victim advocacy
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There is a wall in my home office that tells a certain story about me. My bachelor’s degree, with high honors. My law degree. Certificates for Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Delta Phi… Copies of law review volumes with my name printed inside as chief articles editor. A pro bono service award. Most days, these things…
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My first SART call came on my sixth shift. Five shifts of waiting — of sitting with my phone, mentally rehearsing, wondering what I would say and how I would say it — and then, finally, the call. I drove to the hospital in the dark with my heart doing something complicated in my chest.…
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A companion piece to “Stepping Into the Training Room: My Journey to Becoming a SART Volunteer Advocate“ I did it!!! After weeks of evening sessions, full Saturdays, skill practices that made my heart race, and more than a few moments of wondering whether I was truly ready for this — I walked out of the…
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Every morning, I dragged myself out of bed with a heaviness that had nothing to do with being tired. On paper, I had everything I’d worked toward—a legal career that perfectly matched my decade of property management experience, clients who needed my expertise, financial stability. I was succeeding. So why did I feel like I was…
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A Winter Morning and a Quiet Book This morning I walked the dog in the rain. Southern California rain — the kind that feels almost apologetic, soft and uncertain, like it isn’t quite sure it belongs here. And when I looked up toward the horizon, there was Big Bear, snow-covered and distant and somehow completely…
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I just finished Nancy Isenberg’s White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, and I need to be honest: it took me nearly two months to get through. This book was, quite frankly, a slog. There were moments when I had to remind myself why I don’t usually gravitate toward non-fiction—particularly dense, academic non-fiction…
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Understanding the Roots of Violence Against Women Week 1 of Crisis Intervention Training at the Center for Community Solutions I sat in the training room on the first night of my Crisis Intervention Training, watching the presenter click through a PowerPoint slide that traced reproductive rights history in the United States. The timeline marched forward:…
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Can’t focus anymore? You’re not alone. Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus explores why our attention spans are collapsing and what we can do about it. As someone preparing for victim advocacy work while struggling with post-COVID brain fog, I found this book both enlightening and frustrating. Here’s my review—and why reclaiming our focus matters for survivors, advocates, and…
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Content warning: This post discusses collective trauma, violence, and vicarious trauma in advocacy work. I keep returning to a question that has no easy answer: How do we do this work—how do we bear witness to suffering, how do we advocate for justice—when the world feels like it’s burning around us? This morning, I watched…
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I dream of libraries almost every night. Not the bright, modern kind with floor-to-ceiling windows and café corners, but the old ones—dim, wood-paneled, smelling of aged paper and possibility. In these dreams, I’m always studying something. Sometimes it’s a literature class where we’re dissecting symbolism in a novel I’ve never actually read. Other times, I’m…