Category: CoDepend/Boundaries
Survivor. Guilt.
Only recently have I acknowledged how deep my guilt can still run. How the idea of a biological connection’s importance still feels so ingrained inside of my head. The world made me feel as if I owed my family something-that because we share DNA, I had to give more chances than were necessary, safe, or…
Thanks for Nothing & Thank you for Everything.
One of the hardest parts of processing my childhood trauma has been hurting the people in my family who don’t fully understand what I went through, the ones who refuse to acknowledge the things I endured and the ones who fully believe that I am speaking out to help others for attention to feed some…
Showing Up.
The internet talks a lot about self-care and how it’s not a selfish act. And it’s not. Not for those of us who developed habits and patterns of thinking that excluded us from being cared for. I spent my childhood caring for others. I cared for them because I thought it was my job. That…
Clearing the Air
It never ceases to amaze me how far unhealthy, toxic, dysfunctional people will go to tesr people down. I feel like this is just another one of those things on the long list of consequences people from dysfunctional families don’t talk about often. Sometimes, no matter how far we move from the past, there are…
Discovering Barriers
Trauma is really hard to talk about. It’s hard to describe, and it’s hard for people to understand. Healing from trauma is a uniquely difficult journey. Barriers are everywhere. They get in our way. We fight, and they fight back. It can feel like our past is reluctant to let us go. There are things…
Trauma, Self-Destruction & Healing
1. Book 1 in series: Discovering Beautiful Here’s how it all started to unravel, revealing the damaging power of Childhood Trauma and my toxic, inherent need to hide. I hit dark bottoms, ultimately, finding freedom from the grip of my past. 2. Book 2 in series: Discovering Barriers What has happened since? Is healing over?…
Featured Warrior – Warriors on Purpose
I am honored to be a Featured Warrior on Kip Shubert’s website, Warriors on Purpose. If you don’t know, Kip is the founder of Warriors on Purpose. He is a father, teacher and someone who is passionate about guiding people and sharing his experiences strength and hope to help others break free from their destructive…
Thank you.
Someone just sent me this pic. The order I placed for these has not yet arrived so that means I had still not seen my own work yet, in book form, until tonight! Crazy! I am BEYOND thankful for friends who support me!! I am blessed measure, well past what I deserve to be able…
Vulnerability.
Recovery. It has shown me the beauty, brilliance, importance, and power of vulnerability and connection. It feels really good to be open, honest, authentic, and willing to face the ups and the downs with another human who knows the real me. It doesn’t mean that I don’t struggle from time to time. Certain touches or…
Breaking Cycles & Family Patterns
To my grandmother: Breaking a cycle or pattern. Sometimes it doesn’t make a lot of sense to read the words. It’s the difference between theory and practice. Often it doesn’t make a lot of sense on paper, but when we actually live it, the pieces come together and the words finally make sense. _______ -This…
Waves of Darkness.
You probably wouldn’t have even noticed if you saw me last week. Maybe we bumped shoulders. Maybe we made eye contact. I probably smiled. You probably smiled. We both kept walking. But you wouldn’t have known- I felt like my body weighed a thousand pounds. I felt so, so tired. I kept thinking about positive…
This is 36.
Monday is my birthday. 36 years on the earth and 12+ years of living freely, without being shackled to pain or tied down to a past I believed defined who I was and dictated my abilities. Every year, the closer I get to another birthday, the more surprised I am to be here. The more…
Forgiveness is Hard.
Today is my mom’s 52nd birthday. I just wanted to share with you my experience with forgiveness. It hasn’t meant reconciliation. We went years without any contact. It hasn’t been easy. I haven’t forgotten. It makes it even more difficult that she is still struggling, and she has no recollection of any of my personal…
First Meeting in 10 Years.
I went to a meeting last month. Crazy, right? For those of you who don’t know here’s some quick history. I began my recovery in a 12-step program. People like to proclaim that these kinds of things aren’t treatment- but I have to strongly disagree. For some of us- it is all we have to…
Inspiration Gone Wrong.
