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.
In some families, preserving the system can mean discrediting the person who points out harm. The scapegoat’s experience is often dismissed to maintain control and avoid accountability.
An Ordinary Moment, a Trauma Response My lived experience offered no assurance that I—or anything—would be okay. At a subconscious level, I suspected I might have less trouble if I could just get better at saying no and ouch, because those consistently caused trouble. I was not a discreet or well‑adjusted abuse‑getter. I was overwhelmed and overstimulated most of the time. The house was loud with fighting, NPR, opera, the stench of lamb and garlic, and the visual chaos of…
A family scapegoat isn’t created because one person is broken, but because the system resists looking at what’s hurting it.
I’m learning to recognize a pattern. I name something specific: a word that was said, a boundary crossed, a moment that caused distress.The response shifts quickly—to my tone, my sensitivity, my way of being, my capacity to perceive. What starts as a conversation about what happened becomes a conversation about who I am. That shift does the work. It replaces interest and accountability with assessment. What remains is a familiar choice: explain myself, or step away—often described as opting out…
Love Bombed: My Story of Worship, Betrayal, and No Contact (Part 1 of 32,000,000) The Illusion of Love (The Hook) I worshiped him. Loving him was like a religion. Sex with him was a sacrament. He gave me a glimpse into a life of love and fluid connection that made me want to stay on this planet like nothing else ever had. He showed me something that felt like love—something deeper than anything I had ever received from my parents…
By design, it seems, he became my everything; my comfort, my laughter, my peace, my joy. He is the place where I have felt the most alive, the most connected, the most whole. And yet, he is also the thing which breaks me. Like insulin to a diabetic, crack to an addict. I need him like breath, like blood, like something vital that I cannot live without- he is both medicine and poison. When we are together, I have felt…
