Addiction- A perfectly normal response to unhealed, unacknowledged, unsupported, long-term, ongoing trauma.
Trauma is an experience that overwhelms our capacity to process and integrate what is happening.
A prayer for openness, alignment, and a new way forward.
I came into the family as the youngest, with a tightly wound nervous system and a way of taking in the world that was unusually sensitive—to sensory and emotional input, even chemical sensitivity to basic food ingredients. What I recognize is how easily my unbridled and frequent emotional displays of despair could steal the show. Once I was visibly distressed, the distress itself was identified as the only issue. Only in 12-step recovery did I learn to withhold the gift…
When your reality is systematically denied, you learn to turn the blame inward. You spend years looking for the "secret" to fixing yourself, believing that your anxiety, your fear, and your struggles are proof that you are fundamentally broken.
But the truth is much simpler, and much kinder: Your body was simply keeping score of an environment that was never safe.
The behaviors we used to survive weren't a sign of madness. They were the only tools we had to cope with a system that refused to see us. Reclaiming your own knowing starts with realizing you were never the problem—you were just trying to survive.
Someone once told me that the cruelest thing you can do to another human being is to label their suspicions as false when you know them to be true. It would be impossible to count the instances where my questioning led to the same responses: You’re crazy. You made that up. Stop trying to manufacture chaos. It’s in your head. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Something inside of me shattered each time these sentiments were hurled at me.…
A year ago I ended a relationship that I had initially believed was the love of my life. I still kind of feel that way, even though being love bombed is technically not love. It is still my only experience of consistently feeling deeply known, completely seen, and ALSO safe and chosen. At long last, a glimpse of a life I wanted to live. I enjoyed more easy laughter, beautiful meals made FOR me — with full-on consideration for my…
Trauma bonding can make leaving feel terrifying—but leaving also frees you from gaslighting, sleepless nights, blame, and constant anxiety.
Across my closest relationships—mother, sister, husband, children—harm was never something to repair. It wasn’t acknowledged as harm at all, but reframed as my perception, my fault, my failure. Peace was never on offer. If I stayed, there was no peace. If I left, I wasn’t allowed to go in peace either. Departure had to hurt—because how could being without them be permitted to feel better than being with them? Relief was available only through my disappearance or my transformation. A…