I remember watching my brother free fall alongside me, feeling a sense of comfort and connection with him. We both knew we were living aimless, empty lives, but we felt better about it knowing that we were in it together. We were both hurting deeply in ways we couldn’t process. There were things that we…
Simplifying Anonymity.
I think sometimes people make things way too complicated. My story is mine to tell, the details of my story are mine to tell. Your story is yours. Your details are yours to share. The fact that I choose to share my story and my details has no effect whatsoever on you, your program of…
Childhood Trauma
Sometimes I forget how far I have come. It’s not that I just completely forget how much work I’ve done, I think it’s more that I get too caught up in looking around at what’s going on with other people and their progress. For me this just isn’t a battle of staying away from substances…
One-Dozen-Sober-Years.
This month I am officially reflecting on twelve years of sobriety. Perspective is such a badass thing. My recovery has transformed dozens of times. Every year in December, I take some time to let myself soak it in; I feel it all and I take stock of how things have changed. The phases. The tears, the…
They Are Not Just Bad People
The leaves have fallen. Bell ringers sign up for their two-hour shifts. I transition from my regular generalized anxiety to my fancier, more prevalent, Holiday anxiety mixed with a dash of seasonal affective disorder. It’s time to celebrate the holiday season. There is an ora of excitement that fills my house. I always decorate for…
The Good Kind of Fear
There aren’t many Sunday morning’s that I don’t find myself standing in awe, with tears in my eyes as I sing praises to Jesus. I am not one to stand with my arms held high, outstretched toward the ceiling of the sanctuary, but am more inclined to feel weighted; yet completely free, with my head hanging…
Discovering Beautiful Book. What it is, and Why it Matters.
https://youtu.be/QcYgNR2Hsfc
What’s Your One Thing?
Throughout my life, there was this one thing that I ran from. For years. I refused to embrace it. I didn’t dare dream of getting too close. There was no way I was going to feel it or attempting to use its strengths. I definitely wasn’t going to become carelessly reliant on it. Vulnerability. What…
I Didn’t Realize I Let Go
Have you ever wondered how to tell if you are really ‘over’ something? There are some things I am really great at letting go. I can usually keep it simple and it happens almost automatically. A lady blatantly stepped in line in front of me at the post office this afternoon and I said nothing. Not…
Reactive, Fear-Based Love & 5 Things I Have Learned as an X-Enabler
It’s a blessing and a curse to have the foresight to take a few steps back when faced with a high-stress, family situation, especially in highly dysfunctional families, but if you want to start the process of changing or repairing any system you have to be willing to take an honest, objective look at it how things function (or…
Stop The Need To Control Before It Starts
I have a slightly sarcastic teenager living in my house and I use the term slightly, sarcastically. He goes through phases of embracing different words and phrases that he and his friends consider to be funny. A few months back, it was Y.P. and M.P. For example, if I said to him, “Yo there…
Sobriety Doesn’t Always Feel Good, But it Always Feels Right.
I had coffee with my mom this week at my house, in my kitchen. I fed her and we talked for a couple of informative, surprisingly uneventful hours. She says that her case worker and counselor are two of the most friendly, knowledgeable, and responsive that she has ever had. (Praise the Lord for that)….
Why To Consider Ending a Friendship
I wouldn’t say that forming new friendships post-sobriety has been easy, but the ones that I have developed are the most rich I have ever experienced. Recovery has proven over and over again to offer a multitude of exceptional promises, ironically these promises are delivered only after we let go of the assumptions, the control…
How I Learned to Stop Living Crisis to Crisis
If I were re-writing and tailoring the first half of the classic Serenity Prayer to speak to my former-self and the way I lived my former-life, it would go something like this: Brittany, c’mon already and grant yourself some strength, to desperately avoid the things you cannot change; courage to continuously hide from the things…
When You Finally See That Everything Is Not Fine
Generational addiction is complex and ugly. While it isn’t a hopeless thing to come back from, it is impossible to mend relationships if no one is willing to take a look at the truth, especially if you are talking about unraveling years and years of effects of trauma, abuse, codependency, enabling, addiction, and mismanaged mental-illness….