injustice
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“Why didn’t you tell somebody if your abuse was so bad?” These clever folks speak to you about something they know nothing of. Do they not understand the fear that was instilled into my little being? Not only was my body pierced by the blunt force trauma of rape at three, I was ruled through…
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I have lived on the margins twice in my life, and from the outside I know it looks the same. That’s the strange part. Same distance from the center, same refusal to live the way everyone tells you to live, same sense of standing slightly outside the flow of things, watching instead of participating. But…
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If this were a story, it would start in the middle—because that’s how these things go, right? Not at the bright, screaming beginning, where a girl is born into a house that is more war zone than home. Not at the end, where she stands, whole and breathing, on the other side of it all.…
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There is a longing in every soul for something deeper, something truer. Life batters us with wounds that run deeper than we dare to admit—broken relationships, unrealized dreams, and the quiet ache of feeling unseen. But here’s the beautiful truth: we were never meant to carry these burdens alone. Healing begins in the quiet places.…
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Do you have a place where you can speak the unspeakable? I ask because there are chambers inside all of us, dark, secret vaults where we lock the memories that cut too deeply to touch. Where do you take your battles, the near-unendurable heaviness of a mind turned against itself? Do you wander through the…
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When does the healing end? When do the old ghosts stop rattling their chains in your bones? They say time is the great healer, but time is also a thief. It can steal innocence, families, safe and warm memories. It smooths over the jagged edges, sure, but does it ever really fill the cracks? Happiness…
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Growing up, many of us were taught that love is unconditional and nurturing. However, for those who experienced toxic or abusive parenting, love often came with conditions, expectations, and performances that were anything but peaceful. Performative love is a haunting legacy of childhood spent in cycles of abuse, where affection was contingent on compliance and…
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For me it was a long way down the line, after years and years of healing work, of prayer, and of raging (in therapy and in prayer) at my abusers, that I was ready to open myself to the possibility of forgiveness. No amount of willed or false or hopeful forgiveness was going to fix…
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Fear with a capital “F” stays with survivors of incest. It was a gift given to us at breakfast, served with soup at lunch, and gluttonously given at the dinner table. Fear had to be consumed by us for these households to operate smoothly. We probably don’t believe that we operate from a fear perspective.…
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Lord, could you help us hush those that align against the innocent? Push back those that hurt the young. Lord, help us stop those that mock justice and continue in their sin. Push back those that hurt the young. Shut the mouths of those that mistreat and hurt, then stand in the assemblies of people…