The Impact of Police Trauma on My Life

Here Come the Police Last night, a friend stopped by with some meals for me. I jumped in the car with her to avoid the torrent of rain. She was parked behind my house in an alley, but under a streetlight. We chatted about our days, caught up on assorted things. It was maybe 20 […]

I need $750 to pay for a historic house appraisal and I need your help to raise it.

I need $750 to pay for historic house appraisal. I need your help to raise it. Today, our lawyers met with the divorce hearing master to review facts.  One thing to note is that we filed a tort for damages last month in Civil Court and it has been moved to Family Court and combined […]

How to cope with relationship trauma and recovery

It feels important to acknowledge this day, this anniversary of a terrible series of events two years ago that upended my life forever. You can read the details here. The details matter, of course, but at the same time – it is today that matters. My due process rights were violated. I was homeless for […]

My Fear of the Police Kept Me From Rallies in the Street

Two pairs of handcuffs

I really wanted to participate in a No Kings rally today. But I was afraid. For 22 months, I’ve coped with the traumas of my interactions with police during and following the fraudulent involuntary civil commitment authorized by Allegheny County OBH on Sunday, August 27, 2023. The police failed me that day and on ensuing […]

Mental Health Awareness Month: Revealing the Layers of My Mental Illness and Childhood Trauma

Content Note: This post delves into mental health diagnoses, but also child abuse, childhood sexual violence, rape, abandonment, and more in great detail. An important piece of my mental health journey has been to embrace the different diagnoses. I have bipolar disorder Type I, I have severe anxiety, and I have complex trauma or cPTSD. […]

Riding in cars with boys – how exposure therapy resolved my trauma

In October 2023, I began writing about two specific trauma experiences arising from my experiences the previous August – police interactions and riding in cars. Since then I’ve been working to process both. This post is about the car trauma. How I realized I had car trauma Back then I wrote “Then we layer in […]

And we go riding, riding in your car or learning how to Uber

For the past 16 months, I have been unable to ride in a vehicle driven by a stranger – especially in the back seat. This is a trauma reaction to the time I was put in handcuffs, put in the backseat of a police car, fastened, and taken away from my home under the pretext […]

My supervisor made me cry, but refused to let me get a tissue

When I was a younger social worker, I had a boss whom everyone thought was wonderful. Smart, savvy, all the things. One morning, he took me aside to discuss comments I had made at an event the previous evening. I was out of line – I was complaining about the boss of bosses at a […]

Being underestimated might be my superpower

I am not supposed to talk about any of my lawsuits (all civil matters) so I want to talk about my life, my day to day life as a person with multiple civil lawsuits she can’t discuss. And multiple disabilities. After six months of homelessness (couch surfing), I returned to my home of 20 years […]

I Grieve Alone Tonight, I Miss My Mum and Dad

February is coming around the bend quickly. I’m so determined to just not think about ‘those things’ happening this week that I keep pushing myself to find something, anything, anything at all to anticipate in February. Tears roll down my face, my face so intently clenched thinking of what could be good in February. It […]