My Best Friend in the Psych Ward
TRIGGER WARNING: Writer’s Note: This post contains references to suicidal ideation, sexual assault, and psychiatric ward experiences. Names have been changed. Five words got me tied up on a stretcher in the back of this ambulance. Five words, starting with “I want”...
An Open Heart Doesn’t Always Mean a Broken Heart
Vulnerability and Trust Can Be the Hardest Work We’ll Ever Do My therapist recently had the audacity to applaud my progress, reminding me that I’m “the one doing all the work.” A part of me internally screamed about how much I hated it when she said that. For the...
The Power of Non-Linear Storytelling
Storytelling connects us to the world around us, to the forests and mountains and critters in our city parks I believe in storytelling to understand others and ourselves. Storytelling connects us to the world around us, to the forests and mountains and critters in our...
Fawn Response: The Trauma Survival Pattern That’s Mistaken for Kindness
It often looks like compassion. It often gets praised as loyalty. But for many trauma survivors, the behavior known as the fawn response isn’t about kindness—it is about survival. The fawn response is the least recognized of the four primary trauma reactions: fight,...
Navigating Triggers and Emotions: Strategies for Trauma Survivors in the Workplace
Introduction As trauma survivors, we often face unique challenges in the workplace related to managing triggers and intense emotions. The number one request that I get from trauma survivors is to teach them how to manage their workplace triggers. Experiencing triggers...
A Child Making Friends with Chatbots: What’s the Problem with That?
The smartphone phenomenon has been impacting the milieu in the United States for well over 15 years. Some of us can remember what life was like before smartphones were put into the hands of Americans. Many of us were in college or had just graduated from high school....
The Body’s Quantum Intelligence: Unlocking Healing Through Embodiment
“We are the cosmos made conscious, and life is the means by which the universe understands itself.” – Brian Cox, physics professor and musician Feelings of numbness, detachment, depletion, and pain can be mistaken for an inability to heal, grow, transform, and...
I Look Perfectly Normal, but You’d Never Guess How I Got Here
“It’s amazing you survived. How come you’re so…normal and happy?”That’s what people say when I tell my story: parental neglect, sexual abuse, homelessness, being trafficked. My answer? I never gave up on me. Why? Because I wanted me. I wanted to believe I was good,...