Cell Phones

What technology would you be better off without, why?

The little rectangles that own us
more than we’d ever admit.
We cling to them like lifelines,
but they drain more than they give.

Take them away
and maybe people would finally remember
what boundaries are.
No more entitlement to instant replies,
no more “?” as a guilt trip,
no more being punished
for daring to exist offline.

Life wouldn’t get twisted
into misread texts and passive-aggressive punctuation.
We’d have to speak.
Out loud, with real voices.
Exposing those hiding behind screens.
Transparency terrifying them, because they might really be seen.

And let’s not ignore the anxiety tax:
We’re fed a constant drip of news
we were never meant to carry.
Tragedies across the globe
delivered before breakfast,
opinions we didn’t ask for,
chaos we can’t fix.
Without a cell phone,
half the things we stress over
wouldn’t even reach us.

We might actually look up, too.
Notice the world
With its brutality and its beauty.
Its everything we scroll past
because we’re too addicted
to the glowing distraction.

And the money we pour into these things…
the pointless upgrades,
the cases, the cables,
the repairs, and replacements.
All for a piece of tech
that clearly stresses us out.

Take away the cell phone
and life wouldn’t be as harsh.
It would be quieter,
more spacious,
more ours.
Less noise, less pressure,
less manufactured urgency.
More peace in the places
we forgot peace could exist.

We might finally notice
our own thoughts again.
Hear the world around us
instead of the notifications.
And live instead of react.

DON’T TAKE IT PERSONAL

Why You Take Everything Personally (And What No One Told You About It)

Let’s be real. You don’t just “hear” what someone says—you absorb it.
A sigh? You feel it like a slap.
A short text? Your stomach drops.
If they are quiet? You spiral.

Taking things personally isn’t a flaw—it’s a reaction to what you’ve been through…

Someone trained you to feel this way.

Maybe you were in a relationship like mine—one where your partner, or parents, made sure you were never really safe. Where you had to study their mood the way a sailor studies the sky.
Because one wrong word, one wrong look, could start a storm.

I know what that feels like.
To live in a home that felt more like a test.
To love someone who used your love against you.
To be blamed for everything—their anger, their silence, their outbursts, their boredom.

When you’re with an abuser, especially for years, you don’t just fear them—you become them in your own head.
You start criticizing yourself before they can.
You start shrinking your needs because it’s safer that way.
You start interpreting everything around you as a threat.

That’s why you take things personally.
Because you were trained to see danger in the subtlest shifts.

You were taught that mistakes mean punishment.
That emotions are weapons.
That love means walking on eggshells while setting yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.

So now, when someone gives you feedback, you feel attacked.
When someone pulls away, you assume it’s your fault.
When someone’s upset, you blame yourself.

But here’s the part you need to hear:
It’s not your fault.

You were conditioned to believe that your survival depended on reading people perfectly.
You weren’t being sensitive—you were being smart.
You were protecting yourself.
But now?
Now you don’t have to live like that anymore.

That voice in your head telling you “you messed up,” “they hate you,” “you ruined everything”—
That’s not your voice.
That’s theirs.
That’s the voice of the person who broke you down, not the one who gets to build you back up.

And you’re allowed to question it.
You’re allowed to replace it.
You’re allowed to heal—even if they never apologize.

So if you’re sitting there wondering why you take things so personally, let me say this:

You’re not crazy.
You’re not broken.
You’re carrying a survival instinct that once kept you safe—but it doesn’t have to run your life anymore.

You can learn to breathe again.
To trust again.
To love without fear.
To hear someone’s words without turning them into wounds.

You’re allowed to take your power back.

One truth at a time.

What to Do When You’re Caught in the Middle

Being caught in the middle doesn’t feel like conflict — it feels like captivity.
It feels like being stuck in a snare with no way to move without hurting someone.
Like a mouse trap waiting to snap shut.
Like you’re locked in a raccoon cage, unsure if speaking the truth will free you… or cost you everything.

People talk about “taking sides” like it’s simple.
But when you’re caught in the middle of family, trauma, loyalty, and truth, nothing about it is simple.

