Growing Through Concrete
Cracking trauma to find the light

Featured articles

To Protect Our Children, We First Need to Heal Ourselves

To Protect Our Children, We First Need to Heal Ourselves

How American Hero Narratives Keep Us From Solving Social Crises — or Healing

How American Hero Narratives Keep Us From Solving Social Crises — or Healing

5 Things “Stranger Danger” Education Got Wrong, and 1 It Gets Right

5 Things “Stranger Danger” Education Got Wrong, and 1 It Gets Right

How Generational Trauma Compounds Child and Intimate Partner Abuse

How Generational Trauma Compounds Child and Intimate Partner Abuse

Why It’s More Critical Now Than Ever to Tell Our “Not That Bad” Abuse Stories

Why It’s More Critical Now Than Ever to Tell Our “Not That Bad” Abuse Stories

Asking for Help When Help Feels Few and Far Between

Asking for Help When Help Feels Few and Far Between

Asking for Help When You Can’t Pull Back Any Longer

Asking for Help When You Can’t Pull Back Any Longer

Reaching Out for Help When Everything Tells You to Pull Back

Reaching Out for Help When Everything Tells You to Pull Back

Latest

Jan
31
A woman's hand holds a pen over paper on a wooden desk beside a notebook and a mug.

To Protect Our Children, We First Need to Heal Ourselves

The predatory men I engaged with recognized I was starved for connection. Our support structures need to realize this, too.
13 min read
Jan
31
A man dressed as Spiderman and wearing a yellow jacket shows card tricks to a group of childr

How American Hero Narratives Keep Us From Solving Social Crises — or Healing

We insist on “rescuer” narratives at the expense of developing agency for our children and ourselves
10 min read
Jan
31
A Latin child with dark hair and a red shirt gazes at the camera with suspicion.

5 Things “Stranger Danger” Education Got Wrong, and 1 It Gets Right

How emphasizing “stranger danger” hamstrung a generation’s understanding of threats to child safety
9 min read
Jan
31
White cutouts on a gray background contain black text with words like "Trauma," "Self-esteem," "Hopelessness," etc

How Generational Trauma Compounds Child and Intimate Partner Abuse

Learning to fit in and not make waves might have been considered a form of “practice” for adult womanhood. We paper over our needs, preferences, and sense of autonomy when we learn they’re antithetical to our survival.
9 min read
Jan
31
A lone figure walks a gray wooden boardwalk nestled among brown marsh reeds on a cloudy day.

Why It’s More Critical Now Than Ever to Tell Our “Not That Bad” Abuse Stories

Knowing what it looks, sounds, acts, and feels like before it becomes criminal can help us heal — and know what to look for. Our future may depend on it.
15 min read
Jan
23
A brown pigeon stands on pavement among gray pigeons, the only one in a shaft of light

Asking for Help When Help Feels Few and Far Between

At a time when I feel less fearful of healthy confrontation, others seem to fear it from me — a sign of a deeply dysfunctional society
5 min read
Dec
31
Two brown human hands reaching for one another, one up and one down, against a blue stone background

Asking for Help When You Can’t Pull Back Any Longer

Sharing from survival mode introduces power differentials that can feel difficult to get out from under, but which are, ultimately, temporary.
6 min read
Jul
09
A white man's hands hold the hands of an elderly woman in a blue skirt, seated in a wheelchair

Need Help? Look for the Strings Attached (Before They Strangle You)

Receiving assistance shouldn’t stand on the back of your submission to authority
7 min read
Jun
10
Do You Really Want People to “Just Ask for Help”?

Do You Really Want People to “Just Ask for Help”?

When resources are scarce and getting scarcer, ‘help’ can be conflated with ‘power' — and people need community, not rescuers
9 min read
May
23

How to Learn to Trust, Even When You're Afraid

Because the risk of not trusting is greater than the risk of trusting the wrong people
4 min read