Hi, I’m Laurie.
Survivor, Mental Health Advocate, Writer
I’m a survivor and I’m guessing you probably are too.
My friends have described me as brave, and my dad calls me stubborn. I prefer tenacious. These characteristics served me well as a “Big T” trauma survivor.
But even then, it still took me 14 years to finally write the book about my experiences as a survivor of childhood molestation, rape, and domestic violence. It took a long time to work through layer upon layer of anger and grief so that I could fully step into who I am. Embracing myself has been a lifelong journey.
I’ve had a psychotic break.
The underlying root of which, was a repetitive dream about the molestation that occurred when I was a young child. The memory I had unconsciously hidden for so long under a history of abusive partners, but also my own occasionally volatile behavior. I considered myself a fighter, but I had no idea what I was swinging at. Until I began to mentally break apart.
I haven’t had the luxury to solely focus on healing all these years. (Who does?)
I’ve been doing the kinds of things we all have to do while also working on healing.
I’ve been working, raising a family, falling in love, building my career, and so much more. I’ve spent more years than I’d like to admit in the networking and technology industry, running marketing programs, communications campaigns, public relations, branding, and content. In fact, I’ve directed communications and marketing strategies for some of the most well-known companies in the technology space, including ghostwriting from a few technology personalities you might have heard of.
Ultimately though, my favorite part of all these jobs has been the writing.
That’s probably because I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I grew up in West Texas, and In the third grade, I started writing a scary book based on a bad dream I had. It was all about criminals poisoning people by injecting toxic substances into over-the-counter medications. Creative, I guess. (!?!)
Now I live in California near the San Francisco Bay Area, in a town very close to Santa Cruz.
I can walk out my door into the mountains, or I can drive five minutes to the beach.
I’m lucky enough to be married to a lovely and talented Englishman, who brought me a sweet and smart stepson. And I gave birth in 2009 to the best little human on the planet, my daughter Olivia (aka Lux). Besides my favorite activity (writing), I spend time hiking, traveling, skiing, cooking, and reading books.
I’m sharing my story so more survivors will know they are not alone and hopefully become the happy people they are meant to be.
It’s all about learning to minimize the impact of past traumas by working through the anger, guilt, shame, and the worst: self-loathing. It’s about learning to love and take care of yourself. It may sound cliche, but if I can help just one person, I will have found success. But my intention is to help many, many more.
