A Dragonfly Mosaic: My Journey from Fear to Love
My Story in Brief The sudden death of my mother when I was fifteen was the primary event that fractured my sense of safety, but it was not the only one. I grew up in a chaotic household dominated by my father’s severe alcoholism. Over time, I also experienced the...
The Silent Epidemic Oprah Televised
The recent Oprah clip ricocheting across X demonstrates something most people prefer to pretend doesn’t exist. A woman sits across from Oprah and says she hasn’t spoken to her entire family for a year and a half. No calls. No texts. Nothing. Oprah repeats it back to...
When the Past Keeps Chiming: Boundaries With Someone Who Lives Outside of Time
Each year during the Thanksgiving season, I open my storage unit to retrieve my Christmas ornaments. Next to the boxes sits an antique grandfather wall clock that once belonged to my former mother-in-law’s family. It still chimes on the hour, but it no longer keeps...
Breaking Free From Trauma: Three Simple Rules of Starting Again
Do you believe that we are put on this earth for a reason? You don’t have to be “spiritual” to believe. I believed in something more when I was growing up. It was my way of surviving my childhood as a sex offender’s daughter. I realized my dream and broke...
How Writing Helped a Survivor Heal – and Find Joy!
Give yourself the pleasure of a functional life filled with people who believe you, who trust you, love you, and who accept the beauty and the wonder that is your strength. I recently connected with Alle C. Hall, a sought-after author, speaker, writing instructor, and...
What is the Point?
WHAT IS THE POINT?By Jesse Donahue © 2023 Love, the theme of many songs and found in the words of poets, theologians, and philosophers alike, is too often hidden from man by his experienced and internalized traumas Consciousness is the ‘point’ of the Universe. Without...
The Knock on the Door that Changed My World: Domestic Violence can Happen to Anyone
It was late, and my kids had gone to bed a few hours before. I was tired and getting ready to call it a night. A sudden knock on the door made me look up from my keyboard. It was a gentle knock, almost as if it had not even happened. “Did you hear a knock?” I asked my...
Cassandra’s Legacy: A Brief History of Gaslighting
Cassandra, the Prophetess of Troy, whose name in Greek means “she who entangles men,” rejected the sexual advances of the god Apollo in his temple. As punishment, Apollo invalidated Cassandra’s gift of prophecy: henceforth, no one would believe her, even when her...