I also felt very connected as though I was surrounded by a crowd of loving beings. I was about 3/4 of the way down the trail and had just...

He sat at his desk soberly, his wife sitting in the corner chair and a chair next to her empty for me. At first glance, I could tell it was

It is Monday morning.  I literally don't know how to fight anymore. I rested all weekend, only to feel as drained as i did before, like it didn't help at all. I am sick, quite sick. I can feel it. And the dizziness makes my stomach queasy. There has to be a way to get my needs met. But I'm literally out of ideas. And energy.  I will have to keep forcing myself to go to work because I see no other way despite being drained and sick.  I did my taxes only to discover I barely ma

This is just an impromptu post because I'm trying to process where I'm at with religion, Christianity in particular...I want to talk about it but this is about the safest space I can think of to try to put my thoughts into words without them just staying stuck inside of me. I'm putting myself out there, and in a way risking myself, to put this out like this. I had someone tell me that the sad part of deconstruction is that people often walk away from Jesus. I don't intend to

I am a bit hesitant to share all this stuff because I have experienced people who call themselves christians to lash out or try to tell me I'm wrong or that I'm going off the deep end, or to hell basically, because of the choices I've made in the past and... honestly, I expect more down the road. But if you're here reading this I hope you will be open minded and at least follow along on my journey of curiosity. This is about me and where I'm at. It has nothing to do with you.

Several years ago I came across a Facebook post that makes its rounds almost every year. It is a list of items that people wish they...

Yesterday was the third time that I spent time with Rose, my therapy horse. She is brown all over with a big round belly. Last week when I was there, towards the end of our session, my horse therapist took me over to a whiteboard on the other side of the arena to show me how human brains work different than horse brains. In the middle was 4 boxes shaped as an upside down triangle. The bottom box was named something equivalent to survival mode. The next one said movement and b

If you have been following my story lately you may have heard that I was in the shelter for 7 months...it really took me for a loop mentally and emotionally. My trauma professional put in countless hours to put up a fundraiser for me and someone else who also needed aid. I found a place but they asked for a double deposit because of my income level. I used most of my savings to pay half of the deposit just to hold the key because they were the first to even be willing to wor

Around a year ago in the healing work I was doing I came up with the idea that I wanted to build a dollhouse for the child inside of me that never had one. I wanted to give her so many things that she had never been allowed to have as a child. I used to be obsessed with my cousin's barbies and all the tiny accessories as a young child till it was taken away because they thought I played too much with them... I designed a dollhouse. I have the plans somewhere in storage. The h

Last night I was able to release just a little bit more grief and pain from how my abusive employers treated me...it is still such a hard, painful part in my life that I can hardly go there even if I don't have to go alone. Usually first it helps for me to get grounded. So much of the time I don't feel safe and am so much in survival mode that it's hard to even get started. Just noticing my breath. And feeling the firmness of the car seat cushions under me and just letting my

In February I felt that maybe I'd be out of the shelter by the end of the month. (But that was false)I planned that I would spend March celebrating Christmas for myself and all the parts of me that never were able to before. I planned I'd spend April, my birthday month, doing one thing every day to celebrate that I am still alive after everything I've had to survive. But this morning I realized... That April is almost halfway over. I had such a mixture of feelings inside of m

Today I was thinking about that question. A few days ago I was asked when the exhaustion started. When I first felt it.

Warning: this is a really raw post. Read at your own risk...

This past weekend was horrible. I had things I wanted to do but I didn't get any of it done... Friday I went to work and took a picture of the schedule and noticed that I was scheduled for 5 hours instead of the 4 I had told them that I could do. I went to the manager and told him that I am unable to work an extra hour at this point and I don't know why I'm scheduled like that. He replied that it's ok to work just 4 hours, that he'll talk to the other manager that did the sch

Something that's been on my mind lately is Christmas...its been several years since I spent any holidays with my family...next month it will be two years since I wrote this blog post: https://www.lighthopetruth.com/post/merry-christmas It was the first year that I ever decorated for Christmas in my own living quarters. I had a church family. I felt like I belonged somewhere. Last Christmas I don't remember if I even really decorated. It was a very painful time of having lost

Also now that I'm here and getting used to the sights and sounds, I am reminded of the group homes that I've been in in the past.

Graduating from school at 8th grade, the future looked extremely dark. All I could see was that there would now be no escape from my parents

And I keep hearing my dad's voice "It's just all in your head!" A phrase I often heard when I wasn't feeling well....

If anger consisted of gooey globs, I'd be flinging it at quite a number of people right now. And...I guess I wasn't expecting to receive s