitality round us, and after we obtained right here everybody felt like they might take a contemporary breath for the primary time in a very very long time.”

Whereas Holker — who turned a decide on So You Assume You Can Dance in early 2024 and plans to launch a podcast with Weslie this 12 months — is aware of higher than most that grief is not linear, just lately she has felt the tidal wave start to recede.

“For the primary time in a very very long time, I’ve discovered a peace that I used to be trying to find,” she says.

Holker went public with a brand new boyfriend, tech CEO Adam Edmunds, in September, and she or he’s trying ahead to her future.

“I will be discovering the most effective model of who I’m. Not the most effective model of who I used to be with Stephen, or earlier than him — however who I’m now as a person,” she says. “I do know I can do it.”

For those who or somebody you recognize is contemplating suicide, contact the 988 Suicide and Disaster Lifeline by dialing 988, or textual content “STRENGTH” to the Disaster Textual content Line at 741741.

This Far: My Story of Love, Loss, and Embracing the Mild by Allison Holker comes out Feb. 4 from Harper Choose and is accessible for preorder now, wherever books are bought.