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By CDV Independence and Freedom Often Overlap Some children learn fierce independence growing up with domestic violence. But being independent is not the same as being free from the Lies learned in that home. They learn at an Early Age to Rely Exclusively on Themselves and No One Else Often stuck in a physical environment that is violent, stressful, and painful, these children often grow up...

Many who Experienced Childhood Domestic Violence Feel They Can't Open Up to Others No one would fault a child of domestic violence for believing that opening up to others can be dangerous. The people he should have been able to trust most – his parents or guardians – were a source of stress, fear, and possibly harm. That Self-Isolation Can Be Harmful There is, however, a high cost to isolating...

By CDV Growing Up with Domestic Violence Teaches Us to Resent If you grew up with domestic violence, you learned several lies that taught you to feel resentment and to depend on that feeling for a sense of power or control. Yet, resentment only shackles us to reliving our past hurts, giving us zero power or control. Let’s look clearly here at the lie of resentment, why you may have come to...

By CDV Childhood Domestic Violence Can Make Us Feel Guilty Guilt can seem like a simple word. Yet, it speaks to a complex family of emotions. These include embarrassment, a sense of culpability, a feeling you should have been able to stop it, shame because there is something inherently wrong with you, humiliation, remorse, and even the sense that you were somehow the cause. Those who never grew...

By CDV Our Past Traumas Can Follow Us Anger and domestic violence are an unfortunate pairing, but all too common. You don't have to live with the past. You don't have to live in anger. You don't have to live with the damage of domestic violence. You can know, accept, change, and grow. I will show you how. If you’ve read my book Invincible: The 10 Lies You Learn Growing Up With Domestic Violence,...

By CDV "Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment.” – Friedrich Nietzsche What is Resentment? Resentment seems like an obvious emotion, but to fully understand it, we must look at how it’s connected to the other lies we learned as children. Because for those of us who grew up living with domestic violence, each of these lies is connected. While this requires...

By CDV Childhood Domestic Violence Leads to a Lingering Anger Lingering anger arises out of domestic violence. Children feel it, and adults actually nurture it. Here we’re going to look at anger’s origins in domestic violence, and explore how an adult can recognize the anger for what it is and learn to channel it into something positive. The first thing most children of domestic violence learn...