Index
A guide to finding your way around
(Updated: Jan 2025)
Welcome to Life after Trauma. I’m so glad you’re here. I started this prokect in 2023, and have published close to 100 essays since then. Hopefully, this index will make it easier to find your way around.
If you’re new here, this is the best place to start. I’d love it if you introduced yourself in the comments too.
If you like what you read, make sure you subscribe to get my lastest work in your inbox:
✍️ Personal essays about sexual violence
Life after Trauma: The Backstory
Rebuilding your life after sexual trauma is never easy. No-one should have to do that alone.
The Haunted Hot Water Bottle
Perhaps it’s time to sleep without having danger right next to me in bed.
What happens when you’re sexually assaulted at work
Reflecting on my time in the non-profit sector
Recovering from sexual violence is a healthcare issue
Why we need to invest in community-based supports for survivors
Bad Faith
On Catholicism, trauma and how I left my faith
Sobriety Helped Me Recover From Sexual Violence
(A guest post on
🎄 Notes on spending Christmas alone
From my couch to yours on this difficult day
💔 Personal essays about trauma
Reasons I’m Glad I Lived
A short list of things that give my life meaning
Hope exists no matter who wins
Beautiful things grow out of shit (aka notes from me to you on election day)
🔥 There's something missing from the conversation about burnout: trauma
I wasn’t just burnt out. I was traumatised.
Watching Gaza
Thoughts on trauma, mental health and being online
On ambition, trauma and how we define success
Another learning from The Artist’s Way: the need for safety
On the importance of trauma-informed healthcare
How I started 2024 with a dental emergency
New year, same diet culture
On the troubling overlap between sexual violence and disordered eating
The Healing Power of a Smorgasbord dinner
What I eat when I don’t feel like cooking
🖤 Personal essays about grief
You never get over that kind of loss.
Remembering my mother, who died 17 years ago.
What I learned from my first live storytelling event
You have to stay alive long enough for your life to change (Paid subscribers can also listen to the speech I gave on stage at the Dublin Storyslam.)
Seventeen years
Some things that help me feel less alone in my grief
RIP Budino, our sweet cat 💔
The deep retreat of Winter
My to do list for life’s difficult moments
❓Ask Clare columns
💌 Ask Clare: Long-term asexuality after trauma
On finding companionship and rebuilding a sense of safety in the body
💬 Ask Clare: How to find a good therapist
I "auditionned" so many therapists before finding *the one*
👭 Ask Clare: How to navigate grief and trauma in close relationships?
Softness is a form of strength
📋 Resources
📚 Eight books I recommend to every survivor of sexual violence
& my favourite quote from each
💊 Not just inspiring, but medicinal: A reading list on surviving childhood sexual violence
Seven stories to (hopefully) help you heal
🎁 A different kind of gift guide
50+ things that have made my life better
🤯 Things I can't stop thinking about pt 1
(snippets from my 'how to live' file)
💬 Community Threads
💬 Introduce yourself, meet others, share your work
💬 Self-care through the festive period
December isn’t always easy for trauma survivors.
💬 Let’s chat about sexuality after trauma
Sex is one of those topics that I wish more people talked about openly
✍️ Essays on writing
The writing you do, when you can’t write
On self-compassion, productivity and creative work.
When the one you thought could be THE ONE says no
On writing & rejection
On publishing + vulnerability hangovers
Attaching myself (& my mood) to algorithmic feedback loops is a horrible way to live.
Writing is always beginning again
On my constant wish to have written more
I don’t have many regrets, but this is one.
On The Artist’s Way & the time I got nature stoned!
What I learned growing my Substack to 500+ subscribers
On the power of slow, intuitive growth in a noisy world
✍️ Essays on writing about trauma
The lie that tells the truth
On the healing power of writing my first novel
Writing about trauma: what it’s like to pitch stories about sexual violence
A cautionary tale that threatened my wellbeing
How I wrote my personal essay for the Huffington Post
Some behind the scenes tips on pitching, how much I was paid etc
🏳️🌈 Essays about being queer
🏳️🌈 I shared my coming out story with the Huffington Post.
This is who I am,' I thought. ... It was one of the happiest moments of my life.
💍 I’m engaged!
I never thought I’d get married, but something changed
🏳️🌈 Why Pride Month still matters
Most people aren't as progressive as they like to think they are
🍝 “God, I'm glad I fell in love with an Italian”
A love story
🏳️🌈 Why I'm still writing about queer fertility issues
The State shouldn’t choose to value, support and invest in one kind of family — the heterosexual couple — to the exclusion of everyone else.
📺 Survivors on Screen
Introducing: Survivors on Screen
A new series about how sexual violence is portrayed in TV and film
Survivors on Screen #1: Promising Young Woman
What the film’s critical response says about cultural attitudes to rape
Survivors on Screen #2: Unbelievable
What this humane miniseries shows us about recovery after rape
Survivors on Screen #3: The Assistant
On the nauseating pain of “you’re not his type”
Survivors on Screen #4: The Morning Show
An interview with WGA-nominated writer of The Morning Show
Survivors on Screen #5: Nanette
A conversation with neurodivergent writer,
