Author: Overcoming Adversity | Buteau’s Odyssey

One of the most common causes of tension between divorced or separated parents is, not to many people’s surprise, money. The arguments often center on one spouse saying they don’t have enough, the other saying they’re paying too much, and disagreements about what the money they do have should be spent on and by whom, the latter being a particularly hot topic between parents. Such hostility doesn’t live in a vacuum and can reverberate throughout entire families, negatively impacting the relationship between the co-parents, their relationships with their children, and potentially their relationships with extended family. Moreover, what often accompanies…

PINOCCHIO UNSTRUNG Trailer: “Viva Pictures has acquired its latest film, the already viral sensation, Pinocchio Unstrung for theatrical release in North America July 24, 2026. This slasher horror film is the latest in the Twisted Child Universe and stars Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise), Richard Brake (The Strangers trilogy, TV’s “Mayor of Kingstown”), Jessica Balmer (A Royal Christmas Manor) and Cameron Bell (TV’s “The Silo”). Having had its world premiere at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, the film is directed and written by Rhys Frake-Waterfield and produced by Scott Chambers as part of their Jagged Edge Productions, the…

By Sheri McVay & Jonathan Santo Most parents worry about grades. Others worry about screen time, social media, or whether their teenager is spending too much time online. Yet one of the strongest factors that can impact adolescent well-being may be something far more basic: Does a teenager feel connected to the people and communities around them? When we recently examined cyberbullying among nearly 29,000 adolescents across nine countries (McVay et al., 2025), we were interested in understanding how online victimization affected young people’s well-being. We expected cyberbullying to be associated with school-related distress. It was. But what caught our…

Masters of the Universe is basically what happens when you make Barbie and Battlefield Earth the *same* movie.Masters of the Universe tries its best to resurrect eighties kitschMost people would argue that Masters of the Universe ISN’T a horror property. My response? It’s a franchise that’s literally about an evil skeleton who wants to kill everybody in existence, with like three million different kinds of monsters in it. If it’s not horror property, it’s at least living a few doors next to it in the same subdivision … hypothetically speaking.Yes, it does seem more than a bit odd that we’re…

There is a moment that is becoming more common in the therapy room, and it’s time to address this trend. A client sits down, often looking content, and says, “I think I get it now.” They disclose that they’ve been listening to podcasts, reading social media posts, and saving frameworks from various sources. In their spare time they’ve been connecting the dots between attachment styles, nervous system language, motivation models. In this process, they note that now something has clicked into place: “This is just my attachment style.” “This is my nervous system.” “This is just one of my unmet…

As audiences once again fall in love with Lestat through AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, it is worth remembering that the original vampire panic had very little to do with seductive immortals. It began when frightened people dug up graves and found bodies that appeared unnervingly alive. No candlelit drawing rooms. No tragic backstory delivered in perfect French. Just a hole in the ground, a decomposing corpse that looked somehow wrong, and a village full of people who had no framework for what they were seeing. That gap between what people observed and what they understood is where vampires were…

Compassion and Forgiveness Increase Through Nervous System Regulation In a fractured world where social media and even some world leaders often model division rather than compassion, and where asking for forgiveness can seem increasingly rare, we may wonder how to nurture compassion and forgiveness. While these qualities are often viewed through spiritual or psychological lenses, emerging research suggests they may also arise from a regulated nervous system. Evidence from a recent study in Rwanda indicates that compassion and forgiveness may be strengthened when people restore a sense of safety, balance, and well-being within their own bodies.1 Human perceptions, emotions, and…

With gratitude: EJ Zebro and Bena Kallick Close your eyes for a moment and bring to mind a piece of music that moves you: not simply a catchy melody, but something that shifts your internal state, like the resonant depth of a cello that seems to steady your pulse, or a swell of strings that opens something in your chest. Stay with that sensation for a moment. Notice the music and the reorganization it creates within you. This is an artistic experience and a window into how your nervous system operates every second of the day. We rarely think of…

Not every horror movie needs a cinematic universe. Some horror movies should feel like they crawled out from under someone’s porch at 3 a.m., hissed at the moon, and somehow got distribution. That is a compliment. What Is a Weird Little Freak Movie? This is not a technical term. I am not going to cite a paper. But horror fans know exactly what I am talking about the moment I use it, which is its own kind of definition. A weird little freak movie is not necessarily low budget, although most of them are. It is not automatically bad, although…

Do you have strong sexual desire for people you don’t know, but as soon as a romantic relationship is established, you lose your sexual desire for that person? If you have noticed that this is your pattern, you might believe there is something wrong with you. You might have heard about “avoidant attachment style” and wondered if it was your problem. Perhaps nothing is wrong with you. You could be a fraysexual. Human sexuality is often discussed as a fixed linear and predictable trajectory: People meet, attraction grows, emotional intimacy deepens, and sexual desire strengthens. The dominant societal narrative tells…