It’s one of the loneliest places a person can stand.

What You’re Really Caught Between

Sometimes “caught in the middle” means choosing between two opinions.

But sometimes — like in my life — it means standing between your own child who was harmed and your own child who did the harming.

Between the daughter who still carries wounds and the son whose actions caused them.

Between the victim in your home and the perpetrator who shares your blood.

Between your mother — who continues contact with the perpetrator — and your daughter, the victim.

Between your loyalty as a mother and your integrity as a protector.

Between who you used to be and who you’re becoming.

Between the pressure to keep quiet and the truth that refuses to stay silent anymore.

It’s not two sides.
It is layers of emotional conflict, guilt, fear, and responsibility colliding inside your chest.

Why This Position Freezes You

People say, “Just say what you feel,” but they don’t see what comes with it.

When you’re in the middle, speaking the truth feels dangerous.

You fear hurting someone you love.
You fear being misunderstood.
You fear being shunned.
You fear being blamed for protecting the wrong person — when you know exactly who needs protection.
You fear your mother’s reaction.
You fear the silence, the withdrawal, the guilt she might use.
You fear your childhood patterns pulling you back into old roles.

You fear becoming the target for finally telling the truth.

That fear freezes you.
Not because you’re weak, but because you’ve carried too many people’s emotions for too long.

You’re Allowed to Step Out of the Middle

This is the truth many of us need spoken out loud:

You are not betraying anyone by protecting the victim.
You are not abandoning someone by refusing to enable harmful choices.
You are not wrong for saying, “Enough.”
You are not required to cushion your truth to keep someone else comfortable.
You can love someone and still say, “This crosses a line for me.”
You can grieve what happened without sacrificing your integrity.

You are allowed to choose clarity over chaos.
You are allowed to choose protection over appeasement.
You are allowed to choose truth over silence.

You are allowed — fully allowed — to walk out of the middle.

How to Un-Freeze When You’re Caught in the Middle

Here are the steps that help you move from paralysis to clarity:

1. Name What’s Actually Happening

Write it plainly.
Do not soften it for someone else’s comfort.

2. Ask What Aligns With Your Values

What decision reflects the kind of mother, woman, friend, or human you want to be?

3. Decide Who Truly Needs Protection

Protect the vulnerable one.
Protect the honest one.
Protect the one who did not choose this.

4. Set One Clear, Simple Boundary

Not a debate.
Not a speech.
A boundary.

“This is not okay with me.”
“I won’t participate in this.”
“I love you, but I cannot be involved if you continue this.”

5. Speak With Clarity and Compassion

Firm does not mean unkind.
Compassion does not mean surrender.

6. Allow People to React However They React

They may:
– Shame you
– Guilt you
– Pull away
– Play victim
– Get angry
– Give the silent treatment

Their reaction belongs to them.
It is not proof you did something wrong.
It is evidence that you set a boundary they didn’t like.

7. Anchor Yourself After the Conversation

Your body may shake.
Your stomach may twist.
Old fears may roar.

That is normal.

Here are anchoring practices:

• Breathe: 4 seconds in, 6–8 out.
• Hand on chest: “I am safe. I told the truth.”
• Move your body: walk, stretch, shake out your hands.
• Ground yourself:
5 things you see
4 things you can touch
3 things you hear
2 things you smell
1 thing you taste
• Write what triggered you.
• Remind yourself: “A trembling body is a brave body.”
• Talk to someone who truly understands the situation.

Anchoring doesn’t erase fear — it prevents fear from dragging you back into silence.

Taking a Stand Doesn’t Make You Divisive

Taking a stand does not divide a family.
Harm divides families.
Silence divides families.
Minimizing what happened divides families.

Standing for what’s right is clarity, not conflict.

Protecting a victim is integrity.
Refusing to stand in the middle is courage.

A Soft, Steady Closing

There comes a moment when staying in the middle becomes impossible.
Not because you stopped loving people.
Not because you’re choosing sides out of anger.
But because the truth finally whispers:

“You don’t belong in the snare anymore.”

