I know firsthand how critical support systems are..

I'm afraid of elevators, because they are an enclosed space, but I get in..

Women in Somalia face almost unimaginable oppression..

The road to recovery will not always be easy, but I will take it one day at a time, focusing on the moments I've dreamed about for so long..

Because that’s the thing about the exact moment when you get somewhere that has required effort: There’s a freeze-frame instant of total fulfillment,….

Forgiving is not an easy thing to do..

Every day I have many choices to make about who I want to be..

I, too, was carrying around my own fate. All the things I couldn't know sat somewhere inside, embroidered into me-maybe not quite fixed to the point ….

I've realized that the world is, in essence, full of banana peels - loaded with things that may unwittingly trip an internal wire in my mind, opening….

Being in the dark, there's a real weight to it. It's heavy..

Friendships that don't fit my life anymore have faded away, and new ones have come in..

Maintaining my dignity is so important for me..

I swung from one place to the next, sometimes backward, sometimes forward, capitalizing on my own momentum, knowing that at some point my arms—or, mo….

After being in captivity for so long, I can't begin to describe how wonderful it feels to be home in Canada..

I think that I find a lot of my healing out in the world..

In my version of paradise, the air was always cold and the rivers ran with candy..

The same men who are placing all these outrageous restrictions on women’s freedoms in southern Somalia – that type of mentality – that’s what I had t….

I have watched lives change. I have seen women gain confidence..

I don't think I'm unusual in that, in my 20s, like many people, I felt invincible..

Getting on a plane is hard for me, but I do it, because travel is vital to me..

I'm not afraid of IED's, bullets, mortars..