Category: Healing

Grief, Healing, Poetry

Healing Is Not Linear

My Love, I know how frustrating it is to be triggeredand down again after weeks or months of feeling good and strong. You are angry.You are tired of fighting.I know this, Love. But hold on, dear.Listen to the waves and energyof your own growth, your path.The pattern. It’s coming … The good is circling back aroundto find you once again. And catch you by surprisewith its light reignited. Art by Dianne Hammer Follow me atInstagram: diannehammer_writerFacebook: DianneHammerWriter

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Healing, Sexual Assault Recovery, Trauma & PTSD

Resource-Building for Healing Trauma: ‘Remember When I Did That?’

This photo was about four weeks AFTER in 2018. My husband helped pace me to a third-place, age-group finish. I was running on pure anger and adrenaline and determination and yelled, “Fuck Him!!!!!” inside my head when I crossed the finish line a second after this photo was taken. Or maybe I yelled it out loud. I don’t remember. But it was very satisfying and I’m so appreciative of John for helping me achieve that. I felt incredibly empowered, and I still have that race result on my fridge five years later. It was the first super-positive experience I had

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Healing, Poetry

Just.Getting.Started.

Motivated for change and growth and possibility.Choosing THIS voice. Forging THIS path. Making. Crafting. Becoming. I am both fire and water. Storm AND peace. Ultimately. Hopefully. Mindfully.Seeking better ways to be. For me. For others. I hold up a mirror, and I am not alone. Not alone. Other-ing. Connecting. Finding. We ARE. Not alone. Just. Getting. Started.I sing with cracked voice.Whisper with clear intention.I SHOUT!

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East Troublesome Wildfire, Healing, Trauma

Healing is Individual: It May Take Time Before You Can See All the Rainbows

My husband and I have a vacation rental in the mountains, which I’ve written about in my House Therapy posts. In these, I parallel what it was like and what it meant to me – especially retrospectively – to embark on an all-encompassing creative endeavor during the exact same time I was going through the exhausting justice process. (By the way, I still plan on completing my House Therapy project, possibly as a book. Meanwhile, you can find chapters one through six starting here:https://diannehammer.com/2020/11/house-therapy-chapter-one-2/ ) John and I hope someday we won’t have to rent out our mountain house, but

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Healing, Middle Age, Trauma & PTSD

Happy Birthday, Dad! … Let’s Chat, OK?

October 7, 2022 Happy Birthday, Dad! You would be 94 years old. That’s so astounding to me! You have never gone, fully. I understand how that works now. I carry you in my heart and in my drive and in my personality. And in my biology, my aging – I see myself in you more and more. In Mom, too. I’ve been thinking about you a lot the last couple of weeks, as I go through an initial batch of your videos and slides that I’ve finally started to get digitized. It’s interesting to see through your eyes what you

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Healing, Telling My Story, Trauma

Healing Comes at Its Own Perfect Pace: Believing in My Own Power Took a Few Years

Content Warning: Assault Triggers It takes a long time for trauma survivors to process through the original event or events – as well as deal with what happened after, during the fallout period. I still discover at least monthly how I feel about “another something” related to the sexual assault I experienced in 2018. Healing is peeling back the layers of the trauma gradually and carefully, as we are able and ready, to deal with the next thing underneath. We can’t deal with the buried layers – or maybe even know those layers exist — until we’ve processed what’s above.

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