Janet Topping

Tag: breaking cycles

  • How Dinosaur Toys Taught Me About Generational Trauma

    From pink dresses to court battles: the moment I realized protecting my child meant losing my family My stomach dropped as I watched my mother take away dinosaur toys from my daughter, deeming them “too boyish.” The look, the tone, the manipulation—it was all too familiar from my own childhood. In that moment, I understood…

  • The Permission Slip That Started Everything

    I pressed the pen against the permission slip for the sex education class and wrote her name, my hand moving with the practiced confidence of someone who had memorized every curve and illegible scrawl. The “B” curved exactly as hers did, wide and looping, before dissolving into the messy chaos that passed for the rest…

  • The Evolution of a Title: Why “Mission: Hurry Up and Wait” Better Tells My Story

    When you’re writing a memoir, sometimes the story teaches you what it’s really about. The Original Vision Six months ago, I was certain my memoir would be called Songs of Silence: Growing Up in a Story Not My Own. It felt right at the time. I was thinking about the Keeper – my controlling mother…

  • Unmasking the Illusion of Obedience

    Unmasking the Illusion of Obedience

    The tower rose like a hymn from the earth—layer upon layer of carved stone, every arch a promise of safety, every balcony a whispered blessing. But step back two paces and the blessing curdles. There at the tower’s feet coils an unbroken wall of basalt, as if the tower were a prized relic to be…