This network allows us to collaborate and learn about so many other great individuals, organizations and initiatives. One of my favorite groups is the The Trigger Points Anthology which is led by two amazing women, Joyelle Brandt and Dawn White Daum. Both are survivors, activists and parents. They are also ACE-informed. In fact, the first link on their resource page to parents is all about ACEs.
This week they published the first two stories in their Survivor Empowering Survivor series. You can see the excerpts from each below. But first, learn more about the series in case you are, know or work with survivors who might contribute. They explain it as follows:
Our intention with this series is to offer a platform to which survivors can proudly speak about achievements – big and small. We’re looking to inspire and educate readers by introducing them to the difference you are making in your day to day, or how you are contributing to cultural change. Especially, as it pertains to parenting as a survivor.
We want to hear about:
- A book you’ve published, are working on, or took part in as a contributor.
- A recovery-focused workshop, class, center, non-for-profit or conference you contributed to or helped create.
- A service you provide specifically for parenting survivors.
- Your experience speaking or teaching on the topic of parenting as a survivor.
Series Excerpts:
I Spoke About Parenting as a Survivor, Because I Was Asked
"Sexual abuse isn’t my story. Sexual abuse is the story of those who abuse. Being an adult child of an alcoholic isn’t my story. That’s the story of the person who drank. Having a homeless father doesn’t tell you a bit about who I am or how I parent.
These things all shaped me. They did and do impact me and how I parent, and sometimes explain why parenting is challenging.
They contribute to my post-traumatic stress and contribute to my high ACE score. They are some of the reasons I do advocacy work, but they aren’t my story.
Nope. No way.
My story is about me and the choices I make. My story is about how I use, express, make sense of and recover from all of my experiences. My story is about how I learn to parent, to love, to trust and care about myself and my daughter. My story is about how I learn to inhabit my body and attempt to show up and be present without shame or apology or numbness. The only story I sign, autograph and own is my own.
I reject the notion that what was done to me, by others, is my story."
Christine Cissy White of Heal Write Now, Parenting with ACEs
"We got lost on the way to the cemetery and pulled into a police station to ask for directions. On a whim, we decided to report him, though he’d long been deceased.
The officer assigned to us, Officer Paul, treated us with such kindness, and such dignity. He led us through our story and filled out a formal report. He investigated and found another victim of my grandfather’s outside of the family. We met with her mother the following day.
I wrote about the experience, published it on my blog, and the post went viral. Overnight, I began to get inundated with people telling me their stories. People saying, “Me too.” Many strangers, yes- but also people I knew well. Women and men whose stories I’d have said I knew. It quickly became apparent that this was no longer just our story. It was bigger than that. We became determined to do something with the experience, to give our pain a purpose.
I’ve come to understand that whatever story you aren’t telling is the one that is running the board.
It’s the one to which you’ve attached the most shame and it is in charge of your whole life. You either integrate that story as A fact of your life, or it will be THE fact- and our abusers do not get that. They do not get to tell our stories. They do not get to write the ending for us."
Laura Parrott-Perry of Say It, Survivor and In Others' Words
Full stories on the Trigger Points Anthology website.
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