Revising my 2024 Word of the Year.

     Each January or February for the past several years, I've selected a "Word of the Year" for myself for that year. Kind of a year-long personal mantra if you will? A word that I always hope will encapsulate my personal growth, experiences and memories during the next 12 months. As per usual in 2024, I had picked a Word of the Year and written a blog post about it back in the winter. But for the first time I ever, I am changing my word midway through the year! 

The End of My Radio Era.

     On April 19th. I unexpectedly lost my job working on-air in morning radio. I took a few weeks to process the shock and grieve privately before I could start writing about this. Blogging has been a constant in my life for over a decade, and it's wild to realize that I have documented the entirety of my radio career on here. As difficult as this post is to write, it felt like a fitting and necessary written conclusion to years worth of career updates on my blog. Let's talk about the end of my radio era.

A Couple Health Updates.

      The first half of 2023 brought some frustration and uncertainties when it came to my health. Luckily nothing has been serious enough to warrant hospital stays or anything like that, but everything still brought me anxiety.  Not only was there health anxiety, but financial anxiety as well from having not-so-great health insurance and a lot of medical bills in a short amount of time. I am so thankful now that one of the things seems to be on the road to healing, and the other thankfully ended up just being a scare that never turned into anything further. But it was a really tough first half of the year with these things going on, if I'm being honest with you! 

      Writing blog posts of a more personal nature like today's is always cathartic to me and can also help bring a natural sense of closure with life events. I'll give you a heads up that today's post is pretty lengthy! (I'm not offended if you skim since it is lengthy. 😉)

     

A Different Type of Moving Announcement!

     I've shared a lot of moving related announcements on the blog over the past decade. In fact- the whole idea of starting this blog was kind of based on the idea that I had just moved far away for college, from Maine to North Carolina! And in the years since college, there's been many more long distance and local moves within the various places I've lived for radio jobs. 

      Today's upcoming moving announcement isn't related to school or my career. I'm not leaving my current radio job, nor leaving the Virginia Beach area. It's a local move from one apartment to another. But it is a very big deal, and something that I might not have expected I'd decide to even as recently as a couple of years ago. On July 8th (this weekend!), I'll be moving into my boyfriend Ryan's apartment! 

This picture of Delilah in my apartment always makes me smile!

My 2023 Word of the Year.

      I've been picking a Word of the Year for the past several years, and it's always fun to watch the year go by and see how that word played into my experiences, goals, and memories of those 12 months. For 2023, I actually struggled a little bit with picking one! But I finally did make a selection, and I'm excited to share it today. 

The "Southern Belle in Training" Origin Story: How I Fell in Love With the Southeast.

      2022 is a milestone year for me in a few different ways. June will mark 10 years since I graduated from high school, and September will mark 10 years since I started this blog! (This year will also bring some smaller 10 year milestones: like it being 10 years since I joined Instagram as @miss_alk, 10 years since I got my belly button pierced, and 10 years since I made the mistake of perming my hair for the first and only time. Ha!) But my first milestone that turns 10 this year is one that happened in January 2012- probably right around this exact week. And that would be the day that I had the epiphany that I  needed to move to the South for college.

Faith Struggles During The Year of COVID-19.

      Today's blog post is one I've been wanting to write for quite awhile, but have continued to put off (probably because it's a more vulnerable topic). With Sunday being Easter and today being Good Friday, it seemed like now might finally be the time to write this. I wanted to write honestly and openly about some of my faith related thoughts and feelings in the past year during COVID-19.

  

Lessons From A Birthday Identity Crisis.

     Let's start this week off with a confession: I woke up on my birthday a few weeks ago having a full blown identity crisis. It was unexpected in the moment for sure! But I'm thankful for the reflections that it's lead me to have since- and I wanted to share a few with you today. 

No Bad Years.

      You don't need me to tell you that 2020 has been about as far from our expectations of it as we could have ever imagined. And as we move on through the weeks and months, it doesn't show any signs of being less weird anytime soon. In more ways than just COVID-19, 2020 seems like a bad year on paper. It's easy to go into a dark place mentally when thinking about all of the losses, cancellations, new restrictions, and fears that 2020 has brought. I know that I've certainly had my fair share of bad days during all of this. 