Stepping out isn’t selfish — it’s sacred.
It’s the moment you choose protection over silence, healing over guilt, and courage over captivity.

It’s the moment you finally allow yourself to stand somewhere solid —
where your truth has room to breathe.

How to Recover After Someone Humiliates You

If something happened that left you shaky, ashamed, exposed, or suddenly doubting yourself, I want you to know this:

What you’re feeling is real. And it makes sense.

Most people have no idea what humiliation actually does to a person. They think it’s “just embarrassment.” They think you should shrug it off. But humiliation is a psychological wound. It hits the same part of your brain that reacts to physical pain. It knocks your confidence, your voice, and sometimes your sense of self out from under you.

And if no one ever taught you how to deal with this kind of emotional blow, you might be blaming yourself for a wound you never deserved.

Let’s walk through this slowly, in a way that makes space for your pain and gives you a way forward.

—

1. Something painful happened — you didn’t imagine it

Someone cut you down.
Someone used their words, tone, or power to make you feel small.
Someone spoke to you in a way that pierced straight through your dignity.

You weren’t “overreacting.”
You weren’t “too sensitive.”

You were caught off guard by a moment that should not have happened.

Humiliation exposes the person who delivered it — not the person who received it.

—

> “A painful moment happened to me. It does not define me.”

—

2. Your body responded because humiliation is a body-level injury

Most people don’t talk about this part, but humiliation hits the body first:

Your throat closes.
Your stomach flips.
Your face gets hot.
Your mind blanks out.
Your chest tightens.

This is your nervous system trying to protect you.

It doesn’t mean you’re weak.
It means you’re human.

Before you try to make sense of anything, let your body settle.

Try this:

Drop your shoulders

Loosen your jaw

Place your hand on your chest

Slow your exhale

Whisper, “I’m safe enough right now.”

You cannot think clearly in a body that feels attacked.

—

3. The wound came from the story your mind created afterward

There’s the event itself…
and then there’s the meaning your mind wrapped around it.

Humiliation tries to whisper things like:

“Everyone saw.”

“You looked foolish.”

“You should’ve known better.”

“They were right about you.”

But those thoughts aren’t truth.
They’re the bruise talking.

Say this gently: “The story I told myself was…”

Name it so it stops running the show in the dark.

—

4. Humiliation makes you want to hide — but hiding keeps the wound open

After you’re hurt like this, the instinct to disappear is strong.
You avoid eye contact, replay the moment, pull your energy inward.
You shrink as if shrinking will protect you.

But hiding is exactly what keeps the wound tender.

You don’t have to tell the whole story.
Just start with one simple sentence:

“Something happened that made me feel small.”

Speaking it breaks the isolation humiliation depends on.

—

5. Reclaim your authority over what the moment meant

When someone cuts you down, their voice can become louder in your head than your own.

But your dignity is still yours.

Say: “I get to decide what this means.”

Not them.
Not the moment.
Not the fear that followed.

You.

Every time you say it, something inside you stands a little straighter.

—

6. Give yourself what you needed in that moment

Ask yourself: “What did I need right then?”

Respect?
Understanding?
Protection?
Someone to step in?
Someone to say, “That wasn’t okay”?

Now ask: “How can I give even a small piece of that to myself now?”

This is what begins to repair the psychological wound.

—

Here’s the truth I want you to carry with you

You are not the smallness someone tried to put on you.
You are not the version of yourself their words tried to create.
You are not the moment that knocked your voice out of your chest.

You were wounded.
And wounded people don’t need shame — they need understanding, space, and a way back to themselves.

This is that way back.

👉 Download the Humiliation Recovery Guide

Why Happiness Makes You Nervous

For the girl who thinks the tightness in her chest is normal

Good times make you nervous, don’t they?

You don’t call it fear—you call it “being cautious,” or “not getting your hopes up.” But the truth is quieter: you’re not used to peace. For so long, love has felt like tension, panic, apologizing, overthinking, and walking around someone else’s moods like they’re landmines.

So when something finally goes right… Your whole body glitches.

