psychology
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What to Do with a Family Secret

When I was a child, my mother always saw to it that I had clean clothes to wear to school and that my shoes were polished. Even after my father died and finances were tight, she made sure I had school lunch money, and she paid for my piano lessons. My piano teacher once commented… Continue reading
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Five Things I Love about My Aging Body

First, a confession I’m known to whine about my weight, lament my diminishing strength, grumble about aches, and otherwise hate on my physical self. If you spent much time around me, you’d probably laugh at my claim that I love my body. I know that when I thought about it, I laughed. What is there… Continue reading
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Write on the Back Burner

A Meditation for When You Feel Stuck in Your Writing I grew up surrounded by my mother’s big family in the northeastern reaches of Appalachia. Mother and her eight siblings were products of the Depression — hard-shelled, thrifty people who remembered what it was like to go hungry and live without warm clothing and well-fitting… Continue reading
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Why We May Doubt Our Memories of Childhood Trauma

When I was growing up in my mother’s large, tightly-knit extended family, I was subjected to sexual abuse. Mother warned me not to tell anyone what was happening to me. Instead, she made up a story — a tale of a child nurtured and cared for by a kind, loving family — that she instructed… Continue reading
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What Health Experts Get Wrong about Seniors and Solitude

“Chuck all that!” says GCHiker in his YouTube video Why I Avoid People. Responding to health experts who advise older people to maintain social contacts to avoid a variety of age-related health problems, GCHiker heartily disagrees. An intrepid hiker and solitary wanderer, he says he has grown quite comfortable in his later years with being alone. Confessing that… Continue reading
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The Trouble with Writing about an Abusive Parent

If you had to sum up your relationship with one of your parents in a few words, what would you say? I struggle to find a way to convey my childhood experiences with my mother quickly and clearly, so that you, my reader, will have a sense of what happened to me. Where is the… Continue reading
Do you write about yourself and your experiences? Do you write about traumatic events in your life? Or, do you struggle to find time and motivation to write?
If so, this blog is for you.