     But over the past few weeks, God has been teaching me something and put this message on my heart to share on my blog. He's been teaching me this lesson in the most interesting way- through the power of my own memory and self-reflection. I can't wait to share this with you today, and I hope it might help with your perspective as we move through this year. 

5 Life Lessons I Learned When I Lived in Vermont.

    This month marks two years since I moved from Vermont to Virginia!! (March 18th, 2018 to be exact.) Last year I celebrated my first move anniversary by sharing a detailed post on all things Charlottesville: things I loved about living here, things about the area that confused me, and how the first year had been for me from a work and personal standpoint. This year I wanted to do something different to celebrate year two! Instead of focusing on all things Charlottesville... I wanted to go back down memory lane to Vermont.

     I lived in Vermont for 11.5 months- I love to joke that I couldn't quite make it to the full one year mark! 😂April 2017 to March 2018 was by far the most unique, trying, confusing, and lonely phase of my life to date. But with that said- it was also a time of reflection, growth, refinement, and some special happy moments as well. 11.5 months of high highs and some low lows!

     To commemorate two years since the move, today I wanted to share the five most prominent life lessons that I learned while living in Vermont:

Life Changes I've Made for My Faith.

     Despite the fact that my Christian faith is one of the biggest parts of my life, I don't often write about faith topics in depth on the blog. I often let my insecurities get the best of me in this area of life, and tell myself that I'm unqualified to speak so publicly on Christian topics. I also know that a lot of you who read here don't share my religious views- and I always want Southern Belle in Training to be a place where all feel welcomed (and hopefully I can share my faith with you in a loving and not pushy way). Anyways, the idea to do this blog post has been on my heart for a good few months now, so I'm finally pushing through my nerves and just doing it! This is a pretty personal post but hopefully it'll make you think and maybe consider some things about your own faith journey.

Relationship Monday: A Year Without Dating Apps.

     One of the most popular blog posts on Southern Belle in Training (of all time) was one that I wrote almost three years ago, entitled "A Christian Perspective on Tinder." I had been on Tinder and Bumble for a few months at that point, and just thought it would make a good blog post topic to share some of my thoughts about dating and faith. I had NO idea how much that post would resound with people! (True story: I still get emails from people who found my blog from that post.) My story with dating app usage and how I view them in general has changed a lot since I wrote that blog post. Partly because this year I've finally become happy with being single, and partly because I've had a lot of time to analyze the negatives and positives of my dating app experiences. so in today's Relationship Monday I'll be sharing what life has been like since I deleted all dating apps off my phone last year!

Church Hunting Tips for Millennials.

     If I had to give someone my age or a little bit younger than me (either a guy or a girl) three tidbits of life advice, these are the things I'd tell someone. 1.) Always keep $1000 in an emergency savings account, 2.) Don't be afraid to take a job in a new city or state, and finally 3.) Become involved with a church. In today's blog post, we're going to talk all about that third item!! The last time that I wrote specifically about church hunting on the blog was last spring, shortly after I moved to Vermont. That was more of a personal post about my own church hunting experience in Vermont. I've also written a previous blog post about why I think church attendance and community is important (especially for millennials). So in today's post, we're going to talk about the how-to's: how to find a church, and how to get involved in one!


    For a bit of background with myself and church hopping/hunting, I grew up attending three different churches over the years back home in Maine. My parents and I went to one from when I was a baby until I was seven or eight years old. My mom and I then started attending a larger non-denominational church in a neighboring town, and we went there for five years. I became involved in the middle school youth group in 6th and 7th grade, and this is the church that I consider to have found Jesus at. We then started attending a smaller church closer to where we lived when I was in 8th grade, in the Advent denomination (different from 7th Day Adventist!). lMy dad still plays in the worship team at this church, and it's the one I go to when I'm home in Maine.


     I had already had experience switching churches from growing up, so I wasn't too scared to find a church when I moved out of state as college freshman. I've now done church hunting on my own four times! First in the small town that my first university was at, next in Charlotte when I transferred colleges, third when I moved to Vermont for my first job, and finally, here in Virginia! I'm not sure if this is just a weird coincidence or a "God Thing," but each time that I've church hunted in these four different places, the third church I visited was "the one." Two of the churches I've gone to have been Baptist, and two non-denominational (currently at a non-denominational one now).



