Gwen I Harding, LPC-C

03/21/2026

💯

03/21/2026

You having "frozen" in response to a trigger is not you having implicitly given consent.

Trauma responses are not "choices." What happened to you when you "froze" or dissociated is not your fault.

03/03/2026

Women have fought hard for their right to vote.

in 1913, more than 5,000 women marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C. to demand the right to vote, marking the first suffrage parade and the first large, organized march on Washington for political purposes. The 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession through Washington, D.C. changed the way protests were viewed and carried out by the American public, and laid the foundation for future marches.

The Procession, unprecedented in both its scale and its tactics, was a major turning point for the woman suffrage movement in the United States. Suffrage leader Alice Paul, who was recently elected head of the National American Woman Suffrage Association’s Congressional Committee, devised the idea for a large-scale public demonstration. Paul, who had spent time in England, witnessed the more militant tactics that the British suffragists used to draw attention to their cause.

Parade organizers strategically selected March 3, 1913 for the march. Woodrow Wilson was to be inaugurated as the new President the following day, and national press was in town and idly awaiting the inaugural festivities.

Paul insisted that the parade march down Pennsylvania Avenue, deliberately following the same route that the inaugural parade would take the next day. The contrast between the two parades would prove striking. Reporters flocked to the suffrage parade, leaving Wilson to arrive at the train station unheralded.

Despite the chaos and violence that initially ensued during the parade, Paul declared the event a success. The parade made national headlines and once again captured the public’s interest in the suffrage movement. Even those who opposed votes for women acknowledged that, as citizens, the women had the right to peacefully assemble.

03/03/2026

Not my trauma.
So good!

Recently a friend went through something really hard. When she called to tell me I could feel the bottom drop out. I could feel the familiar feeling of shock radiate through my whole body like electricity. My vision went blurry, my heart raced, the room swirled around me.

You see, I’ve been here before. Maybe you have too. And this situation, although not mine, and not even similar to what I’ve walked through, my body absorbed it like it was. In an instant I was consumed and the panic was tangible. My own trauma walked right into the room like it was yesterday.

After the phone call I sat staring at the wall while my kids talked around me, feeling like I was fighting for my life to get my head back above water. My past felt like a vice grip on my neck pulling me down, down, down, when deep in my spirt three words cut through the noise:

Not your trauma.

My vision cleared, the room stopped spinning.

Not your trauma.

Peace washed over my body.

Not your trauma.

I’m a walk-through-the-hard-stuff-with-you kind of friend. But I also struggle to separate what is mine to hold and what is not mine.

I thought back to when I was going through trauma that was mine. I thought about how my friends could walk with me, but they could not save me. I’m sure there were times they wanted to, but the truth was that trauma was mine. It was not theirs and I had to ultimately walk through it. One of the most profound things they did for me was not to try to rescue me, but to believe in me.

The best example I can think of is birth.

When a friend is in labor and the pain is so great she doesn’t believe she can do it for another second, she doesn’t need someone to also be in labor, she doesn’t need someone to feel her contractions and lose herself in pain, she needs a firm grip from someone who believes in her saying, “you can do this, and you’re going to be okay.”

So those words became my mantra.

Not your trauma.

It’s so important for us to separate what is ours and what is not.

Not just for our own hearts, but for theirs too.

Love,
Jess

03/03/2026

"Maybe we should start talking about how many men out of 3 will sexually assault someone... instead of how many women out of 3 will be assaulted. Let's shift the ownership." - Christina Ricci

01/19/2026

MLK, Jr.

01/19/2026

“Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr.

01/19/2026

Remembering MLK, JR.
Keeping his words.

This , remember my father by:

Amplifying and advocating for the end of state-sanctioned and facilitated violence against Black and Brown immigrants and against people, period.

Speaking up for people who are suffering genocide in Sudan. Palestine, Congo, and other nations.

Calling and writing your Congresspersons in support of democracy as opposed to dictatorship.

Supporting policies to eradicate poverty (higher minimum wage, affordable housing, etc)

Learning the truth about and challenging anti-Black racism, which is still prevalent in healthcare, media, lending practices, the criminal “justice” system, etc.