Love is a complex and multifaceted emotion that encompasses a range of feelings, attitudes, and behaviors. It can be experienced in various forms, including romantic love, familial love, platonic love, and self-love. Here are some key aspects of love:
One of the strangest parts of healing is that you don’t always realise how unhealthy your situation was until you leave it behind. When you live in an environment for decades, it becomes your normal. You adapt. You make excuses. You lower your expectations. You tell yourself that all relationships are difficult, that everyone has… Read More When You Finally Meet Healthy People
A friend once described my situation as being like peeling back the layers of an onion. At first, I thought that if I looked hard enough, asked enough questions, and tried hard enough to understand, I would eventually find the truth. I believed there had to be a reason for the behaviour, a hidden explanation… Read More The Rotten Onion
I think I will cry with relief when I finally get my own home again. Not because it’s bricks and mortar. Not because it’s an investment. Not because it’s a status symbol. But because it represents something far more valuable: Freedom. For decades, I lived under the shadow of threats. If I did something wrong,… Read More Freedom
There comes a point in life when we all have to stop blaming, stop making excuses, stop explaining away uncomfortable realities, and take a long, honest look in the mirror. Not a quick glance at the surface. A deep look. An honest look. A courageous look. Many parents struggle to understand why their adult children… Read More The Mirror We Often Avoid Looking Into
Sometimes it is not the big things that hurt the most. It is the small things. You visit their home and notice photographs of family members on display. Parents, siblings, children, friends, holidays, celebrations, and treasured memories are all visible. But there is no photograph of you. You look around and realise that gifts you… Read More When You Seem to Have Disappeared from Their World
There comes a point in some family relationships when it becomes necessary to stop listening to explanations and start looking at patterns. If decades have passed with no shared holidays, no family celebrations, no meaningful effort to spend time together, no shared Christmases, no birthdays unless you organise and pay for everything yourself, it is… Read More When Decades of Distance Tell Their Own Story
One of the most painful forms of self-deception can occur when a parent desperately wants to believe what their adult child is saying, while ignoring what their adult child’s actions are showing them. Most parents want to see the best in their children. They want to believe the promises, the reassurances, and the comforting words.… Read More When Words and Actions Tell Different Stories
A pattern of judgment, projection, and hypocrisy. When someone says things like “she was never a Samaritan, she was just a gold digger” why would she be interested in someone 25 years her senior? Without evidence, several psychological processes can be at work: Projection People sometimes attribute motives to others that reflect their own way of thinking.… Read More A pattern of judgment, projection, and hypocrisy.
You see an old photograph. A beautiful beach. A mountain village. A bustling city square. A restaurant overlooking the sea. For a moment, your mind remembers the sunshine, the laughter, the excitement of discovering somewhere new. You find yourself talking to a friend about that special place, recalling the scenery, the food, the experience. Then,… Read More When the Mind Plays Tricks: Revisiting Places, Reclaiming Memories
One of the most damaging responses a victim can hear is, “I doubt he’ll kill you.” Most people who say this are not being malicious. They simply cannot imagine that someone they know, a family member, friend, colleague, or neighbour, could be capable of such an act. They judge the situation through the lens of… Read More “I doubt he’ll kill you.”
