My Journey is Mine Alone

Understanding myself, my journey, and where I see myself going.

There have been a lot of ups and downs that have led me to where I am today - being a domestic violence advocate. Of course, some of them I could’ve done without. You can read a lot about these things as I’ve shared my story and that isn’t really my point here.

What is my goal with my diary?

Now that I’ve become secure in myself as a survivor (and thriver) of child and domestic abuse, became a chaplain, and undergone domestic violence advocacy training my goal here is to share my road in this world. I do this because speaking out as a domestic abuse victim advocate isn’t right for everyone and so you need to be prepared before you do it.

What does it mean to be a domestic abuse advocate?

This is something that seemingly has a different definition depending on who you talk to. For me, it means a few different things. First of all I want my writing to be seen so that others can learn from my life. Secondly I want to be an active voice in the domestic violence community (please trust me when I say it’s challenging to break into this community). Third and finally I want to help other organizations who are on the front line where I can’t be due to my chronic health issues.

How do I feel about being a domestic abuse victim advocate?

You’ll find a lot of times when you wonder if your work even matters. You’ll wonder if anyone is even hearing or listening to you. At other times you’ll discover that you need to wear a million hats and know a variety of different skills just to have your work seen. Then there are still other times when you get burnt out.

What’s prepared me to be a domestic violence advocate?

I’m fortunate that I come from a background where I learned a lot about online marketing before starting my site. Does this mean that I know everything? Nope. But then again, who does?

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know everything I need to know as a domestic violence advocate either. There’s always more domestic violence advocacy training that I want to take but life is busy and I don’t want to take on so much that nothing gets accomplished.

What should you expect from this Substack/diary?

I’ve create my site in such a way that it’s informative and not really personalized. Sure I share glimpses of the life I’ve come from and written out my story there but that’s where it ends and I feel that’s where it needs to end there. My site is devoted to advocacy and teaching about domestic violence (and some child abuse too, but domestic violence is truly on my heart).

With that being said, I need a place to share my thoughts. I need a place to help you see that I’m human and that while being a domestic violence advocate is something we should all do, not all of us should be doing it full-time. Hopefully, this is what I’ll accomplish here.

As for my subscribers, I’m going to be creating content to teach you how to be a domestic violence advocate. While you may think that all you need to do is talk about domestic violence and how it should be ended, there really is a lot more to it than that. Through my domestic violence advocacy training “course” I hope that more people will become dedicated to this cause so that together we can put an end to domestic violence.

Thank you for letting me share my thoughts. This is only the beginning of them so I hope you’ll stay tuned to hear more.