Content Note: This article contains discussion of intimate partner violence and attempted suicide. This article was originally published on xoJane and cross-posted to Everyday Feminism. It appears with permission of Everyday Feminism. He spent over a year trying to convince me to be with him. We were friends for two years and became close. When one of his relationships ended … [Read more...]
Yeah, I’m a Victim: Reclaiming My Truth and Healing After Rape
Content note: This article contains discussions of rape and physical, childhood, and sexual abuse. In 2016, on a radical feminist Facebook page for survivors of abuse, someone posted the question, “Do you identity as a victim or survivor?” As the thread progressed over the following weeks, people provided very heartfelt and nuanced responses. The discussion came up at a time … [Read more...]
It’s Okay To Forgive, or Not: Grieving When You’re Estranged From Your Family
Not long ago, I sat with a sweet little old man who was dying. (This is a regular occurrence for me; I’m a rabbi who works in hospice.) The man’s one dying wish was simple: to speak to his teenage granddaughter on the phone in Australia before he died. His selfish daughter was too “bitter” about the past to allow this to happen, he said. His request seemed so reasonable, his … [Read more...]
Self Love Isn’t Easy: 10 Difficult Things I Do To Practice Radical Self Love
Self-love is crucial for surviving and thriving in an oppressive society hellbent on making us feel like we’re wrong or not enough. But precisely because of this society, cultivating self-love can be difficult. As someone who has struggled with depression and anxiety, I know how much energy it can take just to get through the day. When you’re stuck treading water, self-love can … [Read more...]
“It’s Okay Not To Be Okay”: What I Learned From Sitting With My Grief
This article originally appeared in Write Away under the title "Weeping May Endure" and is reprinted here by permission. A friend of mine suffered a grave loss three years ago. When it happened, it stirred up something in me. I do not deny the beauty and compassion and generosity that course through our world, but there is also much malice and hardship and loss. We humans … [Read more...]
5 Myths That Uphold Mental Health Stigma in Latinx Communities
It was after three years of struggling with my mental health when I came to terms with needing to see a therapist. I was coping with regular anxiety attacks, situational depression, and untreated trauma. My reluctance to seek out professional help was due to a number of reasons that could be narrowed down to one thing: the stigma that comes with admitting to mental … [Read more...]
Reclaiming My Eroticism After Sexual Assault
Content note: This article discusses sexual violence at length. After my rape, I thought of my body as a series of open wounds and wounded openings sutured together. I had to learn how to rewrite the poems, the stories, the words I wrapped around my flesh. After certain types of trauma, sometimes the only way we can see our bodies is as spaces for harm, spaces for … [Read more...]
Notes From a Psychiatric Survivor: How Do We Heal When Systems Have (Re)Traumatized Us?
Editor's Note: This article represents the perspective of an individual who identifies as a psychiatric survivor and whose experiences with the mental health field have many times been traumatizing. It is not meant to dismiss the valuable aspects of psychiatry, psychopharmacology, or therapy, or to suggest that others don't benefit from these (often life-saving) resources. I … [Read more...]
3 Ways You Might Change After a Difficult Thing Has Happened (And Why That’s Okay)
One day I called my best friend from high school and asked him, “Can you tell me who I was?" "Remind me how you remember me, please," I begged. "I can’t remember who I was, who I really am, who I’m supposed to be.” I experienced a trauma. It changed me in ways that made me unrecognizable to myself. I struggled with these changes, resented them, and ended up resenting … [Read more...]
12 maneras de saber si tu cansancio se debe al trabajo emocional y cómo construir limites saludables
Se ha escrito mucho respecto al trabajo emocional en los últimos años. Particularmente, son las mujeres quienes han escrito sobre el trabajo emocional que deben soportar en este mundo en sus distintas variantes, específicamente con relación a varones cis y a sus propias familias. Como mujer trans con el privilegio de tener piel clara, he tenido mi cuota de trabajo emocional. … [Read more...]
White People Interested in Dismantling White Supremacy: Who Are We Beyond Our Violence?
“One of the things that most afflicts this country is that white people don’t know who they are or where they come from.” -- James Baldwin In the fall of my senior year in high school, one of my classmates hosted a Halloween party. For some reason, I thought it would be funny to get some of my other friends to join me in dressing as Klansmen. No one balked at the idea. We … [Read more...]
Excommunicate Me From the Cult of Toxic Social Justice
“confronting racism, sexism and all the underlying structural oppressions of our system is never easy, and taking a good, hard look at our own privilege is inevitably a painful process. but there’s a harshness in the air now that is more intense than i’ve seen in fifty years of involvement in social justice struggles.” --starhawk in building a welcoming movement “solidarity … [Read more...]
7 Things My Unruly, Curly Hair Taught Me About Being Unapologetically Latinx
Growing up, people would always asked me about my hair, about my skin, about my eyes, about my mother, about my grandmother. Anti-blackness would prompt these questions to become inquiries, attempting to trace back lineage beyond dialogue, and into imaginary stories that may have been true or may have not. In their eyes, my hair symbolized something foreign, something … [Read more...]
Desentramar las capas: Sobrevivir al abuso emocional infantil
Advertencia de contenido: Este artículo utiliza el termino incesto emocional, discute el abuso emocional infantil y las relaciones parentales nocivas. La primera vez que mi terapeuta mencionó el termino incesto emocional me agarró desprevenida. El termino en si genera una reacción de rechazo inmenso. Me anotó la información de un libro para que lo buscara cuando estuviese … [Read more...]
