Recovery Blog

  • Sometimes Dreams Do Come True

    I am thrilled to announce here that I have officially published my first book! The Journey Back to Self: A Beginner’s Guide to Recovery from Cultic & Narcissistic Abuse is available in print and ebook on a variety of platforms. You can find it here: The Journey Back to Self At the heart of this

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  • Dysregulation, Anxiety and Paralysis

    I’m back to report that life has been life-ing, as usual, and I’m still steady jogging to keep up with it all. We’ve just passed the 3 year anniversary of when #igotout, and to look back at how much life has changed in such a short period of time is positively mind blowing. ðŸ¤¯ I don’t

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  • Stepping Out of the Shadows and I Need Your Help

    Hi folks, This is a scary one for me. I’m used to sharing some of my innermost thoughts and feelings here with you (all nine of my readers 🤣) but I’m not used to asking for help, especially from so many people. It’s been three years since I escaped the high control group and began

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  • The Grace of Giving Up

    The Grace of Giving Up

    Giving up is given such a bad rap. We’re continually admonished to “hang in there” and “don’t give up!” Certainly, these words of encouragement are designed to bolster our flagging spirits and push us through to the finish line. It is the “western culture’s” way: to just keep pushing. Often, there is no other choice

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  • Turning Pages

    Turning Pages

    The seasons are changing again, and right on time, so is life. It fascinates me that perpetual change is a constant, and yet I, like so many others I see, still resist it. I have grieved this fact of life deeply. More than anything, I crave for life to be good and settled and for

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  • The Softer Side of Life

    The Softer Side of Life

    The way I see it is, we can use life’s challenges to make us soft or we can use them to make us hard. I think the world’s tendency is toward hardness. We’re given the impression that hardness equals protection, equals safety, equals “smart.” This makes sense in a lot of ways. The tortoise retreats

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  • Back to One

    Back to One

    When I was in college, a popular CW show at the time, Dawson’s Creek, came to film on our campus since one of their main characters had gone off to college in the world of the show. While it posed somewhat of an inconvenience by closing off a whole quad, it also brought some money

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  • [We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for this special anniversary post.] June 4th, 2023 It’s 7 pm on a Sunday evening and I’m sitting in my arm chair, laptop in my lap, candle flickering across the room, easy tunes playing in the background. My little apartment is tiny, but so cozy, and the natural light

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  • If you’re wondering what it’s like to be in a high control group or relationship, the first thing to know is that words cannot actually give the experience. It is an all-consuming way of life that impacts your being on every single level: physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual and physiological – all at the same time,

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  • It’s been over 40 years now in my search for safety. I can quite honestly say I have searched everywhere I know to look, both high and low. I have looked for it in parents, family, the religion of my youth; I have looked for it in education, career choices, various communities, and in money;

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