Mary Lambert and the Ups and Downs of Being a Survivor

It is not uncommon for a person to feel they can take on the world one day and to feel like all they want to do is curl up and hide the next day.

Want to Help Fight Child Abuse? Pay Attention

“Pay attention to what happens around you, maybe you can help a child who is broken inside.”

The Day I Left

“February 6th three years ago marks the day I packed all of my meager belongings and left my family’s house. It was almost exactly two weeks after my dad had kicked me out. He had walked into my room, told me I wasn’t worth his time anymore…”

In Which the Pieces Come Together: By Jeri Lofland

“In an odd way, I find it reassuring to discover that professionals can accurately describe the ways in which my siblings and I coped with our traumatic upbringing. We were not anomalies; we were not ‘broken’; we were not ‘messed up’. As children, we responded understandably — even predictably — to unsettling circumstances beyond our control.”

The Survivor

“I’m still me. I am the same person I have always been. Yes I’ve grown and learned and developed as a person through things I’ve done and things I’ve experienced and things that have been done to me. But I’m still me… I am strong and I am a survivor.”

A Week of Joy: Call for Contributions to HA’s Upcoming Positives Series

We are taking a week to not only celebrate the good experiences, but also to celebrate those moments of joy that contrasted with those moments of pain. This is a week of joy for everyone: to share in others’ good experiences, and also to celebrate those people or those moments that gave us a hope to carry on, that gave us maybe a unique experience of unconditional love.

I Am Not A Victim, I Am A Survivor

“There are times, like when I’m writing a post like this, that I feel much the same way I did that day: defeated, humiliated, like a victim, but then I remember, I’m a survivor. I fought, and clawed my way towards finally getting the right to start my own life, and won. I survived the toxic self hatred and ignorance of fundamentalism, and cast it aside.”

The Importance Of Telling Your Own Story: Faith Beauchemin’s Thoughts

“If we all bravely commit to telling our own stories and listening to other people’s stories, we might together be able to find the next steps in human progress. Whatever our past, there’s something in each of our life stories that can make the world a better place if we speak it and collaboratively explore what it is we have to tell.”