• trauma bond
    Bonding,  Trauma

    From Trauma Bond to Freedom: Our Family’s Journey

    During a conversation about the trauma bond with my oldest, she challenged me to write a post that dealt honestly with the difficult journey my four daughters and I took from years of abuse to a healthy and loving blended family unit. The original trauma bond belonged to me and my ex-husband. For reference, a trauma bond is a seemingly iron-clad tie between an abuser and his or her victim. The result of the cycles of abuse that revolve around reward and punishment, the trauma bond has the same psychological effect as a trap has on the leg of a wild animal. Lured by the promise of something good, we…

  • step family
    Step Family

    Step Family Stumbling Blocks: What to Expect

    I get a lot of Brady Bunch jokes when I tell people that my husband and I have a ‘blended’ family of six kids. Four daughters of mine from my first marriage and a son and a daughter from my husband’s previous marriage meant that I had three kids in high school for six consecutive years. We married over thirteen years ago, bringing together our children with stars in our eyes and high hopes in our hearts. We wanted to rock step family life. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Was it easy? Absolutely not. But if I had been aware of a few salient facts, I think the process might…

  • attachment
    Attachment style,  Bonding,  Relationship with God

    Setting God Free: How Attachment Style Affects Faith

    I bear witness to many people struggling to gain a toehold in their relationship with God. For some, God is like an unreachable guru on top of a distant mountain. If you find Him, He only speaks in riddles. For others, His face resembles the stern idols on Easter Island. Judgment is in the forecast, and soon. For still others, God is capricious, changing His mind about what good things He will or will not allow them to have in their lives. Now He loves me. Now He loves me not. The most painful iteration of God, I think, is the silent one. He is the all-seeing, all-knowing monolith who…