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Watch how a woman blossoms when she finally feels safe.  My children will tell you that my home was a big box of beige, cream and beige colors and light dashes of turquoise and browns with very little bright accent colors as they grew up. My style was very Midwest contemporary and honestly it looked like my home could be anyone’s living space and not necessarily my own.That all ended about 5 years ago, after writing See You Later. It took some time to self publish and durin

It’s hard to deepen the intimacy in a relationship when we feel we can’t say stuff or there are parts of ourselves we need to hide. It’s true that different relationships “pull” for different parts of us. We’re a slightly different person at work than we are at home; we’re a slightly different person to our romantic partner than we are to our friends; we’re a slightly different person to our family than we are to strangers. But if a relationship is predicated on us being a “v

When my daughter was 4, I learned from my daughter that her grandfather was taking her into men’s restrooms. She had seen things she should not. The way I found out? My daughter began having nightmares and stopped wanting to go anywhere with her grandfather. I questioned her and she told me what she had seen. I was shocked and absolutely heartbroken for my little girl. I calmly told her grandfather that I had to ask him something, because I would not be a good mother if I did

One summer, when I was 9, I spent an entire week with my grandmother. She lived 35 minutes from my home. She is the woman who adopted my mother, but never wanted an adopted child. My mother grew up knowing her father wanted her and her mother did not. I did not know this until I was a teenager. Her father was away, 325 days a year as a truck driver. I was afraid of my grandfather, only because I did not know him. I liked my grandmother a lot, I didn’t love her, because I only

Father’s Day With a Narcissistic Father: Surviving the Mood Swings, the Silence, and the Eggshel ls Father’s Day doesn’t feel like a celebration to me. It feels like a reminder—of what I was expected to call “normal,” and what I spent years trying to survive. My father could be charming in public and cruel at home. That contrast is hard to explain to people who only met the version of him that smiled, joked, and knew exactly what to say. The version that made other people thi

You can't tell a child that their abusive parent loves them and then expect them to recognize abuse as unacceptable later. You conditioned them to accept harm as love and if they aren’t aware enough to stop that confusion, it will follow them into every relationship. Stop lying to children about abusive parents loving them and doing the best they can. You’re doing them a lifelong disservice by siding with the abusive adult as the child fights to be a loving little human with

Every single day. With everything I had. Ask me how I did as a mother and the answer is this, I showed up and it was heartfelt. Every single bit of mothering was full of my love and care for my children. There was never a day I stopped trying, even on the days I looked completely fine, but I was struggling on the inside. I am sorry for the days my energy ran out before theirs did. I’m sorry my energy is depleted, as a grandparent on the days I’m still navigating what hurts. I