The Impacts of Trauma on Our Brains and Bodies
What effects does trauma have on our brains and bodies? Trauma can impact our relationship to ourselves, to others, and to the world around us. When looking at lists of the possible impacts of trauma, we see that it can affect pretty much any part of our lives and...
Writing to Heal
Storytelling is one way that we can heal from trauma. This might take many forms–telling our story to someone else one-on-one, taking a class or workshop that helps us develop our stories, or doing exploratory writing that’s just for ourselves. Writing can be a...
Building Connected Communities
Imagine a house that’s falling apart. There’s a crack in the foundation, holes in the roof, mold on the walls, faulty electrical wiring, and general gross stuff everywhere. There is no one action that will make the house safe to live in. In fact, some of the problems...
Taking Action: Bystander Intervention Tools to Prevent Violence
I recently attended two bystander intervention trainings by Right To Be, a program out of New York. The first training in this series of three was on being a bystander to interrupt islamophobic violence, which I was unfortunately not able to attend. The second and...
Beyond the numbers: why we don’t share stats for SAAM
During Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), many organizations share statistics about how sexual violence impacts different communities. We’ve done this in the past, and there are good reasons to share this kind of data. Understanding the scope of the problem can...
Quiet or Loud: Creative Self-Advocacy with Healthcare Providers
Over the past four years, I've struggled with chronic illness more intensely than I had before. This became much more difficult to manage with increasing symptoms and a lack of support from family and institutions while I was in college, thousands of miles away from...