This time I read the title of the painting: Girl Interrupted at Her Music. Interrupted at her music: as my life had been, interrupted in the music of being seventeen, as her life had been,...

Trauma does not have to occur by abuse alone…

Resiliency is the essence of a global positive framework…

Resiliency is not gender-, age-, or intellectually specific…

Boundaries are, in simple terms, the recognition of personal space.

There had been a subtle realignment of the spheres. The world was somehow a place I could endure again. If life was a grey corridor lined with doors, it was now within my power to...

Punishments include such things as flashbacks, flooding of unbearable emotions, painful body memories, flooding of memories in which the survivor perpetrated against others, self-harm, and suicide attempts.

Ritual Abuse usually involves repeated abuse over an extended period of time. The physical abuse is severe, sometimes including torture and killing. The sexual abuse is usually painful,humiliating, intended as a means of gaining dominance...

Our minds have a great capacity for deception. This does not mean we are necessarily dishonest but if we are not careful, when our brains do not have answers, our minds will create them.

Sitting on the hot seat of change requires much courage, patience, and persistence.

Sometimes I struggle. Sometimes I falter. Sometimes I live in gray. But always I remember the yarrow you’ve grown in the spaces of my rib cage. I now love with roses from my heart, with...

No matter how dark the night may get, your light will never burn out.

An intensely gripping narrative…expertly crafted and totally addictive…a must read!

There are a lot of times the heart burrows deeper, goes tunnelling into itself for reasons only the heart itself seems to know.They are times of isolation, of hibernation, sometimes of desolation. There is a...

We are not the only ones affected by our recovery. The spiritual awakening heals the world one person at a time.

The unavoidable has touched the life of every human being on the face of the earth. Some have rebounded, others have given up–but all of us have felt the wings of tragedy brushing against us.

One day at a time, sweet Jesus. Whoever wrote that one hadn’t a clue. A day is a fuckin’ eternity

Never has nostalgia held stronger sway; never has the belief in the redemptive possibilities of the future seemed so laughable.

They got drunk and high on a regular basis, but this is a vestige of youth that you either quit while you’re young or you become an addict if you don’t die. If you are...

The man who sins but wants to purify it is no more a sinner than the man who doesn’t sin but wants to sin.

For example, I can doubt that 2 + 2 = 4; however, my doubting does not change the equation. When I test out that formula and find that it is true, then that becomes my...

A spiritual hell I lived in … hating the God of love and knowing the god I served … hated me!

It’s about needing to feel loved and comforted but feeling unworthy of real love and comfort. It’s about hating having needs and desires. For some of us, needs make us feel greedy and selfish. For...

Even those who drink until blacking out, those who beat women, are not the exception, hopefully not the norm, trapped somewhere in society in a dark place nobody wants to talk about.

Ironically, this physically weak feeling signifies that I’m actually getting stronger. I know from my past that I will ultimately feel strong if I just sit with the feeling and experience it.

Those who support such survivors of abuse often find it difficult to hear the reality of those survivors’ lives and experience and are often unsupported themselves. Rather than being supported, workers are often ridiculed, castigated...

We don’t get to choose the things that happen to us in life. What we can choose is how to react to them, how we deal with them, and how we move on.

Myth: US housing market is in recovery. Fact: Big banks have been hiding their bloated home inventory, seized by virtue of home foreclosures.

History dressed up in the glow of love’s kiss turned grief into beauty.

I’ve had a lot of therapists, so I’ve had the opportunity to approach my fear in many different ways. I’ve faced it head on and sideways and tried to tiptoe up behind it.

I used to think a drug addict was someone who lived on the far edges of society. Wild-eyed, shaven-headed and living in a filthy squat.That was until I became one…

Gately can’t even imagine what it would be like to be a sober and drug-free biker. It’s like what would be the point. He imagines these people polishing the hell out of their leather and...

Black and white thinking limits understanding and feedback, two necessary ingredients for successful resolution in creative conflict and successful understanding.

It was His gentle voice who calledand sent His angel pain to guide me, through the long ‘n dusty corridors, and empty hallways of my soul.

Alcoholism or addiction is a disease because it fits the definition of disease. It is progressive and chronic, and left untreated, it will kill.

Sometimes the people around you won’t understand your journey. They don’t need to, it’s not for them.

Anita Johnston, Ph.D., author of Eating in the Light of the Moon, taught me to look in the mirror with curiosity rather than fear. So I may look at my reflection and think, ‘That’s interesting....

Public truth telling is a form of recovery, especially when combined with social action. Sharing traumatic experiences with others enables victims to reconstruct repressed memory, mourn loss, and master helplessness, which is trauma’s essential insult....

What was so painful about Amy’s death is that I know that there is something I could have done. I could have passed on to her the solution that was freely given to me. Don’t...

I am a work in progress.

Be grateful. These feelings, no matter how painful, are part ofliving. Today, we are alive—not anesthetized, not sedated, not passedout. Take control of your feelings and through action you can change.Today, as every day of...

It is important to learn about being multiple, and what works for their healing, from your client. To work with the alters, rather than trying to get the ANP to control the rest of the...

Theirs was the eternal youth of an alternating self, a youth with the constant although unfulfilled promise of growing up

When we leave this life, we only get to take two things: the love we received and the lessons we learned.

Putting labels on others creates a black hole of disregard where judgment thrives and schisms deepen.

I moonlight as the greatest actor. I smile. I choose the comedy mask every time. I tell those who worry that I am fine, that I always will be. There is nothing to gain from...

Turn off your phone, and your computer and your mind. Find your heart center and send it compassion. See the holiness in everyone you meet. Honor it.Know your worth. Know your worth. Know your worth.Accept...

I’ve been married but I’m not anymore. And I still believe in love.

Bear in mind you have a life to live. There is an incredible loss. There is a profound grief. And there is, in the end, after a long time and more work than you ever...

Life is a funny thing. We claim it to be our own; but the truth is, it’s not. It belongs to something much bigger. We, like everything else, are transient. This life is temporary and...