Unless They’re a Psychopath…

I love reading spirituality and self-help books. I am always looking for ways I can better understand myself and others through a lens of empathy and connection. On a long drive, I was listening to Brené Brown’s latest book, Braving the Wilderness.  It’s a well-articulated book about when integrity encourages us to stand alone rather …

Someday, I’ll Have to Deal With That

I consider myself to be fairly self-aware and introspective. I've always been willing to look at my life and my life choices from every angle and make adjustments when necessary. And yet, there was this one area of my life that I felt, instinctively, was too big, too dark, too scary for me to face …

Five Things Trauma Survivors Need in Order to Heal

I spent many years absorbing the blame for my abusive family, and exhausted every possible avenue of attempting to "get along" with them. When I finally went no contact, it took another ten years to feel safe enough to fully embrace my past and grieve. Even though I thought I had done quite a bit …

"But You’re So Normal!"

When the subject of my abusive past comes up, the surprised response I most often hear from others who have known me for a while is, "But you're so normal!" There are a lot of different ways of coping with abuse. For me, I thought I could perform and please my way out of it. …

Detox

Denial about the abuse I experienced had a grip on me for a long time. Even ten years after no contact, I still questioned whether the hell I lived through was my fault. I felt a lot of guilt about going no contact, but knew that I had to, for the sake of my own …

What Evil Looks Like

I've always had a sense of the supernatural around me. Long before I studied what that means from a Christian perspective and gained all the Christian vocabulary, I saw the forces of light and dark at work in the world, and in my own life. I've always had a sensitivity to these forces around me. …

No, There Are Not Two Sides

I was in a meeting where a mediator was trying her best to stay impartial to a situation where a large volume of well-documented verbal and emotional abuse had occurred. She was a trained professional, but professionally speaking, she didn't want to be in a position to take sides on the issue. She offered the …

Letting Go of Toxic People

  Because I had been raised by abusers, I used to think that I could handle difficult people. I see the traps long before most people do, and I thought seeing them meant I could manage to avoid them. But I learned in the hardest way possible that I am not immune to abusive people …