The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

Sometimes even when we know what to do, we don’t know what to do in the moment. I met a toxic person recently in a place where I thought I’d meet kind people — a progressive Christian group. It is the type of Christian group populated with kind-hearted, highly educated people with high incomes who are generous in helping people who appear to need money, but that’s another story. After church services, people prepare snacks, including fresh fruit and raw, unsalted nuts, cookies or brownies, and coffee and tea. People sit at tables with chairs, which is probably pretty normal for most churches. After services, I gathered with others to set up tables and chairs for people to gather and chat while they ate their snacks. I ended up sitting across from one of my favorite attendees—an older man who served time in prison after bombing a military recruitment center in the 1960s. He was serving a life term in prison when he realized he had used violence to protest against violence and tha...

I am a survivor of generational child sex abuse trauma. I struggled with depression, low self-esteem, and anxiety for decades. I healed in the most unusual way--by going through more trauma. I won a child custody lawsuit my ex-husband filed against me to take custody of our daughter from me. I won by obtaining court orders for our family to work with a therapist, for my ex-husband and me to work with a court-ordered parenting time coordinator who was a forensic psychologist, and for our children to work with their own therapist. The whole series of events around the lawsuit my ex-husband filed against me took place over eight years or so. I was imperfect as a parent and made plenty of mistakes, but I was much better at following the therapist's and the coordinator's advice than my ex-husband.  When my ex-husband's lawsuit to take my daughter from me finally went to court, the coordinator testified on my behalf. I won the case so thoroughly that the judge ordered my ex-husba...

  How to Journal to Document Abuse or Conflict I went through eight-plus years of intense co-parenting conflict with my ex-husband that lasted until both our children were over 18 and still resurfaced whenever there was a reason for us to communicate about our children.          It was hell. The most important piece of advice I can give any parent going through co-parenting hell is to try to make life as happy as possible for your children. Try not to burden them with your problems, but that is the advice everyone gives. It is true, but even better is to make sure you and your children have fun together, whether it is buying art supplies and a giant pad of paper and making pictures together, cooking a special meal together, walking in a park, or playing in a stream together. But if you are going to go to court before a judge and assume that you will, if your relationship with your co-parent is filled with conflict…then you have to document your case...