Life After Abuse: An Open Letter to My Friend on Healing from Abuse

I originally wrote this letter for a dear friend of mine about the process of healing from trauma and life after abuse, in 2018. The blog that published it has sadly gone dark since then. I wanted to make sure that this piece could still be enjoyed and potentially shared with your own close friends if they’ve been through something similar.

Poetry & Trauma: It Is Hard to Write with a Broken Heart

This week my debut poetry book, “Pet: the Journey from Abuse to Recovery” comes out. The poetry sequence takes you through my experiences in an abusive relationship, my attempts to heal, my retrospective reflections on the relationship, and the larger-scale insights that came with long-term healing. To introduce it, I wanted to share with you this piece about what it took to write that book in the first place. 

Why Understanding Abuse & Trauma is Necessary for Social Justice Work

The focus of Yopp has always been to discuss all things related to social justice and civil rights. But another important topic that emerged fairly early on was issues related to abuse and trauma. Without much thought, we started writing a number of articles specifically about the experience of being abused, the aftermath, what recovery looks like, etc. We never really considered that the connection between abuse and trauma, and social justice may not be obvious to everyone. It occurred to us that it might be valuable to spell out these connections in article form.