Grappling with PTSD from emotional and medical trauma, I search for support groups in my community but find none. Instead I bond with characters from outer space. I have followed the character of La’an Noonien Singh on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds with interest, respect, and recognition. And La’an is not alone in being a survivor of trauma on the Enterprise. If only respect and understanding for trauma survivors arrived on Planet Earth, now, and not in a fantasy future.

There are many ways to kill people without physical violence. All it takes is obedience. A willingness not to think or care. A vulnerable person might cringe as the faces harden, and the backs turn into impenetrable walls. The sanctuary turns into a collapsing house of cards, where someone is always going to end up crushed at the bottom. I offer this writing as an incendiary and hope that the flames give warmth and light to those looking for relief from the cold and the dark

Rule #1 and #1000: Never try to cheer up a cancer patient. Is it really so hard? Letting others be themselves?

A survivor of cancer and childhood abuse learns she is not entirely free of her troubled past

A Canadian cancer patient shares observations from the front lines of an overtaxed and underfunded system

Quoted from “The Gaslighting Recovery Workbook: Healing from Emotional Abuse” by Amy Marlow-MaCoy, LPC, Rockridge Press, 2020 Adapted...

If my parents had left bruises, I would, even as a 10-year-old, have found my way to the Auburn Police Station and testified against...

Source: Canadian Women’s Foundation https://canadianwomen.org/blog/signs-of-emotional-abuse/ According to the Canadian Department of...

I went to college unsure of myself. I had been driven underground by my own family, told again and again I was wrong, ugly, and stupid,...