You look around, waiting for the explosion.
You wait for the tone in his voice to shift.
You wait for the moment he decides you’re “too sensitive,” “too emotional,” or “too much.”

And if nothing happens right away, your brain fills the silence with dread: Is this the part where it all turns again?
You don’t trust happiness—not because you’re broken, but because you’ve survived too long without it.

Girls like us learn early that peace feels like a trap.
A setup.
A calm before the next storm.

No one told you that real love isn’t supposed to feel like bracing for impact.
No one told you that safety isn’t the same thing as “keeping the peace.”
No one told you that if your body relaxes only when he isn’t home… that’s not comfort. That’s survival.

Listen, sweetheart—if happiness feels foreign, it’s not because you’re incapable of it.
It’s because someone taught you to expect pain.

And here’s the part I wish someone had whispered to me sooner:
You don’t have to keep living in the story where fear feels like love. You don’t have to keep shrinking yourself just to fit into a relationship that was never safe to begin with.

Real peace doesn’t make you nervous.
Real love doesn’t make you flinch.
And real happiness doesn’t feel like a setup—it feels like finally coming home to yourself.

You deserve that kind of happiness.
And I promise… it won’t explode.

When someone ties despair to God Himself, it buries you in a deeper kind of fear. You stop dreaming. You stop believing in the better. And every time life gets quiet, you brace yourself, because you know the calm never lasts.

I remember once, after one of our rare calm seasons, we tried to dream again. We made a little vision board together — nothing extravagant, just things a normal couple would hope for. A peaceful home. A reliable car. A future that didn’t feel like walking through broken glass.

But his face went dark, the way it always did when anything felt too good.

He looked at me and said,

“God hates me. We will never get any of this.”

And just like that, the air changed.
The hope drained out of the room.
My body learned — again — that peace wasn’t safe, and happiness wasn’t to be trusted.

My Gut Reaction: Living with Public Anxiety, IBS, and a Submarine Emergency

A funny, honest essay about navigating IBS, hidden anxiety, and one unforgettable moment in a submarine that led to personal healing.

I never considered myself an anxious person — but the swooshing in my gut, the bubbles, the ache — it happens too often to ignore. And it only ever happens in public places, which made me start to wonder: maybe this is anxiety.

We were on a little weekend getaway and decided to go to the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum before heading home. The USS Razorback (SS 394) submarine is harbored on the Arkansas River. The tour starts in the visitor center, where I went to the restroom one last time — just to be safe.

Walking across the plank, I looked out at the foggy river, thinking, I love Arkansas; it’s so beautiful here. It was bizarre but amazing — a real submarine in the middle of the Arkansas River. It made me wonder if there were others.

Our tour guide opened the hatch door and pointed to the 14-foot ladder leading down into the vessel, instructing us to climb down. I was cursing my choice in shoes that morning. I wore wooden-heeled pumps, not knowing we were going on this spontaneous side adventure after breakfast.

I chose to be the last to go down. Each step made me tremble with fear.

She talked, leading us down narrow pathways, stepping through doorways. There was so much machinery, equipment, and living necessities squeezed into this tiny space. It was warm and damp, and you could still get the faintest waft of sweaty sailors.

I usually welcome warmth, but this day my belly was giving me a different type of heat. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten the eggs when we were not close to home. Eating eggs was always like playing roulette. I might have explosive diarrhea, I might not. We would wait and see. Of course, if I had known we were going on a side trip before heading home, I would have ordered something safer.

Every time we go out, I calculate the distance from the restaurant to home because these bathroom emergencies, we like to call them, had become a part of my life. When we go to shows or concerts, we always choose aisle seats so I don’t have to walk in front of a bunch of people, clenching my butt, praying I don’t pass gas in someone’s face.

But here we were in this submarine — tight and suffocating, with recycled air that clung to your skin. Not even a quarter of the way through our tour, I couldn’t hear what she was saying. All my focus was on the swooshing and bubbles in my intestines, calculating how long or how much time I had to climb up that dreaded ladder and get to the bathroom.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if we had been the only people on the tour. But there were others. And I was about to have to interrupt and explain my situation.

