What has worked well for me in dealing with an abuser in the recent months.
What follows is NOT advice or counsel of any kind. It is my experience, which seems to have some value to folx (i.e. you’ve told me exactly that). I’m posting publicly (Still. For now.) Take what’s helpful. Ignore what isn’t.
Please share (with discernment) what you’ve found to be helpful in surviving abusers (unhelpful works too). Or just take note quietly of things that you may want to try to cultivate if/when your situation allows for it.
Survival is also good enough. And when we can thrive, we create a container that helps us thrive after encounters like I’ve had.
Collective Wisdom is wide and deep; our wisdom is idiosyncratically useful, and has been helpful to me. It could be to others. If you would like me to post your contributions, contact me directly and I’ll add to the discussion so you don’t have to put your identity at the center of your sharing. I will be actively monitoring comments and turning them off in the near future.
As I prepare to attend her 2nd arraignment after jail time for stalking me tomorrow, I reflect on the following:
What have I had influence over, that has been helpful to me thus far?
1) Having an existing, nurtured and robust village of supportive friends, family, colleagues, and community folx who truly know, Love, and value me over the long term.
It’s easy to get lost in the abuse, the stories used to slander, malign, undermine my professional reputation. A huge network of amazing people really helps.
2) Durable professional healing connections with excellent healthcare/mental healthcare providers who know and understand me. Came in handy for getting in quickly for care when the times came.
3) Knowing the impact of substances and unhealthy people on my mental, physical, and spiritual health and acting in accordance with Top Line behaviors.
I avoid all things that make me weaker/less clear/less sharp and less/more soft in the ways I need to be right now.
4) Allowing appropriate connections with other victims (of the same abuser) counters the impact of gaslighting and slander. It also offers a kind of support you can’t get anywhere else. It also has potential limitations.
Courageous support can also be inconspicuous.
Avoid common enemy intimacy; it is inherently unstable. Any support you get will fail you in the most important ways at some point. Previous lesson from previous abuser.
5) Distancing myself from anyone or anything that takes the side of my abuser.
A person or organization that is toxic to me doesn’t have to be “inherently bad,” or have harmful intent. If their behavior is harmful to me by aligning with the abuser’s manipulations, they are toxic to me, my wellness, safety, and peace. Distance at every turn.
Luckily only 2 people I invited into my life sided with her; I believe because they think of themselves as kind people and believed her manipulations. She also leveraged a local community organization to enlist sympathizers to her cause; misguided and manipulated people who believe they are supporting a self-proclaimed “domestic violence survivor.” A person who, in reality, has a nearly 3-years long (and counting) DV restraining order against her that has kept her from seeing her children. A person who was and continues to attempt to abuse me, as well as multiple other victims that either contacted me, or I reached out to. The number is staggering; the clear patterns of abuse are undeniable.
Michelle Culhane’s use of common enemy coalition building, at least, leaves her with dog care for her inevitable return to jail (that happened on 2/13/2026). The exploitation of people whom (I believe) genuinely want to support survivors, however, is unconscionable.
6) Honoring the limits and needs of my body, mind, heart, and spirit.
I practice radical trust and acceptance in order to (as safely as possible) keep living my life, having fun, joy, and connectedness with beloved ones every single day I’m alive.
7) Belief in Self and Trusting Correct Others:
Honoring my intuition, even if in the moment it doesn’t make sense, is inconvenient to myself or others, or contradicts something that I thought I already knew (combat confirmation bias).
(I’m on the look out for sunk cost bias too.)
Having a deep knowledge of who has earned the right to have influence over how I examine my own behavior, means I have lots of people who are not “yes people.” They’ve earned my trust to tell me what they see when I ask, and when I don’t. But I do ask. Frequently.
8 ) Having and using technology, supporting people to give eye-witness statements to the police, keeping some form of meaningful documentation for myself, in order to create a data-driven case for law-enforcement and the courts is essential to be taken seriously as a victim in these systems.
This is highly influenced by my access that privilege confers. And I use that privilege with exquisite gratitude and zero shame. Where I don’t have privilege, I can ask for support and access from people who have shown themselves to be worthy of trust to share their access.
9) Being persistent and consistent, especially when I feel exhausted, trapped, and like I just want to throw in the towel.
Knowing that taking breaks is NOT giving up. Rest is imperative for all sorts of Resistance. Having people to share the load, and sharing the load for them when I can is key to mutually accountable and reliable relationships. It is also nice to get out of thinking about my own situation all of the time.
10) Learning to tolerate the tension between heightened self-focus (feels gross) and doing service for others (feels good).
Especially because I was socialized female…The pressure I feel to avoid the prior and lean heavy into the latter, is formidable.
Right now, I am artificially flipping them when I have to in order to prioritize my wellness and thriving.
11) Owning my narrative and using the only tool I have to publicly combat very harmful lies.
My abuser has used every possible means to make sure she isn’t forgotten or irrelevant to me. She is also doing all of these actions very clearly in retaliation/deflection of her awful illegal behavior (if you check the filings she has attempted (will post soon), and the false police reports she made against me (will post soon, if I can stomach it) they all took place after she went to jail in early January 2026).
People who habitually use certain survival strategies often show up the way she is and has been, for similar reasons: evading personal responsibility by deflection, fabrication, and projection.
The ripple effects of malignant behaviors my abuser uses keep showing up. And so do I: to meet them with as much clarity, kindness, support and relentlessness I have. These are equally formidable.
One of the ways that may disappear soon is my use of publicly posting on social media to offer the full narrative to her poorly crafted campaign to abuse me even outside of jail, even outside of “direct contact.” My professional standing and the mental health work many folx have done with me is being affected by her claims.
This public posting is the only tool I have right now to combat slander and libel in a small community. Until I have better recourse and/or her credibility is totally shot (see here the role of common enemy intimacy coalition building for why sometimes this takes a while), I will employ this method.
I wish every single one of us wellness and peace. And, justice. Including my abuser, Michelle Elizabeth Culhane.
Slander Confetti 
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