You Are Safe Now

In the last more-than-a-decade that we’ve been sharing this space together, we have lived a lot of life together, you and me. There are things I have told you, and there are things I have not said.

It’s time.

As you know, my first books emerged from a terrible loss: my husband’s sudden death, just before Christmas when my boys were three and five years old. As I wrote into grief and recovery and single parenting, you joined me in the pages. Together we created a safe space for others walking through that kind of pain – and the searing loss of pain from similar losses.

But alongside that public trauma, there was a private trauma that I held quietly, a concurrent part of my story that I didn’t talk about for a long, long time. In the time following my Robb’s death, I experienced grooming, manipulation, sexual abuse, and spiritual abuse by a person of trust in my life.

I didn’t know I was being manipulated. I didn’t know the signs.

I didn’t know the cycle of abuse.

I didn’t know that it’s normal to feel guilt for something that’s not your fault,

to have complex emotions about your abuser as you heal.

I learned that I could set boundaries, I could choose not to reconcile, and I could still pursue the internal freedom of forgiveness.

Very quietly, I’ve spent a decade writing about it.

I won’t be quiet anymore.

In 2024, NavPress will release this resource:

You Are Safe Now

A Survivor’s Guide to Listening to Your Gut, Healing from Abuse, and Living in Freedom

by Tricia Lott Williford and Jana Richardson, MA, LPC, EMDR.

That’s right, my co-author is my much-beloved and oft-mentioned expert therapist: Jana (whose name rhymes with Dana). I have written through the trauma, and Jana has written through the treatment.

There are *a lot* of clergy abuse stories coming to the light right now, documentaries and headlines and expository interviews that reveal a darkness that has been happening. How is this book different?

You Are Safe Now lights the path to healing what has been broken.

With Jana’s voice and mine, the story gives answers from a trauma-informed therapist and a candid survivor. The book has been peer reviewed by other experts in the field, who have weighed in and contributed to make this an indispensable resource.

Is this book for you? Well,

~ If you’ve ever wondered how abuse happens – to smart people in real-life settings, even in the church – You Are Safe Now offers answers.

~ If you’ve ever wondered how therapy unfolds – from both the therapist’s and patient’s perspective – You Are Safe Now offers answers.

~ If you’ve ever wondered how there can be freedom for survivors – of grooming, manipulation, complex PTSD, alongside spiritual and sexual abuse – You Are Safe Now offers answers.

You Are Safe Now is a hope-filled resource for survivors of abuse by a person of trust; for people who treat those survivors, and for the people who love the survivors.

When you consider the scope of that demographic, in this day of a pandemic of exposed abuse and hunger for recovery, I daresay yes, You Are Safe Now is written for you.

There are books about trauma, and there are books about treatment. You Are Safe Now is a cutting edge resource combining both trauma and treatment, healing and hope.

And, I finally get to introduce you to Jana.

Everybody needs an expert therapist who will practice the slow and steady work of being present until the healing is complete. If you need an expert like this, I’ll let you borrow mine – in the pages of the book we wrote together.

You Are Safe Now.