Why read The Shrieking Cactus?
Written by experienced health journalist and recovering crankypants Joy Victory, The Shrieking Cactus newsletter is for prickly people recovering from trauma and/or learning to love themselves (and the world in general).
“Your newsletter makes the world a better place.”
— subscriber Anneka F.
What’s included?
Subscribers receive a weekly newsletter with essays, helpful tools and hard-earned lessons on overcoming difficult life challenges, told mostly with non-toxic optimism but also occasional blatant pessimism. Nature is a powerful healer, so she comes up a lot, too.
More about me and my prickly self
Howdy! I’m a writer and longtime health journalist living in Austin, TX with my ever-tolerant husband and brilliant-beyond-her-years daughter.
My memoir, How to Heal Your Cactus, was named a finalist in the both the 2022 and 2023 Writers’ League of Texas manuscript contest.
Adulting with trauma
In my early 30s, my mother developed a serious life-threatening physical illness that was ignored by her doctors. As her pain intensified, her mental health deteriorated. Over several years, she attempted suicide multiple times and developed atypical addictions leading to psychosis and additional physical conditions that nearly killed her.
All the while, I was trying to live my life (pay the mortgage, get pregnant, work).
I was still reeling from my mother’s second suicide attempt when, near the end of my pregnancy, my care providers ignored my obvious high blood pressure, resulting in a highly traumatic birth, which I wrote about for Cosmopolitan Magazine, in the context of America’s maternal mortality crisis.
Her crisis went on for years. Her crisis started to bleed into mine. For a long time, I struggled to see the positive in myself and the world. I got real prickly, people. Then other health crises occurred. And more family drama. It never ends, does it?
Hard-earned lessons & nature stories. Sometimes I’m funny, too.
Then I hit a turning point, which I discuss in my book, and adopted a new mindset.
It can be exhilarating yet terrifying, like walking barefoot through a field of blooming prickly pear. (I’m a native Texan, and I love our resilient flora and fauna.)
If this sounds like useful info for you, then gain insights - and the occasional laugh (or at least a cute kitten or cactus photo) - with my weekly newsletter, The Shrieking Cactus.
Subscribe to get full access to the email newsletter and website.
