I was wheeled out of the hospital with tears streaming down my face after my son’s birth. I’m still not sure why I was crying because I felt nothing. My mother looked at me and said kindly, “Someone has the baby blues.” I thought, “I’m not blue. I’m nothing.” I thought, “The world is gray […]

Almost a year ago, I was diagnosed with the Type A flu one day before I was set to defend my dissertation. There was no way to reschedule my defense and graduate on time, so the next morning, I woke up, put on a nice top and cardigan—added a little lipstick for emphasis—and defended my […]

I spoke with Arielle Bernstein at The Rumpus about my writing process, the stigma surrounding abuse, my love of dark literature and more. To read the full interview, click here.

I had a dream the other night that I was living in a house. A fixer-upper. The dream was very specific. I was making the house into what I wanted it to be. I filled bookshelves upon bookshelves. There were windows that took up an entire wall. I put a red sectional couch in front […]

[From an email that I sent on 1/26/2014 to the prosecutor in my ex-husband’s domestic battery case.] Dear Cindy, I am writing to let you know how disappointed I am in the handling of my ex-husband, Joshua Caleb Winters, Domestic Battery case. — Caleb would have killed me if I had stayed with him.  He punched me in the […]

The other day, my twelve-year-old son, Reed, burst into my bedroom. “Mom, look what I found” he said. It was his stuffed Curious George animal—tattered and loved. “George the monkey” had been my son’s favorite doll when he was a toddler. I remember carrying Reed up the stairs to bed, his head on my shoulder, […]

I struggle with boundaries. Most abuse survivors do. Which is why it might not be surprising that I haven’t spoken to my best friend in three months. We had a conflict that could have been a normal conflict, but I am not good at conflict so I first lashed out, then retreated, thus making it […]

It Was Never About the Nail Guest Post By: Anonymous Gaslighting isn’t a single incident. It’s a pattern of tiny, often barely perceptible instances of erasure, minimizing, confusion, deflection. Nails, beams, boards, tiles, wire—piece by piece, a house is built. The door is closed, and you’re inside, and you hear the construction around you, but […]

I was chatting with my friend Megan O. via Messenger, and she’s a therapist. (I have a lot of friends who are therapists, which might say something about me.) We were chatting about how good things are for me now, and I wrote to her that I feel so wonderful, but also like there must […]