Coercive control rarely announces itself. It does not arrive as a rule written down or a threat spoken aloud. It arrives as warmth, offered on a condition nobody states out loud, withdrawn the moment the condition is not met. What it looks like from the inside As a teenager, newly out of a childhood spent […]
Grief Has a Face There was a look, and it was allowed to do more work than any sentence ever could. She was nearly ten when her little brother Joshua died. In the hours after, she asked the same question of everyone who came near her. Where is Joshua? She asked her mother. She asked
From a very young age, she spent her life doing things for them in the hope that they might love her more. That is not a tragic opening. It is an ordinary one. Most people who grew up inside conditional love would not frame it as a problem at all. They would say: my parents
What Conditional Love From a Parent Actually Installs Read More »
There is a voice that speaks the moment you dare try. Not before you try but right at the moment of reaching for something: a new job, a creative project, a conversation you have been putting off, a version of yourself you have been quietly working toward. That is when it shows up. It does
There is a phone call some people are still waiting for. A call that has not happened yet. Or one that already happened, and never once contained the words. I am sorry. I see what that did to you. I was wrong. When someone never apologizes, what they leave behind is not just the original
When the Person Who Hurt You Never Says So — Living With What Was Never Acknowledged Read More »
There is a woman on your screen making bread from scratch at six in the morning. Her hair is done. The kitchen is clean. She is smiling at something just off camera, and the caption reads, She has never been happier. You watch for longer than you expected to.Something about the certainty of it stops
There are beliefs you were handed. The ones that arrived with someone else’s voice. They were wrapped in a certainty you never knew you could question. Those are easier to see once you realise whose voice you are hearing. Then there are ones you built yourself. These do not carry anyone else’s proof. They feel
The Belief You Built to Survive and how it is still running your life Read More »
We come into this world as a blank canvas. From our very beginning, the framework quietly shapes the way we see the world, and exactly where we fit in. The beliefs we are handed can stem from pure ignorance, a rigid desire to control, or a genuine, loving attempt to help us navigate life. But
Millions watched Unchosen on Netflix and felt something they couldn’t name. This is what the show captures accurately, and what cinematic fiction, by its nature, cannot.
