The Tell: A Memoir by Amy Griffin is a courageous account of the author’s discovery of repressed childhood trauma during psychedelic-assisted therapy. As memories of abuse resurface, Griffin navigates the emotional aftermath, seeking healing, justice, and authenticity. The memoir explores themes of memory, trauma, and the power of truth-telling.
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All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir is a powerful contemporary novel that explores the emotional weight of grief, trauma, and intergenerational pain through the lives of two Pakistani American teens, Salahudin and Noor. As they struggle with the fallout of addiction, abuse, and loss in their small desert town, the novel reveals how unspoken pain and cultural silence around mental illness can deepen wounds. Through their journeys, Tahir highlights the emotional cost of carrying trauma alone and the importance of compassion, therapy, and connection. The story gives voice to the rage, sorrow, and resilience of young people navigating mental health challenges in environments where seeking help often feels impossible.
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We've all heard about Narcissistic Abuse and the lasting scars it leaves on a person's mind, heart, and body. But what's often less talked about is what it's like to heal when you can't remember - when the abuse has left you with fragmented memories, or none at all.
I want to share what it feels like to heal in the darkness. To move through recovery guided not by clear memories, but by feelings, intuition, and how the body responds when truth arises to the surface.
You might wonder: how does someone heal without memories? How do you know if something truly happened? For me, the answer has always been in the body. The emotional reactions. The way my nervous system trembles or shuts down. The tightness in my chest, the tears that come without words. My body has never forgotten - even when my mind has.
As a survivor, being in my body used to feel unbearable. I trained myself to go numb or disconnect because that was the only way to survive. I couldn't trust my memories because the people who hurt me worked so hard to erase them. Narcissists deny your reality so often that eventually, you start to doubt yourself, too. You learn not to trust what you see, hear, feel, or know deep down.
Without memories to light the way, I've had to walk through the pain blind. I've had to rely on feelings, sensations, and my intuition - little flashes of truth that don't always come with clear explanations.
I don't know if I'll ever get my memories back - and that's something I've learned to live with. Studies show that between 30% to 60% of childhood abuse survivors experience memory repression, and while some eventually regain pieces of those memories, not all do. If the memories return, I'll be ready. But for now, I'm learning to trust the truth my body already holds.
It wasn't easy. For a long time, I questioned everything. But after the first two years of healing, something began to shift. I realized I wasn't crazy. I wasn't making it up. My feelings were real. The grief, the betrayal, the heartache - they were all valid, even if I couldn't connect them to clear memories.
I had to create space for those feelings to exist, without needing a "why". I had to learn to sit with them, honor them, and trust that my body was telling me the truth, even when my mind stayed silent.
This is what it's like to heal in the dark. And if you're there too - if you're healing without a map - you're not alone. Your feelings are real. Your body knows. And sometimes, that's all the truth you need to take the next step.
#MentalHealth #traumasurvivor #NarcissisticAbuse #healingjourney
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I was falsely accused of crimes 16 years ago, I have PTSD arising from that (to be clear I was 100% cleared of the crimes) and I want to talk this over. I understand some people wont want to talk to me about this, and that's fine. As a result of the false claims I was physically assaulted twice, and suffered years of local abuse Online seems a safe way I can talk about it.
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Hi I'm HollieWrites, I’m a wife, a new mother, and a survivor of abuse and addiction. After years in an abusive relationship abroad that led me down a path of cocaine use and trauma, I found healing through family, faith, and recovery. I’ve been sober for over two years, and I’m passionate about sharing my story to offer hope to others walking through the dark. I write about motherhood, mental health, sobriety, and the power of grace.
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I occasionally get flashes of anger related to my experience. When I was younger, I would sometimes lash out and hurt myself or damage possessions, but with age I've learned to control(/supress) these feelings and impulses until they've become "blips" that I can move past, after a moment. I'm going to work on this with my therapist.
However, I find that when I hear about or see OTHER people being hurt, whether it's in a way I can directly relate to or not, it fills me with a much hotter, undeniable rage. There is so much injustice and tragedy in the world, that it just makes my blood boil, my heart seethe, and sometimes I end up spiralling a bit.
Does anyone else have this experience? Is it just the price of empthy? Or a side effect of empathy and my/our other flaws resulting in a less than healthy reaction?
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For most of my life, I believed leaving the church meant leaving God. That was the lie they fed me. Week after week, I sat in that pew, knees pressed together, hands folded, trying to be small enough to survive. The sermons weren’t healing. They were layered with fear, shame, and control. Doubt was sin. Depression was weakness. Questioning meant rebellion.
So, I hid it all. The sadness, the confusion, the anxiety that clung to my chest like a weight. I kept showing up, thinking maybe if I prayed harder or repented more, I’d finally feel worthy. But the more I tried to fit the mold, the more I felt myself unraveling inside.
It wasn’t the church that noticed. It was a nurse.
At a routine doctor’s appointment, she asked a set of depression screening questions. Standard, almost robotic. But when I answered honestly, something shifted. The doctor came in, his face gentle but serious. Then a counselor was called. And after what felt like hours of spilling everything I had been holding in for years, through tears, silence, and shaking, I was sent to the hospital.
I didn’t fight it. I was too tired to pretend anymore.
The psychiatric hospital wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t cold or terrifying. It was quiet. There was space to breathe. People spoke softly. No one quoted Scripture at me. No one told me I just needed more faith. They listened. They saw me. They helped me begin to see myself, not as broken, but as someone who had been hurt.
It was there that I began to name what I had never dared to say: spiritual abuse, religious trauma, coercion, shame. I started to understand that the God I believed in might not live in that church at all. That maybe healing and holiness could look different.
When I left the hospital, I didn’t go back to church.
I didn’t make a big announcement. I didn’t argue or explain. I just left. Quietly. And in that silence, I began to hear my own voice again.
I still carry faith with me. But it’s mine now. Untangled. Uncontrolled.
Leaving that church didn’t mean leaving God. It meant choosing myself.
And that choice saved my life.
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In this embrace, my adult self finds my inner child—
the one I lost to shadows of neglect and pain.
At nineteen, as breath slipped away,
I saw us fading toward the light—
a silent witness to a fractured past.
Now, I hold her close,
healing the wounds no words could reach,
offering the love she never received.
#PTSD #MentalHealth #Abuse
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Hi, my name is AnxiousKitty. I'm here because Im struggling with lack of family and friends. I'm struggling to overcome years of emotional abuse. And struggling with loneliness while navigating a divorce trauma attachment issues in a state far far away from family.#Anxiety #Depression #AutismSpectrumDisorder #PTSD #ADHD #OCD #Grief #EatingDisorder
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My rage is not cruel.
My rage is not wild.
My rage is a shield,
that I bear for a child.
The metal is scarred,
the straps are worn out.
It wrenches my arm,
but I stifle the shout.
But what of the child?
Do they follow my wake?
Can't bear to look back,
there's just too much at stake.
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