I crossed my arms across the top of my bloated belly as if to say, “No. I refuse to let you do this to me,” but honestly, I was praying I could just make it through the tour.

Then I felt it.

The drop — when my stomach contents fall into the next chamber like a trap door has opened. That’s the signal: time is running out. Once that happens, the rest of my system tends to follow suit in a panic. Maybe that’s why they call it “taking a dump” — because once it starts, it’s all downhill from there.

I raised my hand like a shy elementary student asking the teacher to go to the bathroom — but in a whisper, so no one close by could hear me, so they wouldn’t laugh and make fun of me.

I said quietly, “I think I’m going to throw up.”

I learned that if you tell them you’re about to toss your cookies, they are more sympathetic and quicker to get you out of there because no one wants to deal with vomit. This happened to me on a cave tour in Colorado. They stopped the entire group, handed me a barf bag I knew I wouldn’t need, while everyone waited for someone to rescue me and take me back above ground.

She led me to the porthole, climbed up to open the hatch, and stood there watching as I clumsily made my way up the ladder in my wooden-heeled shoes.

Once outside, I walked as fast as I possibly could to the bathroom, feeling it crowning like a baby fixing to be born. I don’t know about your bladder and other systems, but as soon as I see the bathroom, my systems think it’s time to release — steadfast, I keep my gaze on the ground, not wanting to make “eye contact” with the bathroom door.

I barely had time to pull my pants down before the rest of my digestive tract let go. It was a speedy, high-volume exit.

And that was it.

I breathed a sigh of relief, wiped the sweat off my forehead, and — being too embarrassed to return to the tour or wait for the next one — we drove on home.

That experience prompted me to reflect.

My stomach doesn’t betray me — as long as I don’t leave the comfort of my home. Conveniently, I work just down the driveway, so even work feels safe. But as soon as I round the corner to head toward town, leaving the comforts of our rural home, my gut will start doing its thing.

There have been times when I was driving that I felt I would pass out. It happened so often that I started keeping a closer eye on my glucose and blood pressure, thinking it could be a physical cause. But my vitals always came back normal.

Then I read something about how, when we’ve been through traumatic events, we often create an environment for ourselves that’s so comfortable we don’t want to leave it — and become afraid to.

And it dawned on me.

I have it really good at home. From the deck, we have a view of the mountains, surrounded by trees, and it’s just a short walk to a creek — everything I ever dreamed of and more. It even makes searching for vacation homes difficult, because not many places can beat the one I live in.

But leaving this wonderful, comfortable place gave me anxiety. And that anxiety was taking control of my life.

So I decided to start therapy.

When she asked why I was there, I told her I think I have anxiety — and how my gut liked to let loose in response. Little by little, she helped me peel back the layers to understand why it was happening.

That was two years ago. Now, I can safely go places — tours, car rides, even crowded events. The gut thing has only popped its ugly head up once recently, after getting bad news from two of my adult children — separate events in their lives, but both deeply upsetting.

I’m learning to live with a gut that feels everything — and to finally listen to what it’s been trying to tell me.

When You Take the Blame That Wasn’t Yours to Begin With

To Every Woman Still Carrying the Weight That Was Never Hers

I used to believe that everything was my fault.

The slammed doors, the silence, the yelling that followed the silence, the fists that followed the yelling—I took the blame for all of it. If dinner was cold, it was my fault. If he had a bad day, somehow I caused it. If he lost his temper, I should’ve known better. I should’ve stayed quiet. I should’ve smiled more. I should’ve been less.

When you live under the same roof as someone who thrives off control, you learn quickly that survival means shrinking yourself. It means bending until you barely resemble a person. It means learning the art of swallowing blame for things that never had anything to do with you—because arguing only brings pain, and agreeing brings temporary peace.

But what they don’t tell you is that even when you get out—when you finally pack the bags, find the courage, or flee in the middle of the night with nothing but your breath in your chest—that voice follows you.

Even in freedom, I found myself taking the blame for things that weren’t mine.

