When I entered therapy at age 32, I learned the first task for the trauma survivor is to establish a sense of safety. Healing cannot begin until an inner sanctuary is established, one where gradually the survivor begins to distinguish between past and present, between safety and danger. “When was a time you felt safe?”Continue reading “Diana”
Tag Archives: child abuse
Another Aftermath
Joe isn’t done with me yet. He and Laura have been best friends for years, and they decide it will be good for me to talk with him on the phone regularly. I don’t know what his girlfriend thinks about this, but she apparently doesn’t get a vote. Neither do I. My stomach clenches everyContinue reading “Another Aftermath”
Kitty
The winter I am six years old, I meet a cat. She will determine the shape of my life, but of course I don’t know this yet. She is standing atop a fence in three inches of snow. In my amazement, I drop the snowball in my mittened hands. My plans for a snowman areContinue reading “Kitty”
Shut into the Dark
In the early 1970s, Martin Seligman led experiments on learned helplessness. He tested whether you could abuse dogs to a point where they just gave up. The answer is of course you can. One group of dogs was given electric shocks they could easily end by pressing a lever. Another group was given shocks theyContinue reading “Shut into the Dark”
The First Assault
My father had been my ally in the family. True, he’d done some weird shit. When I was in preschool, my mother’s cat had turned up dead in the storage room where he kept his tools. He never explained how he hadn’t noticed her starving in there. When I was five, I told him IContinue reading “The First Assault”
Prelude to the Assaults
CONTAINS TRIGGERING CONTENT To begin a story is necessarily to omit. If I begin my story of assault at age 12 with my father’s attack, then I am omitting my mother’s physical abuse. I am leaving out the fact that my earliest memories are full of violence not from men, but from a woman. AContinue reading “Prelude to the Assaults”
5 Ways to Prevent Family Estrangement
How my family talked ourselves into a corner–and why yours doesn’t have to.
Forgiving My Ex
From an abusive childhood to a dysfunctional first marriage, I’ve had a lot to heal from. Don’t we all. And in the many books I’ve read about healing, experts vary in their emphasis on forgiveness as part of the healing process. Some insist it’s necessary, others that it’s helpful, and a few that you canContinue reading “Forgiving My Ex”
The Abuser in All of Us
Last night at Elliott Bay Book Company, author Val Brelinski read from her debut novel, The Girl Who Slept with God, and posed an impossible question: Is it possible to love another human being–parents, siblings, children, spouses–and not in some way damage the other person? Or is that part of the nature of intimate relationships?Continue reading “The Abuser in All of Us”
Reblog Friday: The U.N. Calls out the Vatican
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/world/europe/un-sex-abuse-panel-questions-vatican-officials.html?ref=unitednations&_r=0 Whether you’re a devout Catholic or an agnostic humanist, it can only be good news when the United Nations calls the Vatican to task for shielding known sex offenders and, in some cases, obstructing justice. Child welfare trumps any organization’s instinct to protect its own. And religious freedom does not grant freedom to abuseContinue reading “Reblog Friday: The U.N. Calls out the Vatican”
The Trailer Park MFA 