Blog | AlyssaRoyse

Alyssa Royse

Writing. Speaking. Coaching.

Changing what needs to be changed.

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Sweat and Happy Thoughts Can’t Cure Depression

Mar 11, 2015
8 min

Sweat and Happy Thoughts Can’t Cure Depression

Insert your own metaphor here, something about struggles and burdens and overcoming. Really, it’s my daughter, doing hard things. I am a trainer. I train muscles, mostly. I am fortunate enough to have a couple hundred people who trust me with their bodies, and I take that very seriously. I approach it with the same “first do no harm” goal that a good doctor would. We talk, obsessively, about injury prevention. About knowing, respecting and sometimes pushing your boundaries. W

The Present That is Your Past

Apr 2, 2012
8 min

The Present That is Your Past

The view from our window. Metaphorically beautiful, the big “stay” sign, amidst the fog. Some of us need really obvious signs. Sometimes you don’t realize how close behind you your past is, until you turn around and are staring it smack in the beady little eyes. But it’s always there. Sometimes it gets you in a strangle-hold, sometimes it needles you, but it is there, like a shadow. I ran into mine this weekend, in ways that I never would have expected, but it made so many th

May 29, 2011
4 min

Random Access Memories (of love and rape)

It’s funny, the things that get you. We refer to our pasts as if they are a destination once passed through, accessible only by an intentional backtracking of emotional breadcrumbs, inhabited merely by ghosts and other transient, translucent entities. In fact, they are not so linear. I think it’s like RAM on a computer. Random Access Memory. A seemingly magical system of shortcuts that, when combined, allow bits of randomly-stored data to combine and deliver you some concrete

Nov 30, 2010
6 min

PTSD: It’s NOT All In Your Head

As I’ve discussed a zillion times, I was raped the summer after I graduated from high-school. Not just raped, but stalked, so it was personal, not random. Further, he knew when I was home, broke into my home when I was asleep and went straight to my room, to my bed, to take what he wanted. Which was me. With his gloved-hand over my mouth, I was silenced. With a gun at my head, I was helpless. As someone with no physical power at that moment, I was raped. This is not a sob sto

Nov 1, 2010
8 min

Brains Aren’t Normal

I’ve been thinking a lot about brains these days. Partly because of my own injured brain and the impact it has had on my life so far. Partly because I’ve been trying to process an incredibly bad break-up (from a pretty bad relationship.) Partly because I’ve watched so many people who I love deal with depression and addiction lately. And then, today, I ran across two very interesting articles that dealt with ADHD and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,) which finally gave my