Lori Williams | A Liminal Space

Category: trauma recovery

  • Religious Trauma Survivors: The Room Has No Place to Put It

    What happens when religious trauma survivors bring their pain into church — and the room, or the person across from them, doesn’t know where to put it.

  • On Belonging Without a Baseline

    Some people don’t lose belonging — they never had a baseline for it to begin with. This is a reflection on what that absence feels like, why it isn’t a flaw, and what it takes to start recognizing belonging without a reference point to measure it against.

  • The Pirate in the Mirror: What Backrooms Knows About the Rooms We’re Afraid to Enter

    I watched Backrooms on vacation and couldn’t stop thinking about one image — a giant in a pirate costume, his face twisted in absolute misery. I recognized that look. I’d seen it in my own mirror. What this film knows about the rooms we’re afraid to enter might surprise you.

  • Already Home

    What if home isn’t somewhere you finally arrive at? What if it’s a moment you notice — and then another, and then another? A post for anyone exhausted from trying to heal their way home.

  • The People Who Stay: Why Friendship Is the Love Story We Keep Missing

    **Slug:** the-people-who-stay-friendship-love-story — **Excerpt:** We were taught that romantic love is the answer — the thing that will complete us, save us, prove our worth. But what if the most nourishing love story of your life has been unfolding quietly beside you all along, in the people who simply stayed? This is a post about…

  • Love Is the Answer to Darkness

    A visceral dream on Valentine’s Eve revealed a mansion on a cliff, buzzards circling, and a message I couldn’t ignore: Love is the answer to darkness. Sometimes what looks like it’s tearing you apart is exactly what will set you free.

  • The Roundabout: Why Religious Trauma Keeps Us Circling

    Isn’t it strange that the same religion teaching about the unconditional love of Jesus attaches a long list of expectations to those who follow him? Toxic religion is like having a parent who says they love you unconditionally but expects you to perform in a certain way to get what you need.

  • A Prayer of Complaint, Petition, and Resolution

    A prayer born from threshold moments—naming consumption as the shadow we refuse to see. For survivors learning the difference between being fed and being fed upon.

  • When Pain Has No Place to Land

    Maybe you grew up knowing instinctively that your pain wasn’t safe to share. That if you brought your scraped knees and bruised hearts to your caregivers, somehow you’d end up taking care of them instead. It wasn’t your job to absorb someone else’s volcanic grief. It never was. You can care without carrying it.

  • Understanding Spiritual Trauma and Its Impact

    When the ground you thought would always hold becomes unstable—that’s spiritual trauma. After a decade of trying to heal in places that retraumatized me, I learned what survivors actually need. It’s not what most churches think.