So often those of us from relational trauma backgrounds have no parent or grandparent to turn to for advice, comfort, reassurance, and support during hard times. 

And yet, because life is life, it will be hard. 

And the absence of this kind of support in those times can feel so lonely and like another layer of pain on top of the hard.

These essays are for you to bookmark during hard times. 

Imagine a loving, loyal, kind parental or grandparent figure saying these words to you. 

Read the words again and again until you internalize them and can say them to yourself reflexively and automatically.

Internalize these (good enough) parental words as part of your relational trauma recovery journey and let these words steady and support you when you feel like you just want to give up. 

I hope these words can bring you even a little bit of comfort, no matter what is going on in your world right now.

When you’re going through hard times, keep going.

Oh, honey, life feels awful right now, doesn’t it?

Does it feel like you keep waking up from sound sleep to a nightmare? 

I remember times like those. 

Times when all I wanted in the world was to lose myself in sleep and I would get a few precious hours before my mind would wake up a little bit, remember reality, and then jolt me awake. 

And it was always 2am. 

I never could get back to sleep once I remembered…

Is that happening to you now, too?

Life has shifted from hard times to impossible right now, hasn’t it?

I get it, honey.

I can remember times in my own life when it felt like I was just surviving from 6am until 7pm when I could take something to help me sleep and then pass out.

When every email refresh felt like a digital bomb waiting to explode my world, bringing news I didn’t want to hear.

The decision. 

The diagnosis. 

The news I dreaded.

I remember hard times when just going about my day my body would flood with the searing heat of anxiety. My mind would spiral into worst case, catastrophic scenarios. No matter how much I tried to talk myself out of it.

Those hard times in life were hellish. 

But I got through them. 

And you will, too.

There’s an old Winston Churchill quote that goes something like, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” 

I would try and remember this when I felt like I couldn’t do adult life anymore.

I would try and remember this quote when all I wanted in the world was to run away and escape. To some tiny home on a plot of land in a state where no one knew me. Where I could live on very little money, have no contact with other people, and hide out and recover.