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. 

I Think My Friend is Being Abused. What Now?

Being able to recognize that you are being abused, while the abuse is still happening, is mind-bogglingly difficult. I say mind-boggling because even though dozens of people trying to tell me that my relationship was abusive was completely ineffective for me, it’s still my first instinct when someone’s partner exhibits abusive behaviors to just try to tell them that. I know that this extremely straightforward tactic doesn’t work, but what other choice do I have? This article explores that question.