If a friend was upset, I’d replay our last ten conversations, convinced I did something wrong. If my boss looked stressed, I’d take on extra work, hoping it would ease a tension I didn’t cause. I’d apologize for everything. For asking questions. For not asking enough. For existing, sometimes. I was hunting for ways to feel terrible, and life kept handing me proof that I was right… because that’s what trauma does. It warps the lens.

But here’s the truth I’ve learned—he was wrong.

I was not the problem. I was not too sensitive. I was not too loud or too quiet or too emotional or too needy. I was not weak for staying. I was not selfish for leaving.

Healing isn’t linear, and it sure as hell isn’t clean. Some days, the guilt creeps back in like fog through a cracked window. But I catch it now. I see it for what it is: a ghost of the past, trying to convince me that I’m still that powerless woman I used to be.

I’m not her anymore.

I don’t carry blame that isn’t mine. I lay it down and walk away from it.

Now, I advocate. I speak. I write. I sit with other survivors and tell them: you are not crazy. You are not broken. And you are not to blame.

If you’re reading this and you’ve ever felt like the villain in your own story—take a breath. Hand back what was never yours to carry.

You deserve peace. You deserve love. And most of all, you deserve to be free from blame that was never yours to begin with.

You survived.

Now it’s time to thrive.

The Victim Mindset Is Keeping You Stuck

Why Blaming the Past Feels Safe—but Is Silently Sabotaging Your Growth

There’s a mindset that keeps people trapped—and often, they don’t even realize they’re in it. It shows up subtly, quietly, in the way someone reacts to life’s hardships. And over time, it becomes the lens through which everything is seen.

It’s the victim mindset.

It convinces you that life is just happening to you. That your circumstances, your past, and the way people have failed you are the reasons you can’t move forward. And while there may be truth in those hardships, staying stuck in that story only leads to one place: nowhere.

This mindset is especially dangerous because it feels justified. You’ve been hurt. Life has been unfair. Opportunities have slipped through your fingers. But the victim mindset doesn’t just acknowledge the pain—it builds a home in it. It keeps you focused on what’s been done to you rather than on what you can do now.

And the most painful part? Sometimes, it makes you push away the very help that could make a difference.

You might tell yourself that you’re independent—that you’ll figure it out alone. But if you’re rejecting real, practical help while still depending on handouts or the temporary kindness of others, that’s not strength. That’s survival. And survival is exhausting when there’s no plan to move beyond it.

When you stop asking yourself hard questions like, “What part am I playing in this?” or “What can I take responsibility for?”, you give your power away. It’s easier to blame the system, your past, or your circumstances. But blaming keeps you stuck. It keeps you from healing. And it lets you off the hook.

The truth is: you’re not powerless. You’re not broken. And you’re not doomed.

But if you’re constantly rejecting growth, avoiding discomfort, and refusing to let others help you in meaningful ways, you’re choosing stagnation. And deep down, you probably know it.

Real change is hard. Accepting help feels vulnerable. Facing your patterns takes courage. But that’s where transformation lives. It’s not in the blaming, the begging, or the surviving—it’s in the choosing.

You can’t heal what you refuse to take ownership of.
You can’t rise if you keep convincing yourself that you’re stuck.
And you can’t move forward if you keep turning your back on the help that’s already within reach.

Let this be the moment you get honest with yourself. Not to shame or guilt yourself—but to reclaim your power.

Because the victim mindset will always keep you stuck —and you deserve better than that.

I see this in my daughter. We have sent her to trade school twice, but she has dropped out both times. We paid off her car, paid her auto insurance for a year, and helped her pay for her own apartment.

And now she is in a worse place than before we did that, begging people for money.

My family members and I offer true, lasting help – like coming to stay with us so you can get on your feet, etc. – but she refuses. Instead, she chooses to remain in the chaos, her comfort zone.

Why You Always Zero In on What Hurts

When trauma teaches you to fear the good, trusting peace can feel like betrayal

Have you ever noticed how fast your mind finds the crack in the glass?

Something good happens—and before it even settles, you’ve already ruined it in your head.
You pass the test, then tell yourself you’ll probably fail the next one.
Someone says they’re proud of you, and you immediately wonder what they really meant.
You finally get a moment of peace, and instead of resting in it, you’re holding your breath waiting for it to explode.

