I shall close the long and gruesome history of gaslighting in my life with the following fact: my psychiatrist of almost 20 years lost...

Not allowed to speak my thoughts or show my feelings, I was driven by my family of origin into art. More like, taken, tied, threatened,...

I have broken the family contract. My mother enforced it: we (mother and three daughters) were never to acknowledge or object to my...

Whenever I doubt myself, the continuity of my mind and my body, all I need to do is dance, turning and winding and bending and...

If the abusers and alcoholics in my life sentenced me to silence, then in silence I learned and became acute. Who knew listening and...

I think too much about goodness. Like any child I was taught that being good was ideal, “good” was what you should aspire too, “good” was...

Hold off, Death, I say, Not for me today, Not for the immediate future. I walk away healthy from the cancer clinic. I walk away healthy...

I keep waiting to be tried for my crimes against humanity. What crimes, you might ask? (I ask myself as well, in constant evaluation of...

Because I was determined to live fully and deeply, I weaned myself off psychiatric drugs. The suffering was intense but worthwhile....

Having recently cut all ties with my family of origin, I have moved from anger, shock, and loss to feelings of freedom, joy, and release....

My parents’ training of me started early and was original in its cruelty. Christmas day, 1975, when I was five years old, I cried because...

Even before I confronted death at age 15, I had tastes, desires, and a temperament that did not fit. I danced, and sang, and immersed...

I have told my story, read and reread it, edited and proofed it, polished and published it. So goodbye to all that. I slam the door on...

There are women who taught me how to live. How to listen to myself and others. How to ask questions and stay curious. How to explore. How...

It would have helped if a single person had come forward to defend me or at least validate my perceptions of reality. Instead I had the...

Unlike the character played by Ingrid Bergman in the 1944 film, Gaslight, I had nothing valuable to motivate my father to undermine me:...

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,...

The truth: some of us don’t survive. When I consider what I have suffered at the hands of the ignorant, the brutal, or the narcissistic,...