FAQ

Tell us about a personal experience, healing journey, or poem that you feel called to share. You might write about trauma such as infidelity, abuse, grief, or harassment and how it affected you or your relationships. Some prompts to guide you:

• How did the experience begin, and what was the relationship or situation like at first?
• How did this experience help you grow, and what did you learn?
• What advice would you give someone going through something similar?
• What did you lose, reclaim, or discover?
• How did you begin to move forward?
• What would you tell yourself or the other person today?

You do not have to provide your real name or email address. We only publish the story or poem, the optional pen name you choose, and an approved image if you include one. Your email is never posted or shared.

Comments must remain supportive and respectful. Judgmental, disrespectful, harmful, or trolling comments are removed to help keep this a safe community.

Every submission is reviewed by our staff before it is published, so it may not appear immediately. Most submissions are reviewed within several hours, although timing can vary.

An image may be omitted or replaced if it is too large, low quality, unrelated to the submission, or not appropriate for the site. Please upload a JPG or PNG and keep the total submission under 8 MB.

The views and opinions shared through these stories are those of the writers themselves. Images used may not be the property of The Hurt Help Heal Initiative and all credit goes to the respective owners.

Please be advised that some of these stories may stir up unpleasant feelings and memories because of our own traumatic experiences, or as a result of vicarious or secondary trauma — a negative emotional response we can have when helping those who have experienced trauma, or simply by hearing about someone's traumatic experience. If reading becomes heavy, step away, be gentle with yourself, and consider the support options on our resources page.