My rape case
Starting over after my rape case meant saying goodbye to the things that hurt. For me starting over meant getting rid of your damn mattress.
He never hit me
If he hit me I would leave. The truth is I still wouldn’t have left then. I would rationalize that hitting me would show him how out of hand things were.
What To Be “Aware” Of For Sexual Assault Awareness Month
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month; beware not all programs that claim to be about rape prevention actually deliver.
They break, you know
They break, you know. These children we leave behind. Foster care kids have high Adverse Childhood Experience scores. Like all children they thrive on love.
Pleading For Power
When we are angry, we are not powerful. We are pleading for power. We are feeling powerless, not powerful. Anger isn’t bad or wrong – just inefficient.
The power of letting go of judgement
Judging others is something I do when I’m afraid to love, when I can’t accept love because I can’t accept myself. When we accept others we accept ourselves.
We have more control over our feelings and responses than we thought.
Feeling happy, content, comfortable or satisfied when things go well? What determines whether you feel good or bad? Control over our feelings and responses.
Self care. Our number 1 priority
What happens when survivors put themselves and their own self-care first? They become healthier and stronger, and so do those around them.
An Open Heart
Those of us who were abused as children have lived with closed hearts. We were not given the chance to open our hearts and show our feelings.
The man who raped me is dead
The man who raped me is dead. The start of an emotional roller coaster. Because every day we are surviving…even the day our rapist dies.
Forgiving the father who beat me
Looking at my father I didn’t see the man who lay on my bedroom floor to protect me from the monsters in my dreams. I saw the monster. And I forgave him.
The other kind of motherless mother
Being a motherless mother is hard, the impact of a mother who has mental illness becomes clear when you become a mother yourself
The nonsense of beating sense into kids
There is no evidence that beating kids in school does any good. There is plenty of evidence that it does a lot of harm. So why does it persist?
I learned to never ask for help
I learned not to ask for help. I had to be strong, Never rely on other people. If you need other people then maybe you’re nothing.
Recovering from abuse
Jackie McCullough recovered from years of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Here she shares some suggestions so you can do the same.
Why I Choose to be Fat
I will not be measured and weighed and found wanting. I’m going to be OK as I am, even if I am obese. Find out why I choose to be fat.
Substance-abuse doc says to focus on ACEs
Prominent addiction expert says we need to think of addiction as a response to childhood adversity. A ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking.
Monster shapes. What they can tell us about child abuse
When you ask a child to make a monster, you learn who the monsters in their world are and you may find one of those monsters is child sex abuse.