What is the guilt and shame you have had to swallow. Put this week’s writing on this post.

Survival Had a Voice Today was a good day. It was a good week. And it was also a reckoning. A reckoning with fear. Not the loud, obvious kind—but the quiet fear that keeps your mouth shut, your truth hidden, and your heart folded in on itself. The fear that says: If I speak honestly, they’ll leave. They’ll be mad. They’ll see me differently. That fear has followed me most closely in my relationship with my children. For years, I carried the belief that I was a bad mother. That I failed them. And because of that belief, I learned to stay silent. I didn’t talk about how I felt. I didn’t name what hurt me or how things landed inside my body. I buried it all—layer after layer—under everything else I didn’t know how to face. Eventually, the weight became unbearable. When it surfaced, it didn’t come out gently. It came out as explosions. As over-explaining. As lying. As judging. As words and actions that hurt others—and myself. For a long time, I didn’t think of myself as an angry person. I didn’t see myself as someone who played the victim. But clarity has a way of humbling you. I can see now that I was miserable. Broken. Stuck in survival mode for so long that I forgot it wasn’t supposed to feel like this forever. Lying became a language of survival. I lied to eat. I lied to stay safe. I lied to get through doors that should never have been open to a child. I lied about my age—telling men I was older when I was fifteen or sixteen. I lied to get into bars, hotels, places I had no business being. After a while, the line between truth and fiction blurred so completely that even I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Not all lies were intentional. Some were instinct. Some were protection. Some were desperation. I lied to avoid being beaten. I lied to escape assault. I lied to adults who claimed they loved me but still hurt me. I moved from foster home to foster home, learning quickly which stories kept me safe and which ones got me punished. I lied to my father so he wouldn’t retaliate. I lied to the police so someone could come back home—because how was I supposed to survive alone with two kids, no job, and a life that kept uprooting itself every few months?

Let’s welcome our newest member @Faith Hogan

Here is the recording of tonight’s live.

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