Content Note: sexual violence, mental illness, family violence I was born on October 22, 1970. By mid-July 1971, my mother was pregnant again with my brother. Somewhere during that time, she was hospitalized in a psychiatric unit. I was left with my paternal grandparents. By my third birthday, we were all reunited under the same […]
It is clear from this series of diary posts that my ability to county is not on-point. We started our quarantine/self-isolating on March 17, 2020. That’s when Laura was told to work from home and when the City and County orders were in effect. So today is day 32. Our fifth week of hunkering down […]
“Do you feel comfortable sharing family stories about living people?” is a question I am frequently asked, particularly when I’ve just published a post about my trauma work. I never feel comfortable or good about revisiting trauma infused stories, but not because I might upset someone in my family. The only exception is the other […]
Content Note: childhood, family dynamics, shame When I was either a little girl about 5 or 6 years old, I wanted a baby doll that wet its diaper for Christmas. This was somewhere between 1975-77. I was quite thrilled when Santa brought me that doll. It wasn’t quite as fancy as some of the other […]
Author’s note: My name is Rachel, and I consider myself to be the product of a typical Pennsylvanian upbringing. Fire hall marriages with cookie tables, going to Idlewild Park on a hot summer day, and eating home-made gobs on my back porch, are all things that I remember from my childhood. I am transgender, and […]
Last night, our friends and their kids had dinner with us then came over to hang out with the kittens. During our meal, the elder asked me why and how we are their aunts because we aren’t related to them. That opened a conversation about choosing family and that we chose to be involved in […]
Content Note : trauma, neglect, family rejection, mental illness I don’t clearly remember the details of the last holiday meal I spent with my parents, but I know it was ten Thanksgivings ago. We were at Laura’s mother’s house and they were late. I was struggling mightily with mental health symptoms and not admitting yet […]
Over a year ago, I took on a daunting task of blogging about the lives of my eight 2x-great grandmothers (2gg’s) aka the grandmothers of my own grandparents I have four grandparents, they each had two and that equals eight. Technically, I also had three step-2x-great-grandmothers who were the second spouses of my male ancestors, […]
Dear John, It will be 12 years Saturday since you died. I’m frightened by how quickly the memorials to you are overwhelming the memories with you. I guess that makes sense – we met when I was 15 years old and struggling to figure out all of the things. I was 37 when you died. […]
