recoverwithsara

I knew who I was at six years old and it wasn’t the person the world rewards. This might sound abstract, but stay with me. When I was six or seven, I used to watch an old cartoon called Jem and the Holograms . It was about two rival bands. One was polished, admired, everything the world celebrates. The other, The Misfits; were louder, rougher, a little chaotic. And in that second group, there was one character who didn’t quite fit. Her name was Stormer. Stormer was in the “bad” group, but...

Last night, I did something I had been avoiding for a long time, I reached out to a friend I met in Gamblers Anonymous in 2024. On the surface, it may not sound like much, but for me it felt enormous, because what I was really doing was beginning to release something that no longer served me. For a long time, I had carried the weight of my gambling quietly the financial damage, the emotional toll, the frustration of trying to untangle everything after the fact. When I reached out, I chose...

Disclaimer:  This post references sexual assault, trauma responses, medical triggering, and gambling relapse/urges. I do not always add content warnings, but I believe in taking a gender-based violence-informed approach and understand that these topics may be difficult for some readers. All 10 of you :) I don’t want to go into every detail. But years ago, in a back room of a restaurant, an older man sexually assaulted me. I never told anyone. Not my friends, not my family. I kept it to myself...