My Inner Rebel Will Not Be Stopped
My family members were masters at squashing rebellion. It is what any good (or bad) dictator learns how to do before all else. It only takes one person to rise up against you, one bad link in the...
Violence in Childhood
Violence comes in many forms. And children are exposed to it everyday. This piece I wrote for Ginger Kadlec looks at violence differently. Ginger Kadlec: Violence in...
Packing Up The Trauma
When I was growing up, I never grew up. I grew upward. I grew taller as most kids do. But many aspects of my development stopped at a very young age. While my brain grew intellectually, my...
As I Stand In My Way
As I look at my aspirations for the coming year, I must stop and examine my sense of worth. Is my sense of worth the key to my future manifestations? Are my lofty goals at the mercy of my beliefs...
Mount Everest
Relationships are hard for everyone, but especially for survivors of child abuse. Before I started my recovery work, I spent years in relationships that were obviously abusive and damaging to my...
Overqualified for the Job
I have been thinking about leadership lately. What does it mean to be a leader? What personal characteristics does that require? Is a leader defined by their followers, by their dissenters? What...
An Open Letter to Samantha Erdeley Rubin
I have been crushed by Rolling Stone's note about their misplaced trust in the UVA rape victim. In reality, I feel that she misplaced her trust in them ... and they re-victimized her. Here is my...
Evil is Complicated
The other day, during my presentation to an audience of medical professionals, one of the doctors asked a good question. “Many of these victims eventually become abusers, so what do we do when...
What About Everyone Else?
You have probably heard about the Rolling Stone article discussing the prevalence and denial of sexual violence at the University of Virginia. Or maybe you haven’t heard because unlike me, you...
Letting It Break
When I was growing up, I suffered all types of abuse, but I find the most difficult to overcome was the abandonment and neglect. While my abusers stayed in my life (to my dismay), they...
