We all hear voices in our heads. Ok, I know what you’re thinking, but just hear me out. We hear the doubting voice, the overly critical voice, the voice that tells us to give into fear, the voice that says you are justified in your anger and victimhood. Then there...
We live in Michigan now. We moved here in June. Right after school let out for the summer. We sold our farm. And basically everything. Even the chickens. We are renting a house. Right in town. In our new town. It’s big and ugly and shaped like a barn. The kitchen has...
My father thought that it was necessary for children to fear their parents in order to behave. He thought that kids were born bad. He was physically abused as a child by his own father, and then fought in Vietnam, so my father told himself that as long as he didn't...
I was an artistic, emotional, curious, energetic 7 year old child. This is the age my abuse began. I did not know at the time what was happening to me. This man was a friend of my parents and also my baseball coach. I was sent to spend the night with this man for what...
My story begins at the age of eleven in sixth grade. I had a classmate that was a bully and had it out for me. He processed to try and knock my head against a brick wall and hurt me. Fortunately a person passing by saw what was happening and stopped him. The next...
I really don’t know where to begin, but I’m Jasmine Bolden, I was a foster child since I was seven years old. Until this day I still can remember the very first day my sister, brother and I were taken into the system. I felt scared, I didn’t even know what was going...
How Understanding the ACE Study Impacted a Human Trafficking Survivor I learned: • Trauma escapes language and causes memory loss • Toxic stress stems from relational poverty • History repeats itself if you don’t understand it • Abuse is passed on generationally • How...
I spent years living in a dark place with a negative outlook on life in general; I hated myself, and I did not feel worthy or like I mattered to anyone because of how I was treated by most people. It was as if my eyes were not only open to the bad but also closed to...
My name is E.L. Henderson and I'm a 43 year old woman who suffered complex child abuse for 15 years. The middle of 3 children, we were middle class private school types, but our mother was angry, hostile and very strict. My father was barely in and she took it out on...
When you hear of cyberbullying victims, you expect to discover stories about teens or tweens. I was 44 when my ordeal began. The cyberstalking and harassment continued nonstop for more than a year before the offender was arrested and almost another two years until she...
My abusive childhood set a pattern for me to marry an abusive husband. I lived in denial for many years because it was hard for me to accept that I had repeated the pattern set from my childhood, and because we were educated since I was earning my doctorate at the...
I tried to kill myself. Multiple times. 6 years ago I tried to kill myself. More than once. For some reason I survived. I didn't understand why it didn't work and why I was still alive and had to suffer on this earth with everything I was going through. 6 years ago...