Healing After Emotional Abuse: Why Small Decisions Feel So Hard (and How to Reclaim Yourself)
Leaving an emotionally abusive or toxic relationship is often described as the hardest step — but what many people don’t talk about is what happens after you leave.
Listening to the Voice Within After Divorce and Trauma
Starting over after divorce—or after emotional abuse, heartbreak, or trauma—can leave you feeling disconnected from yourself. Many women describe this season as survival mode: making decisions out of necessity rather than clarity, doubting themselves, and questioning every step forward.
Acquired, Not Courted: Surviving a Covert Narcissist — A Conversation with Mia J. Hanks
In this week’s powerful episode of Bent Not Broken, I sat down with award-winning author Mia J. Hanks, whose memoir Bridemaid exposes the hidden and devastating reality of surviving nearly 30 years with a covert narcissist.
One sentence from her book has already struck a deep chord with so many listeners:
“I hadn’t been courted—I had been acquired.”
This wasn’t just a line on a page.
It was the truth she had been living for decades.