That’s not you being dramatic.
That’s trauma.
That’s conditioning.

When you’ve lived in survival mode long enough—when love came with punishment, when silence meant danger, when even your joy got twisted into a weapon—you stop trusting anything that feels too good.

Your brain starts treating calm like a trap.
It looks for warning signs even when there aren’t any.
Because in your experience, the good things never came without a price.

So, of course, your mind zeroes in on what hurts.
That was your safety plan. That’s how you kept yourself alive.

You learned to listen for footsteps. You studied his moods like they were gospel. You walked on eggshells because they were safer than landmines.

So when someone tells you to “just think positive” or “celebrate the good,” it doesn’t land. It feels fake. It feels dangerous. Because in your world, hope always came back with bruises.

I remember the day I reached for help.

I wasn’t even expecting a miracle—just someone to see me. I told the truth. I admitted I was scared, confused, and unraveling. I laid it all out there: how small I felt, how broken I had become, how the God I was clinging to didn’t feel like He was anywhere near me anymore.

And the answer I got?

“Just go home and be a good wife.”

No rescue. No comfort. Just a command.
That broke something in me.
I learned right then: honesty doesn’t guarantee help. Hope can backfire.
So I stopped reaching. I started bracing harder. I got quieter.
Because at least silence couldn’t slap me in the face like that again.

That moment shaped me. And not in a holy way.

But here’s what I want to tell you—what someone should have told me:

You’re not negative.
You’re not broken.
You are conditioned. And you can unlearn it.

But not by pretending. Not by slapping affirmations over your scars.

It starts small. Like this:
When the voice comes up that says, “This won’t last,” or “You don’t deserve this,”
just pause.
Don’t fight it. Don’t obey it. Just notice it.

That voice isn’t your truth.
It’s your trauma.

And slowly, you can start choosing differently.

Not because you’re suddenly healed. But because for once, you’re finally allowed to be aware of how deep the damage goes—and how much more you were made for.

You’re allowed to want peace without fear.
You’re allowed to hold joy without bracing for pain.
You’re allowed to believe something good… might actually be good.

Even if your brain’s not there yet, you are.

GRATITUDE IN REVERSE

What felt like the end of the world turned out to be my greatest gift.

Albert charged into the side door of our house, clad in polyester basketball shorts and a t-shirt adorned with armpit sweat.

I inhaled, holding my breath, thinking, “Oh boy, what now?”.

“Pastor Riggs told me to hand in my resignation.”

He wouldn’t say he got fired — that would sound too obvious, like admitting he did something wrong. No, he was ‘asked to resign.’ He explained, with pride, that he had told the pastor off and had a long list of reasons.

All I could think of was Thanksgiving back in 2007, when we had to eat spaghetti because he had been fired from a previous position helping a pastor grow his church. He didn’t have a proper title, so we called him the church evangelist — but really, he was the church shit stirrer. I can recall three men who have dared to tell Albert the truth to his face. None of these men was a hothead like him. They had boundaries, and he crossed them. One preacher even went so far as to call him “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” I remember that night and still chuckle inwardly.

But this day felt like the end of an era—the end of our lives. We knew poverty. We survived it. But I was so tired of just surviving. So tired of pinching pennies, being the recipient of groceries because people felt sorry for us. I was downright exhausted. He told off the wrong guy, and that guy had the balls to stand up for himself. Kudos. But that didn’t help the situation. We were in dire straits. Bills do not miraculously stop just because you lose a job. No, electricity still runs, and a bill is still accumulating.

This is when he decided we would pursue his lifelong dream of starting a cleaning business.

“Oh gawd, yuck. I hate cleaning.” I thought. I did not want to do this. But being the obedient wife I was,

I said, “Okay.”

I was already at my wits’ end with him. I had even filed a restraining order earlier that year, thinking it would change him and he would be a different person. It only changed me. I became a different person. I was finding my voice.

