The story of how I pulled myself up and out of the well I threw myself down, just as much as others pushed me. A survivor's resource, but also an unyielding validation for anyone who has been abused or cannot find their way out of an abusive situation currently.
Length: 144 pages
Release date: On the witch’s sabbat, Imbolc, on February 1, 2024
Origin story
Finding Salvation in suicidality
7 years ago this month I would be on the phone with the suicide hotline for the last time. I would cut for the last time, in the woods. I would get lost in entire seasons of shows all summer, instead of studying for the bar exam. I would cry in my apartment and smoke packs of cigarettes because I believed no one wanted me, let alone loved me. I’d pace hypervigilant, wondering if my abusive ex would knock on my door because I still wanted him to. Wondering if I’d ever be okay without him, if I’d ever feel healthy. Then after bombing the bar exam but thinking “maybe God gave me a break” (he didn’t, I had a behemoth to learn) I would move back home and my upheaval of the self would begin.
I would get into fights with everyone - my family, strangers I didn’t know. Every slight hitting a nerve on the spectrum of my newfound feminism. Everyone would talk behind my back about how I’d gone mad, “very out of character, ever since she came back from New York she hasn’t been the same.” I’d cut off all my friends and not have any emotional support. But I’d push through my love addiction and codependency issues, my Adult Child of an Alcoholic issues, toward an emotional sobriety I had never known. I’d denounce my religion, identify as a witch, and Hecate, my mother, would find me. She and some books would help me piece myself back together, my true self, not the one who barely ate. Not the one who let men leave her at bars, show up drunk and high to surprise parties she threw for them, scream into her face, men who secretly owned guns and kept drugs in her car and lied about all of it. Not the one who worked hard to prove her worth to them, and everyone else, for nothing. For no prize of approval amounted to how empty-handed she would always return. Back to herself, back to her hellhole existence.
I’d realize I wasn’t my father and dispel my hatred for him and myself - I would break apart the spells that had a choke hold on me since adolescence (that made me mentally ill), finally and for good. I would continue to force things upon myself professionally that I didn’t really believe in, but then have it all culminate to a firing that broke me open (than(fuc)k you Mike) so that I could begin to write, my deepest most sacred inner longing. So that an unknown future audience could find me, my readers-to-be, and we could cry and read together. I’d merge shadow work and horror into all I authored, realizing my darkness was always my light. In the past I’d hate myself for wanting to die, but it’s what led me to want to live.
Following myself back to myself is the one thing I’ve gotten right in 38 years. It’s the one valuable thing I learned how to do, ever since I saw my higher self in 2017. She came to me in two scenes which I describe in my book Salvation. First she carried me, then she showed me. And that is when everything stopped. All the lies, all the blank spaces disappeared. Everything became filled in and full, my life, overflowing with meaning where before it meant almost nothing to me. No way out. Trapped within and without. Then raised from the dead.
I am sharing some resources from Salvation below, which helped me leave an abusive relationship and ultimately triggered my spiritual awakening. These and more became my lifeline, and set in motion all of what I shared above.
7 Ways to Tell if Your Partner Might Be Manipulative
5 Things to Remember When You Still Love the Abusive Partner You Left
Salvation is ultimately about reinvention of the self after an abusive relationship. A detailed account of one survivor's story, from what it took to realize abuse was occurring to experiencing a spiritual awakening, which led to creating a life worth living. If you or someone you know is currently experiencing/healing from relationship abuse in any form, this book (as a resource and validation) could be helpful.
Jennifer Diane is a goddess of darkness, writer and model based out of New Jersey. She’s authored Folk Horror, Rural Horror, Devil’s Manifesto, Emotional Horrorshow, and Salvation. She writes for Healing with the Occult and speaks for the Enlightenment through Hellfire Podcast. Find her on Instagram.