Your Life After Trauma Podcast

07/30/2026

I received two cluster b personality disorder diagnoses, because my abuser said that I had/was them. This, despite a personality inventory test showing I was within the normal range of parameters, and their test showing evidence that they were trying to manipulate the test. The psychologist also dismissed sympathetic nervous system responses as exaggerations… keep healing and keep fighting.

07/24/2026

I’ve been digging into past abuse, and it’s exhausting. Even when a suspicion is confirmed, there’s no celebration, only more fatigue. Why? Two reasons: 1) validation of your experience - tangible, quantifiable data to support what you remember through the gaslighting and manipulation - serves to give you a big letdown in your traumatic hyper vigilance, and; 2) it’s an answer, and it’s still not closure, which increases emotional fatigue and depression. The good news is that the information is valuable for your trauma healing progress in therapy. You don’t have to live in fear. You don’t have to live in pain. I am, and I know it’s for a season. I’ve done too much recovery work to allow myself to believe that hope is lost. Remember, you deserve to heal out loud.

07/19/2026

Internal/emotional scars don’t heal the same as physical/external ones do. Whether your abuse was from someone who was controlling and manipulative, or was inflicted on you physically as well, the visible wounds are far easier to heal. They’re also easier to heal with support, and most people don’t repost abuse until they’ve left a relationship, some don’t report at all because of shame, and there are those who are shut down when they ask for help - and then shut down themselves… Men are far more likely than women to be perpetrators, and far less likely to be believed as survivors, than women. However, we all need the same mental health treatments to heal and reclaim our lives, and the same amount of support to help us when we fall, because we will… repeatedly, until we learn how to trust ourselves and walk again.

07/10/2026

You don’t need permission to heal out loud!

Tell your story, and don’t accept disbelief as a judgement about you. You are not responsible for those blinded by the manipulative camouflage and gaslighting that surrounded your relationship. Your experience and your pain deserve to be shared, when you’re ready.

Telling your truth has become an overused term, and misused by people who don’t want to take responsibility for their role in their circumstances. It has also been used widely by people engaging in avoidant behavior, which increases alienation from supports and perpetuates the abuse cycle; this time it’s self-induced.

Tell your story. Heal out loud. Above all,

He punished me for speaking. I punish myself for staying quiet. That ends now.

07/09/2026

Held & Honest

07/07/2026

My therapist gave me the great distinction of being a part of the highest conflict divorce they’ve ever seen, recently. I told another professional that my coparent and I can’t agree on the color of the sky. I continue to do the work. Hopefully the suffering stops for the kids soon. Remember, you can only control your reactions, and the work you do to heal. That’s it.

07/07/2026

This song is about not meeting the crushing expectations of others. However, it resonates with me, as an abuse survivor, because the lyrics also echo abusive households.. read them:

I'm tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface
Don't know what you're expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow)
I've become so numb, I can't feel you there
Become so tired, so much more aware
I'm becoming this, all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you
Can't you see that you're smothering me?
Holding too tightly, afraid to lose control
'Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow)
And every second I waste is more than I can take
I've become so numb, I can't feel you there
Become so tired, so much more aware
I'm becoming this, all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you
And I know
I may end up failing too
But I know
You were just like me, with someone disappointed in you
I've become so numb, I can't feel you there
Become so tired, so much more aware
I'm becoming this, all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you
I've become so numb, I can't feel you there
I'm tired of being what you want me to be
I've become so numb, I can't feel you there
I'm tired of being what you want me to be

07/02/2026

This can be taken a few ways. That’s the beauty of art. What is your interpretation and experience with it?

06/27/2026

Allow yourself grace while protecting yourself.

06/25/2026