"Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways."

(Stephen Vincent Benét)

Dear friends, here we are. We’ve made it to 2025. If that number blows your mind, I’m right there with you. Where did time go and, more importantly, what have we done with it.

I’m skipping the annual retrospective and goal setting exercise. I’m procrastinating on mine, and yours might be already done. Amid the sea of tools and advice available on the topic, the suggestion to let ourselves guided by good questions rather than resolutions stayed with me. And while the big picture is still rendering on my end, I couldn’t resist the temptation to take stock of a few things.

Substack has been one of several experiments I’ve launched last year. For the first time in my life I’m allowing myself to do something driven exclusively by curiosity and passion. Less targets and deadlines, more wondering and dipping my toes in new waters. I am pleased to feel increasingly at ease sharing my perspective as a survivor of childhood abuse and trauma. Trauma thrives on secrecy and isolation. Words and connection are its greatest foes. Substack provides a safe space to practice my newfound voice, as well as a small but mighty community of survivor-writers (for a great catalogue check out Clare Egan’s SurvivorStack). It’s hard to overstate the relief brought by witnessing other people’s stories with, and through, trauma and recognising some of your own struggles in them.

To my astonishment and slight panic, Substack delivers an audience as well. I recognise that abuse and trauma do not exactly make for light or entertaining reading, so I didn’t really know what to expect. I am encouraged by the growing readership and reactions I have come across here. I look forward to connecting to more authors and readers that are willing to make space in their lives for a conversation on such a difficult subject.

Trauma is a normal reaction to abnormal circumstances. But what bothers me about it is the fact that sooner or later unchecked trauma turns against you. Long after the abuse and harm have ceased the traumatic response lives on. We continue to wall ourselves off, play dead or growl at anything that moves as if we’re still under siege, slowly starting to accumulate self-inflicted injuries. Chronic childhood abuse in particular cripples one’s sense of identity, their capacity to trust, love, and experience joy, their ability to dream and hope, leaving an uninhabitable hole in their place. An abuse survivor’s life is often defined by two things: how they survive the trauma, and if they can take a leap of faith (or desperation) and end their war with themselves and the world, patch themselves up and give life an honest second shot.

This January I’ve dreamed up new beginnings as everyone else, but I’ve also thought about endings and loss. Is there genuine hope for everyone who’s survived trauma and abuse? Is there a pain point beyond which our core shatters and begins to disintegrate hidden in a body that continues to breathe?

People can do horrendous things to other beings, but they can also move mountains and save each other. Love, friendship, solidarity, kindness, listening are the ropes that pull us out from the darkest wells within us and make bearable this miracle we call life.

I guess that’s a long way of saying, I find my modest efforts to raise awareness about trauma and recovery worthwhile. Knowing that most problems have a solution can save lives. Wounds heal if we stop picking at them. We need to keep talking about trauma, and the world needs to hear it.

So Substack, looks like we’re in it for the long run. To all my fellow survivors writing their hearts out, keep shining. To all my readers, thank you. And if you don’t have direct experience with trauma and you’re here to learn and help others, a special high five to you.

For some of us the worst is behind us - isn’t that invigorating? One day our hearts will stop beating. Let’s not stop living before then.

Thanks for tuning in,

Adina