I’d walk and think about my entire life. I’d find my strength again, far from everything that had made my life ridiculous. Cheryl Strayed I wasn’t weak when I met x and then I left him and became strong. I wasn’t strong when I met x and then weakened by him and then when IContinue reading “It Didn’t *Make* Me Stronger (& Saying That It Did Insults the People Who Didn’t Survive)”
Category Archives: Trying to Make Sense
Ten Years Ago ~ The Day That Could Have Been My Ruin
It is coming down the mountain, fear that holds you like the cold,It wants to settle in your footprints, keep you still from where you’re goingAll you think you know of losing, all you doubt of innocence,The big sky still hangs above you. Every day just want to quit.There’s no light you see to guideContinue reading “Ten Years Ago ~ The Day That Could Have Been My Ruin”
Pretty, But the R is Silent ~ You Can’t Petty Me Anymore
Petty. It’s a word abuse victims have had lobbed at them too many times to count. For years, we hear it from our abuser. Why are you so petty? Are you really going to be that petty and make a big deal about this? Don’t be petty. My ex-wife was always so damn petty –Continue reading “Pretty, But the R is Silent ~ You Can’t Petty Me Anymore”
Making Plans Instead of Having Nightmares
Yesterday was Father’s Day and it’s the second one since visitations were suspended. Since ending it with x, and seeing the damage he is not only capable of, but thrives on, Father’s Day is a day of guilt for me. Or, more accurately, a day of me battling mama-guilt that isn’t really mine to carryContinue reading “Making Plans Instead of Having Nightmares”
Trauma Tumor: Cut This Out of Me, Please.
To live in the body of a survivor is to never be able to leave the scene of the crime. I cannot ignore the fact that I live here. Blythe Baird PTSD is a whole-body tragedy, an integral human event of enormous proportions with massive repercussions. Susan Pease Banitt Three months ago I was diagnosedContinue reading “Trauma Tumor: Cut This Out of Me, Please.”
Why We Stay on the Bus: On Cognitive Dissonance, Paralysis and All Those Words That Just Aren’t Enough.
Let’s just breeze past the fact that the first (or even the tenth) question anyone gets after leaving abuse shouldn’t be ‘why didn’t you leave sooner?’ because, for now, it’s what we hear over and over and over. It’s the mantra when any story even similar to what we’ve lived hits the news. It’s notContinue reading “Why We Stay on the Bus: On Cognitive Dissonance, Paralysis and All Those Words That Just Aren’t Enough.”
Mad, Sad and Sick to My Stomach: These Deaths are Preventable So We Need to Stop Letting Children Die
We have a crisis, why is no one listening? Tina Swithin, One Mom’s Battle Last night there was breaking news about three children and an adult being shot and killed in a church in Sacramento before the shooter killed himself. The little bit of info (& every headline) made it clear that these children wereContinue reading “Mad, Sad and Sick to My Stomach: These Deaths are Preventable So We Need to Stop Letting Children Die”
There May Be 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover ~ But Shame is One of the Ways Abusers Get Us to ‘Stay’
Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change. Brené Brown You changed my lifeWe were as green as grassAnd I was hypnotizedFrom the first til the lastKiss of shame, shame, shame PJ Harvey, Shame I was standing at the bottom of the stairs, just outside of view of theContinue reading “There May Be 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover ~ But Shame is One of the Ways Abusers Get Us to ‘Stay’”
Day 731: It *is* Still Sad, Of Course I Know That.
Three weeks before the second anniversary of what I am now calling Love and Hope Day – my first day intentionally free from abuse in my own home – x no showed to court and my life suddenly became my own and my child was given the gift of an indefinite amount of time toContinue reading “Day 731: It *is* Still Sad, Of Course I Know That.”
First Grade First Day & Hearing Ten
And when the storm’s out, you run in the rain Put your sword down, dive right into the pain Stay unfiltered and loud, you’ll be proud of that skin full of scars All I Know So Far, Pink It was controlled chaos. Hundreds of kids supposed to filter into one gate and it took twentyContinue reading “First Grade First Day & Hearing Ten”
Life After Emotional Abuse 