An Act of Deep Love and Bravery - Ashley Daneman Shares Her Story of Healing From Abuse

I feel like my soul recognizes her soul somehow even though Ashley is someone I actually don’t know all that well as we haven’t spent that much time together in person.  Maybe it’s because she is so generous in giving of herself in her music and in what she shares of her amazing journey on social media that I feel a powerful sense of familiarity.  She is one of my favorite singers because she taps into a deep well. It gives me an inexplicable comfort when I hear someone’s willingness to go to those places...to let their roots grow into deep layers of earth and explore the depths of the human experience.  It creates a safe, open place somehow. A place of great freedom and possibility.  

I have been admiring her deep bravery in the honest sharing of her story with the world.  She was abused as a child and has been doing lots of work to heal from that. She openly shares so that any others going through it know they’re not alone.  She is a breaker of silence and, of course, this doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. But she knows that silence is a great breeding ground for shame, so her breaking the silence is an act of great love even though others may not perceive it that way because of what it stirs up.  So, here she is, talking about a subject that is not popular or easy for people to talk about and hear, but she does it because she feels called to do it and knows this kind of honest sharing can dramatically change one or many lives for the good.  My heart swells at the beauty. 

I recently interviewed her and she shared some of her story with me.  I wanted to share with you as it’s extremely powerful and beautiful and we all need to hear stories of bravery: 

“My life was very much marked by having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at age 25 which I’ve worked through and healed from.  It was delayed-onset and brought on by being pregnant with my first child (which is super common experience for people who have repressed childhood trauma).  When I was pregnant I got very ill and had recalled, for the first time, extreme childhood abuse. When I told my family of origin about remembering this, it kind of blew-up the family. I was on-again, off-again with my family members as I tried to heal.  They were not able to respond in a healthy way to what I had said. Fast forward 15 years to about a year and a half ago when I became estranged from my whole family. This is largely what my album, “People Are Fragile” is about. This estrangement was totally devastating to me.  I wanted us to deal with this and get healthy together and they didn’t like that. We had created this unhealthy system where each has their part to play.  

Before this healing process, I was used to being treated badly but then it came to a point when I wasn’t OK with that.  I had had EMDR light therapy (for PTSD). It helped me a ton and I felt great because of it. I had healed a lot of deep things concerning my worth and value and that didn’t go well for interacting with my family because they were so used to treating me like my feelings weren’t important.  So then I had this difficult decision of whether they were going to be in my life or not. I judged and punished myself for that decision of estrangement even though it was for reasons that were completely legitimate and healthy. That was a hard year. I did a lot of therapy work and read a bunch of books.  One that really helped me was “Beyond Boundaries” by Cloud and Townsend. It helped me to see that if a person can’t see how they hurt you and if they can’t offer empathy or change their behavior, you can’t really be close to them and this is hard because I love my family so much.  

I began to learn that my own experience was more relevant than what others thought.   A therapist explained to me that when you are being victimized, especially as a young child, you learn that other people’s realities are more important than yours , so you defer to them.  And so you never have a sense of what your reality is, what your needs are. I had to learn that I am not responsible for holding everything together. I am not responsible for my family’s dysfunction.”

Ashely’s on Instagram @ashleydaneman and her website is: https://ashleydanemanmusic.com/

Photo credit: Grant Beachy