I’ve missed this space, even as I knew that I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth for it. Like all of you, I’m reckoning with this past year, how it’s affected me and those close to me and my communities. And I finally, finally have some spare energy and have collected and synthesized my thoughts enough…

While this is firmly a page about and for survivors and their loved ones, I can’t and won’t ignore what some call civil and unrest and others call social change that’s been a long time in the making. I stand with the black community and support the work of so many to address institutional racism…

Before I get into this topic, let me first apologize for being absent from this page. Survivors have been front of mind, as always, and in front of me, as always, but in my spare time I have had so little emotional bandwidth that I have to just focus on self-care and happy, nurturing things….

For those of you who are so sad on this Valentine’s Day, take heart. I get it, I really do. I’ve been that person desperately trying to salvage another holiday ruined by my abuser; I’ve been the woman who had to stay off social media all day on February 14th because I couldn’t bear to…

You know the ones. Before we know anything about the intricacies of real adult relationships, we’re being fed fairy tales about what those are like. Prince Charmings on white horses, love’s first kiss, rescuing from towers, fair damsels in distress, and gallant knight. All enabled by seemingly very under-protective parents who don’t hesitate to sell…

Everything. And nothing. Let me explain. Trigger warnings galore. I also cuss a lot. Just finished Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer on Amazon Prime, directed by Trish Wood. And I’ll be thinking about this series for a long time. Told from a female perspective, from the detectives who helped bring Bundy to justice, to…

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/liberation/2017/10/long-term-narcissistic-abuse-can-cause-brain-damage/ Fascinating but also deeply troubling, this research shows the actual effects of emotional and psychological abuse on the brains of victims and survivors. Because the effects of the abuse shrink the hippocampus (responsible for “working memory” that controls learning and short-term memory, essentially the “desktop” of your brain), victims can become confused, forgetful, and…

My apologies for the lapse in updating, I’ve been taking some much-needed time to rest and visit with family and friends and just do daily life. Sometimes even I need a break from difficult topics to remember that there’s such a wide spectrum of experiences out there–good, bad, and neutral. While I hold my own…

It sounds lofty, and it is. But my resolution this year is just to do anything I personally can to advocate, educate, and help survivors get free of abuse. Join me? Some years after my abuse experience–yes, it took years!–I made myself a very serious commitment that I would leave any situation or relationship that…

Today I’m thinking about my fellow survivors…from those of you who are still being abused, to those who have left your abusers, but still find yourselves shell-shocked and confused, to those who are actively healing, and those for whom abuse is but a footnote in your lives. Sometimes a survivor will say something that always…