Tag Archives: healing

This Word Chronic

I’ve been so angry at people who ask me, “How are the headaches?” and “Feeling better?” “It’s still chronic,” I say flatly. “I was diagnosed 27 years ago. Five years ago, it went from episodic to chronic, and there’s no cure. In the context of chronic migraines with vertigo and brain stem aura, most drugsContinue reading “This Word Chronic”

Why I’m Loving the Enneagram

Personality psychology, several of my college professors asserted, is the least scientific branch of psychology. And I get it. There are about as many models for personality as there are models of cars. It’s also a field where, like the study of intelligence, it can be hard to come up with reliable evidence. Results tendContinue reading “Why I’m Loving the Enneagram”

How LITTLE WOMEN Saved Me

On my tenth Christmas, I peeled back the wrapping paper to find a book about the size of a dictionary. The cover was printed with the image of a living room. Around a piano, five white women stood singing in the light of a hurricane lamp. Their dresses could easily be mistaken for curtains. TheContinue reading “How LITTLE WOMEN Saved Me”

Planning for Happiness: Four Tips for the Happiness-Resistant

Shit will happen. And it will happen on its own timetable. There is absolutely nothing any of us can do about that. We can prepare for the worst. We can try to accrue savings accounts (I’ve often failed at this). We can nurture the friendships that nurture us. We can be responsible with our healthContinue reading “Planning for Happiness: Four Tips for the Happiness-Resistant”

Reconnection

One morning I woke up, and my teeth were not clenched anymore. My face wasn’t twisted by nightmares. I had grieved for more than a year, and I felt cleansed. I could shelve books beside men in the stacks, and I no longer wanted to punch them. I no longer imagined a knife in myContinue reading “Reconnection”

On Father’s Day Weekend

My father kept an old Yamaha acoustic guitar in his bedroom. Sometimes I ran my child-round fingertips over the strings just to see if it was still in tune. It was, then. I whispered secrets into the sound hole, and it always whispered back. It smelled of dust and spruce and something metallic, like aContinue reading “On Father’s Day Weekend”

Healing Through Dance

Because trauma is of the body, it must be healed through the body. I needed a safe space where I would be supported, where I could practice trust, where I could begin healing in my body. Only one place could offer me that. The dance studio. *             *             * I was 30 years old. IContinue reading “Healing Through Dance”

My Breakdown in a Bus Depot

And then I went to New York. If you have been asleep, New York will slap you out of it. I boarded the Q47 bus and watched the sunrise from the bus window, mentally reviewing Manhattan’s grid of streets and the carefully plotted route that would take me to the Hotel Chelsea for a nightContinue reading “My Breakdown in a Bus Depot”

My Escape Plan

Leaving an abuser can be dangerous, particularly for women. In 2017, the U.N. reported that 50,000 women are killed each year by intimate partners or relatives worldwide. Four out of five victims of intimate partner violence are women. And in cases where an abuser murders others before killing themselves, 94% of those murder victims areContinue reading “My Escape Plan”

Cutting the Cord

I now saw that talking to my parents was pointless. So instead, I typed them an email. I need to talk with you about things that happened in the past. I have a lot of memories I’m just trying to make sense of. I know no one’s perfect, and we all have made mistakes. ButContinue reading “Cutting the Cord”