Boundaries used to feel like punishment to me. Growing up in a narcissistic family system, boundaries were treated as: Nobody taught me that boundaries are actually the conditions required for growth — not just for me, but for the other person, too. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on three major boundaries…
On the internet lately, No Contact gets discussed like a hashtag.A concept.A brand of liberation.A generational identity marker. And listen — I’m genuinely grateful for that shift. I truly am.Language saves lives.Early awareness changes trajectories. But it’s important to say this clearly: No Contact didn’t begin with Millennials or Gen…
After everything in my life finally came into the light — the lies, the manipulation, the emotional chaos — I had to face a hard truth: I had confused patience with permission. And Scripture never called me to confuse the two. Peace Has Limits in the Bible One verse used…
“No Contact” is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the trauma-recovery world. Some people think it’s: Others romanticize it as: Neither of those views is accurate. No Contact is neither a weapon nor a miracle cure. It is a boundary of last resort — and sometimes, it is the…
Lately I’ve had a quiet realization:Even without the DNA test… that family system was still going to collapse. It was structurally unsustainable. Too many secrets.Too much financial chaos.Too much emotional extraction.Too many rewritten stories.Too many rotating providers.Too many crises used as currency. That kind of system can’t stabilize. It doesn’t…
Financial abuse doesn’t always look like someone stealing from you. Sometimes it looks like: This is called a dependency cycle — and it often hides in families for decades without being named. What a Dependency Cycle Actually Is A dependency cycle forms when someone: Over time, this becomes identity. Not:“I’m…
I come from a family where faith runs deep. On my biological father’s side especially, Christianity isn’t just a belief — it’s a way of life. And like many people raised around Scripture, one verse came up again and again growing up: “Honor your father and mother.” — Exodus 20:12…
Sometimes healing doesn’t arrive as peace.Sometimes it arrives as a discovery that knocks the wind out of you. This was one of those moments. While my son and I were clearing out my mother’s hoarded Missouri house — digging through decades of accumulated chaos — we started finding things tucked…
After Thanksgiving dinner this year, sitting across from my sister and her husband, something landed in me that I hadn’t fully named before. I watched the way they moved around each other — the subtle ease, the quiet partnership, the shared language that only years of safety can build. And…
For most of my life, I thought gratitude only came after everything was healed, settled, and safe. Now I know better. Gratitude is what grows in the middle of the ashes — after the unmasking, after the collapse, after the truth burns everything down and you’re still standing. Today is…