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Katherine Davis, Author
kd@katherinedavisauthor.com

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Recovering from Trauma: Hatred Displaced by Joy
Recovering from trauma, I use hatred not as a vehicle for hurting others, but as a vehicle for changing myself, for changing the world. Eventually, hatred will be displaced by joy and curiosity.
davikath8
Aug 102 min read
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Giant Scissors: The Same Answer to the Same Question
I keep living into the same answer. It is the same answer because it is the same question. I give people millions of chances. I don’t start from cynicism. I make allowances for mistakes, fatigue, and frailty. And still I am disappointed. I am hurt, ignored, mistreated, or misunderstood. Time after time, I reach the same conclusion of midnight desperation: No More.
davikath8
Jul 302 min read
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Cancer and Trauma Recovery: Invincibility as Masquerade
Invincibility. It doesn’t exist among humans, but I love invincibility as masquerade, as defensive strategy in cancer and trauma...
davikath8
Jul 112 min read
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PTSD and Sanctuary Trauma: When the Sanctuary Turns into a Collapsing House of Cards
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
davikath8
May 193 min read
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Cancer Recovery: Yes in a World Sometimes Full of Violent No’s
Perhaps I shouldn’t have had the massage. It had been almost two years since a professional had touched me in a compassionate, and not a clinical, way. My chemotherapy for breast cancer had finished, and I was trying to reconnect with my body and find some physical relief. My cancer recovery had begun. But massage releases both the angels and the demons within.
davikath8
Apr 112 min read
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Healthcare: People Are the Point, Not Disease
We are still mired in disease-centred care. As to being seen as a whole human in the healthcare system, you are out of luck.
davikath8
Mar 194 min read
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The Little Engine that Wouldn’t: Never Try to Cheer up a Cancer Patient
Rule #1 and #1000: Never try to cheer up a cancer patient. Is it really so hard? Letting others be themselves?
davikath8
Mar 12 min read
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Healing after Gaslighting: On Stepping out of my Abusers’ Shoes
Having long been gaslighted by authority figures, I tend to gaslight myself, but I am done. Believing myself is healing, is health.
davikath8
Feb 131 min read
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PTSD and Me: Wounds into Wings, into Weapons
I didn’t have a PTSD episode while awaiting my colonoscopy to annoy my gastroenterologist, but annoyed he was. He is a busy, important...
davikath8
Jan 272 min read
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Empathy and Defense: Cancer Survivor Superpowers
A survivor of cancer and childhood abuse explains how empathy and defense have become her superpowers, sprung from scarcity.
davikath8
Dec 17, 20243 min read
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What Does Trauma Look Like? Appearances Can Be Attractive Lies
What does trauma look like? Appearances can be deceiving, as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are common and can happen to anyone.
davikath8
Dec 3, 20242 min read
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Hello Darkness, My Old Friend: A Cancer Survivor's PTSD
A survivor of multiple cancers reflects on her relationship with panic, how PTSD has shaped her life and her character.
davikath8
Oct 31, 20242 min read
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Medicine as Transaction: Why I Insist on Being Human
Medicine as transaction. I suppose I am not suited for it. But I ask myself, what are these startling realities calling me to do?
davikath8
Oct 9, 20243 min read
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Alice Munro and the Loneliness of the Abandoned Child
Recent revelations about author Alice Munro cause this writer to reflect on her own childhood
davikath8
Aug 3, 20242 min read
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No Time for Terror: Observations from Provincial Cancer Land
A Canadian cancer patient shares observations from the front lines of an overtaxed and underfunded system
davikath8
Jun 3, 20242 min read
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Having Cancer Again: The Real Work of Love
Looking back, it seems obvious that what happened to me that summer was traumatic. I was a fifteen-year-old receiving chemo for Hodgkin’s...
davikath8
Feb 6, 20242 min read
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Upon the Reappearance of Cancer's Goblins
Before, during, and after my bone marrow transplant as a teenager, the experts at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center did not disguise...
davikath8
Sep 18, 20232 min read
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Growing Out of Trauma and Into Health
Because my parents punished me every time I asserted myself, my nervous system continues to recoil every time I do so, even at the age of...
davikath8
Jan 10, 20232 min read
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On The Myth of Normal
While Gabor Mate in his new book, The Myth of Normal (https://drgabormate.com/), explicitly forgives parents who inflict their trauma on...
davikath8
Oct 13, 20222 min read
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Closing the Book on Gaslighting: On Learning My Psychiatrist of 20 Years Lost His Medical Licence
I shall close the long and gruesome history of gaslighting in my life with the following fact: my psychiatrist of almost 20 years lost...
davikath8
Jun 15, 20222 min read
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