About Survive, Transform, Soar!

Survive, Transform, Soar! is a free inbox magazine that features articles by experts in the fields of personality disorders, emotional abuse, grieving, self-growth and personal transformation, somatic healing, overall health and regeneration after financial rape.

We are a resource for people who have left a toxic relationship and are trying to recover from the aftermath, whether your relationship ended yesterday or 30 years ago.

Our focus is on the recovery and flourishing of people who have been in toxic love partnerships, although much of the information will apply to those who feel damaged by any long-term or high-contact relationship, such as those with bosses, co-workers, close friends, parents, siblings or adult children.

Although most of our initial subscribers are women, we believe that men and LGBT adults are silent, invisible and under-served individuals who we hope will find our publication and resources helpful.

What is a toxic relationship?

The simple answer: A relationship that pulls you down and makes you feel worse about yourself is toxic. If continued for a long period of time, it damages your core self-worth and is harmful to your own personality and mental health.

Many people struggle with putting a label on a partner, either trying to figure out “what he is” or resisting a particular label because “she’s not that bad.” These things do matter somewhat and our experts will talk about them at times, but trying to apply a diagnosis or label is not really important.

What is important are your own symptoms, the extent of damage you experienced and how you feel about yourself. Once you have a general understanding of your partner’s behavior and role, your best results will come from focusing on you.

Who Are You?

Survive, Transform, Soar! is designed for people who are already removed from the toxic relationship because this is the period where support has been most lacking, both from professionals and from friends and family. In addition, healing cannot really begin until you are no longer in contact with the abuser (or have minimized contact to the minimum required by child custody legal requirements). You will see this referred to here and elsewhere as ‘no-contact.’

NOTE TO THOSE STILL IN THE RELATIONSHIP
Most people do not realize how traumatic the immediate aftermath of the breakup is going to be. Friends and family, as well as the abused partners themselves, expect there to be a sense of relief and do not anticipate the often irresistible, magnetic pull back to the abuser.

If you are still in the relationship, there may be information on this site or in our magazine that will be helpful to you in making the decision to leave, mostly in preparing you for what to expect and in showing you that there is support available. However, I encourage you to seek out resources that are more specifically targeted at helping you recognize the reality of your current circumstance, guiding you through your decision-making and, most urgently, educating you about how to prepare for and announce your breakup to your partner in a way that maximizes your personal safety.

How To Use This Site

Just for the record, let me clarify that ‘Dawn’ is my pseudonym and I am not a therapist of any kind and have no professional training. Learn more about Dawn here.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on this site and in the magazine are based on my own experiences and reading, my own reflections and self-analysis, and sometimes on the information and opinions expressed on this site by others. I do not necessarily agree with all the opinions of our panelists and they do not always agree with me. You should always do your own due diligence before acting on any of the opinions offered by me or other writers on this site.

The best advice I can give you—for using this site and for the rest of your life—is to follow your own heart, do your own research when desired, form your own opinions and make your own decisions. I have certainly learned much from others in my life and I am grateful when someone points me in a new direction or opens my mind to new knowledge or a new idea.

However, I have also given way too much credibility and power to others who misused it and I hope that one of the lessons I have learned from being squashed by a pathological is this: I know myself better than anyone else does and I know what is best for me!

Our Mission

1. To educate and support women, men and others in transforming the devastating effects of a toxic relationship into a fulfilling life that is even better than before (BTB4™).

2. To educate the public about the damaging effects of toxic relationships so they can support the partner rather than further the harm.

Donations to ‘The Institute’

To help further our mission, 10% of the profits generated through the SurviveTransformSoar.com Inbox Magazine are donated to support the following work of The Institute for Relational Harm Reduction and Public Pathology Education:

1. 1. The Healing the Aftermath Retreat Center located in Brevard, NC, which aids women in reclaiming their lives after a pathological relationship
   2. The Institute’s education and training programs for licensed therapists to:
      • Help them recognize a pathological partner
      • Identify the “super traits” of those who stay in these relationships
      • Teach how to best treat and support the abused partner
      • Equip them to train others

Dawn’s Vision

One of my hopes in creating Survive, Transform, Soar! is to provide a resource where former partners of those with pathology can go for concise, consolidated and inspirational information from around the web and from expert sources. I remember how hard it was to concentrate, let alone sit still at a computer for hours as I did, seeking information from disparate resources about what was happening to me.

As I have looked back on my own experience, I realized that I seemed to evolve through three stages of recovery. These parallel the life process of a butterfly, so SurviveTransformSoar! is based on the idea of a chrysalis:

1. 1. 1. Your partner treated you like a worm…and yet you stayed because you had come to believe that is what you were and that a worm’s life is all yours could be.
      2. When you found the courage to crawl away, your first and primary task was to survive.
      3. You soon realized the need to retreat to a protected environment and you formed a cocoon around yourself to supply the safety, support and knowledge to transform your spirit.
      4. Over time, you began to feel the transformation occurring in yourself and eventually you felt ready to emerge.
      5. At first it was hard, but when your resilience waned during the struggle, you looked to the horizon and realized that it was the dawning of a new day and that you wanted to live it in a new way.
      6. Before you knew it, as you applied all the courage and strength you had tended so diligently, you stepped from your cocoon and found yourself gliding effortlessly in a state of joy and freedom. As you began to soar, you gazed back and knew that a new life had begun, one that truly was going to be better than before (BTB4™).

My hope is that Survive, Transform, Soar! can be a part of the warm, safe chrysalis that you create to transform your spirit, restore your true self and soar into a new life where you will flourish. My goal is to demonstrate that, as bad as you may feel right now, a new dawn is possible.

Because survival is not enough…