"Tears-pouring-down-my-face, couldn't-talk-couldn't-breathe kind of laughing. Screaming laughing. So hard that I was sobbing because I couldn't get it together."
"I don’t know who this lady is... she waved at him and he made his way up to her. I thought their interaction would be the same as last time but I was wrong. "
"I had managed to keep my composure in the grocery store, and even when I was putting away my cart back to get my quarter back. But as I drove home, the tears came. I began the ugly cry."
When my kid, who is in constant survival mode, feels seen and empathized with…their brains have space and capacity to learn, to be taught by you, and just maybe retain information.
I was kicked in the head, I was beaten with a club. And then strangled again for the kill; at which time he disposed of my body into an area I refer to as the ‘hole’.
"There are graphic photos of my face, and of the man who did this to me, my long-term ex-boyfriend who I was devoted to. A man who is trained day in and day out to kill efficiently and swiftly."
"In a puddle of my own blood, he left me in the dark—barely 20 paces from a main road. For all he knew I was dead...This is real. This did happen. It does happen."
"When I touch my wife, nearly 13 years after her rape, she can be triggered into an immediate fight or flight response...her body remembers what her mind can’t."