We pushed along, started from scratch, and kept on scratching until we had a decent little cleaning business. It turned out it wasn’t as brutal as I thought it would be —cleaning, that is. Since he was OCD, I had learned to pay attention to detail.

I remember one time he was at work (I was a stay-at-home wife and mom), he may have been at bible college. Regardless, I spent all day cleaning the house. I wasn’t taught to keep a clean home. As a kid, my room was livable — clothes piled up, and I’d make a path to the bed and push them off to sleep. Dishes would overflow in the sink and onto the counters, even with a dishwasher sitting right there. My mom never asked for help — just pouted on weekends, complaining nobody helped her. But she never asked for help. I do not remember a single time my mom showed me how to wash dishes or asked me to wash them. But when I stayed the summer at my aunt’s house, she made me clean up after myself and even showed me how to clean behind the toilet.

So like I said, living with an OCD person – my husband – taught me to pay attention to detail.

Back to the part where I had cleaned all day, then he came home and went on a rampage:

“What have you been doing all day? Why does the house look like this? Get off your lazy ass and clean this fucking house!”

Nothing was lying around —not even a particle on the floor; everything had been freshly mopped and vacuumed. Do you know what he saw? A smudge on the corner of a mirror. Something I had missed. I cried that day. But I learned how to pay attention to detail on that day, too.

Cleaning houses felt a bit rewarding. I cleaned behind toilets and wiped baseboards, tops of door frames, and ledges on the doors. Top to bottom. No mirror had a smudge, and you could eat off the toilet seat. 10/10 would not recommend, but it would have been safe to do so.

As time went by, my disgust for him grew. But I could not figure out how to survive on my own with all these kids still living at home. It wasn’t until he got sick. Real sick. He ran a fever for over a week and refused to see a doctor. He would come downstairs and cry and whine like a baby, literally. Imagine a 3-year-old whining when they want their way. That was him. Then he would go back upstairs to sleep. He slept and slept. I would bring him soup, tea, water, and even made a homemade herbal remedy, which, for the first time in our 23-year marriage, he took. I welcomed the quietness his illness brought me, but I still performed my wifely duties of “in sickness and in health,”. Then went to clean the houses by myself. My daughter, who was in Christian school, would take a few days off to help me, but I found it easier to clean by myself than to go behind her to make sure she did it right. Not that she couldn’t clean, but this was our only income, and I didn’t feel I had room for mistakes.

Two more days went by, and he did not get out of bed. I got scared. I realized something was really wrong with him. He’s not faking or overreacting this time. So I called my sister-in-law and told her what was going on, and she said,

“You march up there and tell him he is going to the doctor, that he doesn’t have a choice.”

And so I did. He refused, crying and whining the whole time I was helping him dress, like a child not wanting to leave the park. Then, I drove him straight to the hospital. The doctor asked a bunch of questions that I answered, since he liked to withhold vital information. I even got the doctor to give him a prostate exam, which brings a smile to my face today. Turns out it was his appendix. It had been oozing into his body, and instead of being able to have the simple surgery, he had the large one where they cut from the top of the sternum to the pubic bone. I felt little sympathy for him, and he is a miserable patient. I was thankful to have work to go to. Grateful that we had just started an enormous organization project that was able to keep me away from seeing his green face and the black bile coming out of his mouth. His recovery took over six weeks. But by then, I’d already been cleaning solo for 8 — and I realized I could keep doing it. I could support my family without him. He had already lost interest in cleaning, wanting always to rush through the houses. He was there only to collect the check. Turns out he did not have as great a work ethic as he proclaimed.

When we finally separated, he left me the house and the business. A detailed story for another page, but what I thought was the end was just the beginning.

I thought when he got fired, we were going to do like we always did and move to another state and start all over. But instead, we started a cleaning business I didn’t want to start, and that business helped me support my then-6 kids at home. And without him there to tell me how the money was going to be spent frivolously, I was finally able to buy my kids’ school clothes and school supplies. For the first time, when they came to me with a need, I was able to supply it.

And that was the greatest gift of all.

Yoli's Write To Sanity

Just Breathe And Write

Month: November 2025