Grace Sandra

05/02/2026

Recently, I realized I’m way more afraid of rejecting men than I’ve ever been… an unfortunate fear women shouldn’t have to carry anyway. 🤦🏽‍♀️

My latest episode on is about how that realization opened up…

… my thoughts about safety, about trust, and about the idea that maybe we’ve been taught something that isn’t actually true…

👉🏾that men are here to protect us.

News of the 🍇 academy & MANY other violent deaths of Black women at the hands of their husbands, sons & fiancée’s was completely unnerving & overwhelming. 😔

I just… don’t trust men anymore. At all. And I kinda hate that. 😕

Episode 51 of the is up now

📺 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1wpRYI0TTGw?si=v-C-dp__gpqKY_m_

🎧Listen anywhere you get your fave podcasts.

04/02/2026

Some of us were taught to apologize
before we were ever taught how to feel safe. Whew chile.

That turns into overexplaining, people pleasing & abandoning yourself… all in the name of being a “good woman.” 🤦🏽‍♀️

We are in our 40’s. Let’s stop over-apologizing.
✍🏾 Today’s Journal Prompt:
When did I learn it was safer to apologize than be honest?

03/18/2026

Witnessing justice is not just a legal concept for me. For many survivors, it is psychological oxygen. Watching the orange demon & his ilk run around free while terrorizing the rest of us is triggering as hell.

When my Dad was sentenced for assaulting me, I didn’t understand what was happening but everything in my body knew it was significant. A few people in the court room cheered. My Mom seemed pleased. My lawyer smiled. He might have pumped the air. I think it was quiet while he was handcuffed. The details of that day keep slipping away. He got perp walked in front of me and we locked eyes. Mine were full of confusion and guilt. His felt like disappointment… maybe regret, maybe fear. But no warmth.

It took a few years to feel finally and fully safe. Knowing he was in prison and could no longer mo**st me felt like relief. And when he died, a new more crystallized sense of relief took over.

Somewhere in between the years he spent in prison and the years I spent spiraling out I realized how rare it was that I experienced relief AND repercussions from my abuser when so many other babies, toddlers, little girls, teen girls, young adult women, grown women, mid-life women & elderly women don’t.

That powerful moment when I saw him hand-cuffed and carted off through the front of the courtroom gave me my power back. I told the truth. I stated what happened and p**f the abuse ended.

A rare moment indeed.

Most pedophiles, rapists and abusers are never reported, charged or convicted. So, when justice is carried out, it isn’t just symbolic. It actually helps the survivor’s nervous system understand the danger is over.

Watching the orange demon escape consequences while regular schmegular people have access to thousands of thousands of detailed pages of his monstrous sexual assault of babies, toddlers, young girls and pr***en girls is firing up the nervous system of every single survivor on this planet with one message…

You are still in danger.

•

I’m writing on Substack. Follow along:

https://open.substack.com/

📸: 11 yr old Grace Sandra, taken a few months after the court date.

02/14/2026

✨In today’s new Valentines episode I wanna tell ya a little story about having to leave a toxic work situation due to verbal abuse & the ensuing panic attacks. And… if you’re curious this helps explain my recent need to ask for help publicly.

This situation escalated to the point that my hands were involuntary shaking, chest pains came back & I wasn’t sleeping due to ruminating + looping thoughts. My CPSTD was triggered. But… I was prepared to push past it. When you need the bread, you need the bread.

My nervous system said no. In fact, its exact words were “hell to the naw, naw, naw, naw.”

For most of my life, I’ve have learned how to endure toxic &/or narcissistic men like I’m tryna win a gold medal. Particularly in marriages & Church/ministry spaces, hell even with a therapist once. 🤦🏽‍♀️

There are so many times women are told & even socialized to “just be patient” and “push through” dealing with highly toxic men.

But yeah, no. After surviving my ex, I can’t do it… get somebody else to do it.

Even in a time of extreme financial need something shifted in me & I realized I am no longer willing to survive by sacrificing myself to narcissistic b***y holes. So I walked away. And yes, it was a risk. But I was also stressing my allready fragile mental health into a direction I knew intuitively I could not sustain.

In this week’s episode of the Out Here Tryna Survive podcast, I share:

• What verbal abuse in the workplace actually looks like
• How narcissistic behavior hides behind “professionalism”
• What panic attacks taught me
• Why I’m decentering toxic men for good (no matter what the context & workplace toxicity was the final straw)
• And why this is the start of Season 2: The Survival Diaries

This episode feels like a but of rebirth for me.

If you’ve ever worked in a toxic environment…

If you’ve ever questioned whether you were “too sensitive”…

If you’ve ever stayed because you needed the money…

This one is for YOU.

Have you ever stayed somewhere that was harming you because you felt like you had no choice?

The podcast is available everywhere you listen to podcasts or you can watch on YouTube. Link in comments 👇🏽

10/14/2025

My hypothesis on the events of last month: if a black boy had pancaked another black boy no one would have cared. But because a black boy pancaked a white boy that led to injuries, whhyyte women came out in DROVES to demand his imprisonment…. As they do. 🤦🏽‍♀️

✨new episode ✨on how motherhood is sacred in the performance of whiteness … but only for whhyte moms. Link I. My bio or comments.

My podcast: Out Here Tryna Survive is available wherever you listen to podcasts or on video on my YouTube channel of the same name

https://youtu.be/0p-fkXunJ-E?si=tT1kZabTUVFTRZaR

09/29/2025