In 2014, my parents divorced when I was 35 years old. It was, to that point, the most traumatic event in my life. My dad, living with unchecked mental illness, and my mom, a raging narcissist, were a fiery combination whose relationship ended explosively. I’m still shocked that both of them made it out alive.

While still trying to put the pieces together from that, in 2017 my daughter became a victim of child abuse at the hands of her father. What I believed to be a relatively straightforward case dragged on for eight months, ultimately ending in a plea agreement and a refusal to take

Thanks to a shit-ton of therapy (shout-out to my bad ass therapist Linda), I started to unpack everything I’ve been through in life and began to heal my wounds. I never considered myself a survivor of abuse, but thanks to an ill-timed panic attack, I had to face the truth: I grew up in an abusive household and bore a child with an abusive man. I am a survivor.