Sofia Derin
Author
Sofia Derin writes from lived experience, exploring autonomy, human behaviour, responsibility and what it means to reclaim your life, as well as understand yourself along the way.
explore the books
Three books. Three perspectives on lived experience, autonomy, responsibility and what it means to understand yourself.Begin with the story that started it all. Explore the framework that grew from it. Or discover the cost of carrying more than the body can sustainably hold.Where would you like to begin?
About SOFIA DERIN
I spent a large part of my life trying to do the right thing.I followed the rules I was given and listened to what religion told me a woman should be. I forgave, stayed, helped, and carried more when others carried less.And somehow, doing what I had been taught was right kept hurting me.Eventually, I had to ask:
What happens when doing what you've been taught is right requires you to keep doing what is wrong for you?
That question changed the way I understood my life; and eventually, the way I wrote about it.Trial by Trust began while I was still going through court. But telling my story led to bigger questions about obedience, morality, responsibility, and why we continue participating in things that hurt us.Those questions became Neuro-Ethical Realism.Later, I found myself asking something else:
What happens when you become so good at enduring that you stop noticing what endurance is costing you?
That became The Cost of Ethical Overload.Together, these books explore questions I've spent much of my life trying to answer:
How much of ourselves should we have to surrender in order to be considered good?
And perhaps more importantly;
Who gets to decide what being “good” means in the first place?
reflections
Some things don't fit neatly inside a book
Shorts
Sometimes one thought is enough to make you question something you've believed for years.
These are some of mine.
connect with sofia
Some conversations continue beyond the page.I share new reflections, short thoughts, questions, and pieces of the ideas behind my books across Instagram and YouTube.If something I've written has made you question, reconsider, or understand something differently, you're welcome to stay connected.
Contact sofia
For enquiries, media, publishing or professional contact.If you’d like to get in touch to collaborate or just communicate, send me a message below and I’ll respond as soon as I can.
Please note: this form is for genuine enquiries and professional contact.
Thank you
Thank you for reaching out.
I’ll read your message and get back to you as soon as I can.
- Sofia
Trial by Trust
A Memoir of how trust broke me, and awareness rebuilt me
I spent much of my life trying to be who I was told I should be.I trusted the rules I was given about family, marriage, religion, loyalty and what it meant to be a good woman. Even when those rules were hurting me, I kept trying to make them work.Trial by Trust is the story of what happened when I finally began questioning them. It follows my relationships, motherhood, betrayal, coercive control and years of court proceedings.But underneath all of it is a much simpler story: how I slowly stopped trusting everyone else's version of what my life should be and began learning to trust myself.This isn't just a story of what happened to me.It's the story of how I became someone who could finally choose for herself.- Sofia Derin
The Cost of Ethical Overload
A Neuro-ethical Realism Casestudy
I thought being capable meant I should be able to keep going.After years of court proceedings, responsibility and sustained pressure, I returned to demanding work believing that if I could still perform, think clearly and meet what was expected of me, then I must be okay.I wasn't.The Cost of Ethical Overload examines what happened when my ability to endure outlasted my body's ability to sustainably carry the load.Through my return to Youth Justice and the consequences that followed, I began to understand a distinction I had spent years overlooking: being capable of doing something does not mean you have the capacity to keep doing it.This book applies Neuro-Ethical Realism to that experience and asks what happens when conscientious people continue carrying responsibility long after their neurological margin has disappeared.I still care. That never changed.What changed was my understanding of what caring should be allowed to cost.- Sofia Derin
Neuro-ethical Realism
When Biology Becomes Morality
For most of my life, I believed that doing the right thing meant following what I had been taught was right.But lived experience forced me to question something deeper.What happens when morality asks us to repeatedly act against our own wellbeing? When responsibility becomes self-erasure? When being a “good” person requires us to ignore what our own biology is telling us?Neuro-Ethical Realism grew from my attempt to understand that conflict.It explores morality not simply as a collection of rules, but through the reality of the human being expected to live by them; our biology, our limitations, our relationships, our autonomy and the consequences of the choices we make.I still believe deeply in responsibility.But I no longer believe morality should require a person to disappear in order to satisfy it.Perhaps being ethical should include the person carrying the ethics.- Sofia Derin