     Maybe you're new to faith and haven't found a home yet, or maybe you've been going to your family's church for decades but are ready for something new. Maybe you just moved out of state and have to church hunt for the first time! Either way, I'm so excited to share these tips and thoughts with y'all today:

{Photo from my trip to Italy in Spring 2017!}

     "Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is apart of it." -1 Corinthians 12:27 NIV (read verses 12-31 from this chapter)


     "So Christ Himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up." -Ephesians 4:11-12




     Things to Look For in a Church Home:

• Other millennial aged people attending the services: There is so much more to church than just attending services on Sundays. Making friendships, getting involved in different ministries, and just being apart of the church family is crucial. Speaking as a single young woman, I'd find it very hard to be enthusiastic about continuing to go to a church if there wasn't anyone else near my age or in the same stage of life there. I think the best churches are diverse churches: with members being both diverse in ethnicity and life background, but also in ages. It's wonderful to see a vibrant church filled with everyone from babies to the elderly! A nice mix of a families, married couples, and singles. However, it could definitely be hard to feel really connected at a church if the majority of members are all much older (or younger) than you. In past circumstances when I've church hunted, I've found some that have thriving children's and youth ministries, but nothing going on for single adults, and few attending the services. The good news is that there are many churches all over the country with a high rate of millennials attending- you just have to find one of those! 

• A friendly congregation: With both my church in Vermont and the church I attend now in Virginia, on the first day that I visited I met girls that ended up becoming my close friends. Both totally by chance- I was seated randomly near a girl who was friendly enough to say hi to me! I will admit that I'm not always the best at spotting new people in church after I've settled into attending one- it's so easy to just get caught up in the familiarity each Sunday. But I am trying to be better about that! One friendly face and hello could totally change someone's perspective on visiting a church- it definitely has for me.

• Bible based preaching: I truly do think it's wonderful that there are so many denominations of church. Some people prefer to worship one way, some prefer a certain type of preaching, some prefer more ritual, etc. I really do believe that there is a type of church for everyone! 😊But with that said- when you're checking out a church, no matter the denomination, make sure that the preaching and messages given are truly bible based. There is unfortunately a trend right now, especially in some evangelical mega-churches, to preach a "prosperity gospel" (more on that in this article!). If the messages coming from the pastor or other church leaders sound "too good to be true", they probably are. On the opposite note- if a church is preaching or promoting anything that is too legalistic / traditional and makes you feel uncomfortable, that's not a good sign either. Find a church that sticks to the bible, but in a welcoming and loving way! 

• Lots of ministries: You don't just want to go to church, you want to be the church! It is wonderful to find a church with both lots of internal ministries (ways to serve in the church body directly), and also external ministries in the local community, country, and world! Different people have different spiritual gifts, so the same ministry won't appeal to everyone. But that's the beauty of it! Examples of ministries to get involved with would be hospitality, children's, youth, outreach, administrative, media, and so many more! I was on the hospitality team at my church in Vermont for a few months of my time there, and this summer I have been praying about finding a new ministry to get involved with in my church here in Virginia. It's also great to find a church that participates in service projects or local missions to the nearby community, and that supports foreign charities or missionaries as well!

• A wide array of small groups: It is so important to make some close friends in your church community! Not everyone who goes to your church will be your best friend (that would just be weird!), but at the same time, church is a family and you should have people within that family that you're close to! Look for a church that has a wide array of small groups or bible studies to join. I've been in a small group at three out of the four churches that I've attending since moving out of state, and all of those groups have been such blessings to me! I've been in both all female and co-ed groups- both have their strengths and weaknesses. Ideally find a church that offers both for your age group and see what you prefer! 

     Both big churches and small churches can have the four things that I listed above! I went from attending a mega church in Charlotte to a very small church in Vermont, and I still felt at home spiritually in both. I would absolutely love to hear your story in the comments about church hunting and how it's played into your faith journey! Have you found a church home as an adult? Still searching for one? 

     God Bless,

      xoxo Annaliese 

Relationship Monday: Valentine's Day Prayers for you Future Spouse.

     Happy Monday and Happy Valentine's week! Today's Relationship Monday post is taking a more faith-based route than some of the past posts in this series. After this post topic popped into my head last week, I did a poll on Instagram Stories to see if y'all would be interested in reading. Surprisingly, most of you answered "yes!" - so here's today's blog post. I always feel like my faith posts here on the blog give you more of an insight into the real me, and I hope you enjoy my thoughts on this topic, as it is one that is quite meaningful to me and has been for many years now!

