I dedicate all my words to those from my past who want me to stop talking. — I used to be a good girl, otherwise known as a girl who only had nice things to say about the men around her and if she didn’t have anything nice to say then she better keep that shit to herself. I also was a tomboy, backyard pool diving champion…

Apparently, not only am I blind but I have a cucumber up my asshole — I’m the problem. At least that’s what I’m being told on a recent article I wrote asking where were all the man-hating women everyone was talking about. We’re definitely not in any short supply of accusing women of hating men. I’ve been on that list too many times to count…

Use my hindsight as your foresight — Look no further. Your poster girl for making every mistake with a narcissist is here. Regret aside, I might as well start with the biggest mistake of them all, the pinnacle of errors that at a young age kicked off my pattern of loving abusive men: I believed everyone was…

Though it’s not the bug’s fault — Before third grade, I wasn’t afraid of boys. I saw them all as extended versions of my little brother — simple-minded, guileless creatures who were nice to have around for a push when I wanted to swing to the sky, or if I was short a player for Parcheesi. Otherwise…

Who hates who here? — Every woman in the history of the world — okay maybe just in the history of the internet — has either been accused of or heard another woman being accused of hating men. My mistake, I didn’t mean every woman. Clearly, I’m only talking about those nasty power-hungry abortion-loving bra-burning…

You can’t stay with a narcissist AND be okay — I’ll love him harder. I’ll love him better. I’ll lose myself in loving him to the point of making myself sick. Then he’ll change, right? Then we can go back to how it used to be when I wasn’t so tired, when the reflection wasn’t a stranger, when my heart…

I guess that makes me a rulebreaker — Don’t. Don’t do it. Don’t you dare tell anyone what happened or you’ll be sorry. I hit Publish anyway, ignoring the menacing voices in my head. Even with all the writing I’ve done over the years, all the sharing of my experience with abuse, all the curtain-pulling on wizard impersonators…

Amazing what leaving an abusive man will do for your health — We had been planning her rescue for months. We called it “Operation Freiheit” which means freedom in German, my mother’s native language. The mission: to get my mom out of my father’s house as soon as possible. She had only recently moved in with him when the trouble started. They’d…

Think of your title like a door… — Your story is important. What you’ve been through, what you’ve experienced, what you’ve learned — all have the potential to change the lives of those reading your words. But where to start? Do you begin at the beginning? If you’re writing about your experience with trauma, for example, do you…