Trauma & Recovery

ET TU, SIMON??? I cannot express the pain that shot through my body last night when I stumbled across the news that Simon Le Bon, lead singer of Duran Duran, was accused of groping a record store employee at a meet-and-greet in 1995. I am an original Durannie. I fell in love with bassist John […]

The email subject line read, “What to do when #MeToo comes for you, too.” The email itself was from one of the original internet marketing gurus, someone who started in the ’90s teaching the ins and outs of Google advertising and who now lives very comfortably in a high end Chicago suburb. “Louis CK, Bill […]

During my first year as a Pagan I hit each stop on the Wheel hard, with the zeal of a new convert. This year, not so much. I did do Bealtine huge this year – went all the way to Ireland for the traditional fire on the Hill of Uisneach (which I still need to […]

I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan. In my house we have heated debates over whether Frodo or Samwise is the true hero of the tale. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bellowed with adrenaline when Eowin pulls off her helmet on the battlefield, says “I. Am. No. Man!” and […]

In the southwest of Ireland, midway between Galway and Limerick, a mother and father are worriedly tending their sick daughter. Tenant farmers in the time of Famine, most of the family was starving. They’d likely be evicted when the rent next came due. But none of that was as urgent as what was happening to […]

My ancestors have been speaking to me this week. Yesterday, John Beckett wrote a blog about the current situation here in America. Mr. Beckett has been saying for a while now that his Gods (especially The Morrigan, whom we both have a relationship with) were saying a storm was coming, and more recently that the […]

Tomorrow, June 30, will be a day of nationwide protest. Marches are planned in all 50 states against the cruel and heartless “zero tolerance” policy of the Trump administration – a policy that has seen thousands of children ripped from their families and housed in what can only be described cages. There’s a march here […]

I haven’t left the house in days, and I cannot remember when I last bathed. I try to carry on a basic conversation with my son and get stuck trying to remember every day words. Mostly I’ve just been sleeping. A Surprise Trigger I was already in a bit of post-trip-to-Ireland slump. That always happens […]

8 years ago this week, my beloved Doctor Who ran one of the best episodes in show history. The 11th Doctor and Amy Pond visited Provence and the slightly erratic Vincent Van Gogh. Vincent captured Amy’s heart, and sure she could prevent his upcoming suicide, she and The Doctor plan a Grand Gesture. They bring Vincent […]

My younger son asked me that question just a bit ago. If you don’t know, he’s 17, but is on the Autism Spectrum, bipolar, and a few other things that cause him to be less mature than his age, overly tender-hearted and generally anxious as fuck. I asked why on earth he thought he was […]

The day I landed in Ireland I was exhausted, aching, and completely overwhelmed. After getting the rental car I was supposed to stop at this town called Swords that had a large shopping center. The idea was a cheap coffeemaker, grinder, and flat iron for the bestie as none of our electronics would work with […]

I’ve written a good bit about my childhood abuse trauma lately, and today I want to bring the focus back to the main type of trauma this blog is supposed to be about: Religious trauma. The concept of Religious Trauma Syndrome is fairly new, and even those at the forefront of research and advocacy in […]

I’ve been in a very deep pit. Surrounded by fog and darkness, weighed down by heavy stones. According to the date of my last post, I haven’t written on this blog for nearly 3 months. Chunks of that time are completely missing from my memory. For days on end I slept nearly round the clock, […]

I woke up this morning to the new trending hashtag #MeAt14 on Twitter. Many of the tweets are just images of girls at 14, who are obviously too young to be in any kind of sexual situation with a man in his 30’s such as Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. But a few of them […]

CW: Non-consensual physical contact, emotional abuse.   It could begin over anything. Sometimes it was over some youthful indiscretion on my part. Sometimes, my dad would even be laughing and joking one minute, and the next minute it was as if a switch had flipped and he was full of anger. Other times he would […]

On a cold night in December, 1970, a barely 18-year-old girl was dropped off at an unwed mother’s clinic just over the state line from where she lived. Her father watched her get out of the car and then drove away. She was in labor, and nobody other than her parents knew it. Nobody – […]

I distinctly remember a moment when I was perhaps two or three years old. It had occurred to me that my parent’s had stopped saying “I love you,” to me. What did this mean? Had they just forgotten? Had I done something wrong? So tiny little me formulated a plan. I was still at the […]

I’m currently in Western North Carolina for a memorial service for a dear cousin. This will be the first time I’ve seen my dad since I stopped talking to both my parents.  After a lifetime of emotional abuse, the final straw was their reaction to learning of a sexual assault I experienced as a teenager. […]

In a dream, I was in a primitive cabin, possibly in the mountains where I grew up. A woman named Molly was sitting in a rocking chair near the hearth, where there was a blazing fire. Molly was clearly a wise woman, and she had something to share with me. But, as can only happen […]

So while we’re on the subject of my past trauma, let me recount a story for you. At the age of 14 I went to a concert. The adult relative who took me stayed in our assigned seats while I went down to the front to join the crush of other teen girls screaming over […]