We are collecting personal essays for an anthology called “Trigger Points: Abuse survivors experiences of parenting”.

Description
Our goal is to create awareness for survivors of childhood sexual and physical abuse, who are now parents. It’s true what they say, becoming a parent changes everything. How one continues his/her process of healing after having a child is part of that.

We are both survivors and parents. We have struggled with the effects of the abuse on how we parent, and with either a lack of desire to hear about it, or a lack of understanding from our communities. If our culture never allows us to be honest about what happened to us, and the effects it has had on us, how are we expected to break the cycle?

The anthology will focus on what it has been like for you as a parent, a physical and/or sexual abuse survivor, to raise a child. Tell us about what triggers arose when you became a parent and how you are coping. We want to know if your recovery was improved, interrupted or halted by starting your family. Have you ever talked about this before, if so, what was the response like? Is the idea of your children’s safety always on your mind? Yeah, ours too. Tell us about that too.

The details are as followed:
**Email your personal essay of no more than 1,500 words to triggerpointsanthology@gmail.com.
Please include a short bio and feel free to include any social media links. You may remain anonymous, if you choose to do so.

**Essay must not have appeared in a published collection before. If published on your own blog, that’s fine.

**Deadline for submissions is January 31, 2015. We will notify writers whose essay has been accepted by March 31, 2015. Writers will receive a $20 contribution payment via pay pal by April 14, 2015.

**We will only ask for non-exclusive rights to your work. You will be free to do as you please with it, once it is published.