June 7, 2015
And They Were Not Protected
And They Were Not Protected tells of my childhood and teen years up to the point of leaving home and running away. I hope that I got the ages and dates right, but if not, I have my sister, who remembers certain things much better that I do. I wrote it a few years ago, […]
May 22, 2015
10 Things Not to Say to a Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivor
Childhood sexual abuse is vile and not something most of us can begin to comprehend. It’s certainly not something people want to talk or hear about. I get that. Really I do. Who wants to talk about something so taboo, so horrific? According to the National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse I am […]
May 5, 2015
Five things for Which I’m Grateful
Because a lot of my posts are heavy-duty and triggering, and it’s been suggested that I lighten up, I thought I’d write the five things for which I’m grateful. FIVE THINGS FOR WHICH I’M GRATEFUL 1. Softly falling rain. Winters here so often mean a forceful, windy, cold rain. Today there’s a peaceful, […]
April 28, 2015
Letting Go of What No Longer Serves You
Part of what my therapist Stella uses in her work is hypnotherapy. The reason hypnotherapy is so great is because it’s a way to reach the subconscious mind and speak to it directly, find more interesting posts at themonstercycle. Our subconscious is the part of our mind that does things by habit and holds […]
April 23, 2015
Overwhelmed and Grateful
“And so I cry sometimes when I’m lying in bed, just to get it all out, what’s in my head, and I am feeling a little peculiar. So I wake in the morning and I step outside and I take a deep breath and I get real high and I scream at the top of […]
April 15, 2015
I Choose Me
I love my sister-in-law. She’s smart, beautiful, witty and quick. She speaks fast and you’d better pay attention, or what she says might fly right by you. You might miss something great. Like this one time. I don’t even remember what we were talking about, but she says “I choose me”. Wow. I choose me. […]
March 30, 2015
On Healing and the Beach
For as long as I can remember, the beach has been a healing place for me. Except that once. I was raped on the beach when I was a little girl…by my half-sister’s boyfriend. Once she had conversations with God when her world was Barbie dolls giggles, hide-and-seek and pigtails then, a grown-up man […]
March 27, 2015
I Have This Memory
I have this memory. It’s lasted for more than 40 years, and in all those years it hasn’t changed. The part that I remember is sharp, but what surrounds it is cloudy. I want to focus the lens on what happened before and especially what happened afterwards, but I just can’t. I never told […]
March 20, 2015
Therapy Day 2
I’ve had some strange dreams this week – one in which I was in a church-like place with a lot of people. It was so crowded. My mother was near the front of the church and I saw that she had brought her ex-boyfriend, the one who sexually abused me for years. I was […]
March 15, 2015
That Little Girl
I remember a conversation I had once with my massage therapist friend Edie. She was in recovery and was talking about her little girl and how she’s learning to take care of her and would imagine rocking her in her arms. Something I knew about Edie was that she didn’t have any children at […]