Here's what I think. We all want someone to build a fort with. We want somebody to swap crayons with and play hide-and-seek with and live out imaginary stories with. We start out getting that from our family. Then we get it from our friends. And then...
I participate in BDSM, but I wasn't abused as a child. I don't hate women, or particularly enjoy hurting women. Sometimes I make them feel pain, but it's consensual, it serves a purpose—to get them off—and they can indicate that they wish me to s...
Ritually abusive groups also convince children that something evil has been put inside them. For example, a child is made to believe he or she has a "black heart" - seeing the abuser holding an animal heart and then feeling severe chest pain while it...
Rachel rolled her eyes as she let out a breath, "I've been to support groups. I've done the "my name is" thing." Rachel’s leg fell off the couch as she glared at Dr. Kean. "That's what triggered the attempts. I don't want to know that there are peo...
The first thing you need to know if you are a survivor is that parts of you have probably been trained to create a variety of symptoms and behaviours. Abusers actually train child parts to cut the body, to make other parts cut, to attempt suicide, to...
Julia", I answered breathlessly. "Chloe, are you in the bathroom fucking that nice slice of man cake?" "I'll be there in a second, okay?" I ended the call and shoved the phone back into my bag. I looked up at him, feeling my rational side return afte...
To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Music soothes, the visual arts exhilarates, the performing arts (such as acting and dance) entertain. Literature, however, retreats from life by turning in into slumber. Th...
They don’t want me. They’re curious why you want me. And anyway, I feel sorry for anyone that thinks they have a chance. I am hopelessly and completely in love with you.” A pained look shadowed his face. “You know why I want you? I didn’t k...
We were in a state of suspended animation: Oblivious to the world around us, time seemingly standing still, and our perceptions focused only on a couple specific parts of our anatomy. In fact, only one part. My tongue seemed numb, but the feeling in ...
I think it all basically breaks down to something like this: You have to look and feel great first. If you eat well, exercise and get enough sleep, you will have ample energy and the proper self-confidence to create and produce beyond your wildest dr...
For God's sakes, quit worrying about your next job. Just do the best you can at the job you have now, and the offers will come. And when they do, if you have confidence in yourself you don't have to feel that you can't turn it down if it isn't quite ...
But if you ask me what I remember (about 1945), I will say it was the year Franklin D. Roosevelt died and I got one of his flowers. I will tell you that yellow rose give me the courage to do the right thing even if it was hard. I will say it was the ...
God,” she butted her head into his chest, “I'm so angry with myself.” “What? Why?” “Because … this is my mess I dragged you into, and you don't deserve any of it, and I feel like I'm ruining you with every single thing I say, and…” ...
Tristan looked at me with pleading eyes, as though he could forget for one moment how I was programmed to respond to him—how even now upon hearing his confession, I wanted nothing more than to suck his beautiful cock to fulfillment, to straddle him...
Tristan stepped away from me. “No, Robbie, listen. If there were any other way to turn off her programming, I would tell you. Lisa wants to know what she really feels, free of the programming, and I think we should help her. The pills will still ke...
An economy that depends on slavery needs to promote images of slaves that “justify” the institution of slavery. The contemporary economy depends right now on the representation of women within the beauty myth. Economist John Kenneth Galbraith off...
And next time we hear someone saying something like, 'We are pursuing this strategy because other strategies, when we had considered them, we concluded that, in terms of overall effectiveness, they were not sound strategies, which is why we enacted t...
Even though its common knowledge these days, it never ceases to amaze me that all the richness of our mental life - all our feelings, our emotions, our thoughts, our ambitions, our love life, our religious sentiments and even what each of us regards ...
Then she did something so unexpected Nico would later think he dreamed it. She walked up to Nico, who was standing to one side in the shadows, as usual. She grabbed his hand and pulled him gently into the firelight. ‘We had one home,’ she said. �...
When I ask French parents what they most want for their children, they say things like "to feel comfortable in their own skin" and "to find their path in the world." They want their kids to develop their own tastes and opinions. In fact, French paren...
Do stones feel? Do they love their life? Or does their patience drown out everything else? When I walk on the beach I gather a few white ones, dark ones, the multiple colors. Don’t worry, I say, I’ll bring you back, and I do. Is the tree as it ri...
