by Wendy Hoke | Sep 22, 2026 | Boundaries, Building Resilience in Healing, Childhood Sexual Abuse, CPTSD, Family Estrangement, Going No Contact
My 16 year old son went no-contact with his father, my ex, about 18 months ago. Since that time, he occasionally asks me a loaded question, such as “do you think I’m being cruel?” Knowing what his father did and is capable of doing, I have supported his decision....
by Ellen Tift | Aug 26, 2026 | Abandonment and CPTSD, ACEs, Attachment Trauma, Domestic Violence, Going No Contact, Guilt, Toxic Relationships
Do they love you? Do you love them? How to tell the difference between love and something else. Let’s break down why we stay when authentic love is scarce and where to start healing. What Is Love? (Baby Don’t Hurt Me) The stories that follow represent...
by Alice Segell | Aug 5, 2026 | ACEs, Borderline Personality Disorder, Complex PTSD Healing, CPTSD and Inner Child Work, Family Estrangement, Going No Contact, Healthy Relationships, Isolation
I once dated a man with borderline personality disorder. At one point, he told me that it broke his heart to see what I was not, what I hadn’t become, how small my life was, how I had squandered my brains and looks. This unsolicited mourning of a fantastical me (a...
by Ellen Tift | May 6, 2026 | Anger, Betrayal, Emotional Wellness, Going No Contact, Guilt, Narcissistic Abuse, Self-Acceptance
Tobie’s Story Tobie sat in their car, knuckles white against the steering wheel, jaw clenched so tight their teeth might crack. They had just left yet another family gathering where their boundaries were trampled, their feelings dismissed, and their experiences...
by Alice Segell | Apr 1, 2026 | CPTSD, Dissociation and CPTSD, Emotional Wellness, Ethics, Family Estrangement, Gaslighting, Going No Contact, Narcissistic Abuse
Christmas, or other types of family reunions, can be tricky in the best of families. For survivors of childhood abuse, trekking home for the holidays is nothing short of a draining and re-traumatising return to the scene of the crime. It’s an exercise in appeasement...
by Sophia Rehmus | Feb 10, 2025 | CPTSD, Going No Contact, Guest Contributor, Self Care
In July 2020, eleven months since we first went no-contact, my father wrote me his own obituary. Entitled “Who I Am on the Way,” my father described in the third person his early profound religious experiences (“[a]s if he’d written John 21:25” himself), how for him,...
