Christa M - The Disaster Area (Page 2)

healing

A reintroduction

We don't talk about what happens or how to manage when the losses keep piling on

A black and white image of a semi truck traveling along a highway under overcast skies alongside a mountain range. Sunlight breaks through the clouds at intervals.

community

Five Years After My Dystopian Fiction Was Published, I’m Afraid It Might Actually Be Coming True

What I never expected in writing to process my layoffs as well as my privilege

A young white woman with dark hair lies face down on grass, her arms folded over her head.

community

Finding Community and Building Solidarity for Socially Exhausted Introverts*

If you're paying attention, you find the keys to all your future interactions

An assembly line of gardeners work together to plant pink and yellow flowers in a long brick planter

community

How to Heal When Life Feels Like the Environment That Harmed You

Regaining our sense of agency is another way of saying regaining the sense of power we lost in the environment(s) that harmed us

A stalk of purple flowers grows tall through rows of yellow flowers, standing out

community

Asking for Help When You Don’t Conform to Social Expectations

Here’s what “trans rights are human rights” really means -- for everyone

A woman's hand holds a pen over paper on a wooden desk beside a notebook and a mug.

child-abuse

To Protect Our Children, We First Need to Heal Ourselves

The predatory men I engaged with recognized I was starved for connection. Our support structures need to realize this, too.

A man dressed as Spiderman and wearing a yellow jacket shows card tricks to a group of childr

child-abuse

How American Hero Narratives Keep Us From Solving Social Crises — or Healing

We insist on “rescuer” narratives at the expense of developing agency for our children and ourselves

A Latin child with dark hair and a red shirt gazes at the camera with suspicion.

child-abuse

5 Things “Stranger Danger” Education Got Wrong, and 1 It Gets Right

How emphasizing “stranger danger” hamstrung a generation’s understanding of threats to child safety

White cutouts on a gray background contain black text with words like "Trauma," "Self-esteem," "Hopelessness," etc

child-abuse

How Generational Trauma Compounds Child and Intimate Partner Abuse

Learning to fit in and not make waves might have been considered a form of “practice” for adult womanhood. We paper over our needs, preferences, and sense of autonomy when we learn they’re antithetical to our survival.

A lone figure walks a gray wooden boardwalk nestled among brown marsh reeds on a cloudy day.

child-abuse

Why It’s More Critical Now Than Ever to Tell Our “Not That Bad” Abuse Stories

Knowing what it looks, sounds, acts, and feels like before it becomes criminal can help us heal — and know what to look for. Our future may depend on it.

A brown pigeon stands on pavement among gray pigeons, the only one in a shaft of light

community

Asking for Help When Help Feels Few and Far Between

At a time when I feel less fearful of healthy confrontation, others seem to fear it from me — a sign of a deeply dysfunctional society

Two brown human hands reaching for one another, one up and one down, against a blue stone background

Asking for Help When You Can’t Pull Back Any Longer

Sharing from survival mode introduces power differentials that can feel difficult to get out from under, but which are, ultimately, temporary.