My Life After Abuse
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Today Is Better Than Dreadful Thanks to Intuition
Fortunately, today is a better day thanks to the helpful people I found while following my intuition. I know, beyond a doubt, that I am capable of surviving without a car, without a home, without a job and without a shower. The intuition I used to build the support network I needed to leave my…
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The Homeless Chapter
I don’t know much. At least I know I don’t know much. Life takes twists and turns that seemed impossible only days before. Now, more than any other time in my life, I am uncertain what tomorrow brings. Over the past year and a half I’ve lived with my sister, my grandmother, my fiance and…
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Face Forward Restores Faces Maimed by Domestic Violence
“Face Forward works with community leaders around the nation to identify victims of violence who are legitimately working toward recovery and who carry the physical evidence of past abuse,” namely, the kind of abuse you see in the mirror, every day, that reminds you of your abusive past.
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I Feel Ashamed of My PTSD Diagnosis
A couple of weeks ago, I received a second mental health diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I’ve long wondered if my symptoms added up to PTSD but knowing that a psychiatrist believes I have PTSD affected me. Negatively. Being diagnosed with PTSD affected me negatively. There. I said it. It makes me feel powerless.…
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Inspirational Blogs
We may suffer, we may cry, but we all have the free will to choose how we deal with our pain. Submitting to abuse causes you to deny who you are and trash the unique qualities, abilities and experiences given to you. What a waste of a great human.
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Perfectionism And Abuse – January 2013
Hello! I feel disappointed in myself. I haven’t kept up with this newsletter as I intended. It turned into an automatic mailing of blog updates…how boring! I’m sorry for that, and I intend to do much better. I vow that I will no longer try to create the “perfect” newsletter. I sense that perfection is too…
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Abuse and the Quest for Perfection
“Perfection” bedevils many of us, myself included. Perhaps you suffer from it yourself. I could blame my experience with abuse for it because, as you well know, abusers expect perfection from us victims. Not our idea of perfection, but their idea of the perfect wife, husband, child or friend.
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Life with an Abuser Vs Life with Freedom and Choice
I left my life with an abuser almost three years ago, and the real roller coaster of life revealed itself. On the uphill climbs, I feel simultaneously excited and worried about reaching the top. Sitting on the peak, before the thrilling plummet, I feel on top of my game, as if nothing can break me. The…
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Verbal Abuse Drives Domestic Abuse
Domestic abuse is more than sexual and physical violence. It includes mental and emotional abuse, and underneath nearly all of it is verbal abuse. Verbal abuse is more than name calling and more than yelling. It is how control gets built and kept. It is also hard to see from inside, which is what makes…
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After Abuse, Don’t Look Far to Find Yourself
You Didn’t Lose Yourself, You Hid After abuse, when we look into the mirror, we think we see someone we do not know anymore. We tend to think the abuse changed us at our core. We worry that we’ll never be “that girl” ever again. But I’ve decided to think of the effects of abuse…