A Millennial Christian Perspective on Nightlife.

     So here's an interesting preface to why I'm writing today's blog post! 😊 I still have a few Charlotte related recommendations posts that I wanted to share here on the blog, and I thought it made the most sense for me to do those all within six months post-move. One Charlotte post that I think would be a lot of fun to write is a guide to Charlotte nightlife. From senior year of college-on, I did go out on weekends quite a bit with my friends, and definitely got to know the nightlife scene fairly well. I think Charlotte has some really fantastic nightlife options (as well as some terrible ones which I want to tell y'all to avoid!), so hence why I want to write this blog post!

      HOWEVER - before sharing something like this on my blog, and being seen as "promoting" things like nightlife, drinking, and that type of scene, I wanted to first write a faith/personal related blog post kind of sharing where my personal convictions as a Christian young woman lie with things like alcohol, nightlife culture, hookups, etc. One of my biggest pet peeves/turn-offs in life is people who are blatant hypocrites, and I would never want any of you to think that about me and my beliefs. I am far from perfect, and will be the first to admit that (and have certainly made mistakes in my life, including in some of the areas talked about in today's post), but overall I do try and strive to live a morally sound life. I think this post might be helpful too especially for any younger SBIT readers. When I was growing up in middle and high school and interested in faith/trying to surround myself with Christian resources, there are a lot of viewpoints in the Christian world that are extremely anti alcohol, modern dating, and any type of nightlife. After my own college experience and a year of post-grad living in a big city, I've formed my own thoughts and views on all of this. Views which I believe still honor God and my body, and my Christian lifestyle, but also still allow me to enjoy time with friends in different social settings, and expose myself to different types of scenarios. 

      I asked one of my closest friends from college and senior year suitemate, Caroline, to help me write this blog post. I'm sure many fellow bloggers feel the same way, but my blog is something I am so proud of and that's extremely personal to me, so I almost never accept guest posts here. I can count on one hand the number of times that I've asked someone to help me write a post or guest post for me in the five years that I've been blogging. But as soon as the idea for this post came to mind, I knew Caroline had to be apart! Not only is she a dear friend (and also helped with blog photos during college!), but she is one of the wisest souls and most talented writers that I know, and I believe she has much more wisdom than I do on this subject. I hope that you will enjoy her contributions to this post. 😊

   

     I'm going to start off all of my thoughts on all of this by saying that I heard a fantastic church sermon about the topic of Christians and alcohol a couple of years ago at Forest Hill Church, which is where I attended during the years I lived in Charlotte. Head Pastor David Chadwick delivered so much truth on this subject, and I just loved it. (You can listen to the sermon online here!) It is a 40 minute sermon, so obviously I am going to paraphrase a lot out of it for the sheer length of this blog post, but I will say the thing that David emphasized so much and that really stuck with me is that alcohol itself isn't a bad thing when it's being utilized in moderation, and in retrospect in a life of faith. (I mean.... wine is in the bible many a time after all! Haha.) It is not designed to become an obsession, or an addiction. He stressed that when alcohol began to be used in a person's life for selfish reasons and to distract away from keeping their eyes on God and living a Christ-filled life, that is a big problem! I was in college when I first heard this sermon, and I immediately made many connections. How many times had I witnessed classmates of mine drinking too much, and then making terribly selfish decisions that they probably weren't even aware that they were making? (Not to mention all of the horrible crimes that can occur due to drinking too much alcohol... that's an entirely different story!) He also said in the sermon that God will give different people different convictions about alcohol. Some adults will be able to have alcohol be apart of their lives in responsible, social contexts. Others cannot have that, either for addiction reasons, health reasons, or maybe just personal convictions in their faith. What is important though is that neither group should judge each other. Alcohol is an area where Christians can get very judgmental of each other, and that absolutely is not right. (True story and example of this: a Christian guy {who did not drink at all due to personal convictions} that I really liked at one point in time, told mutual friends of ours that he ultimately decided not to pursue a relationship with me due to the fact that I "drank alcohol." That really did not sit well with me, especially since I am solely a social drinker!!)


 
      Here is a little bit of my own personal history with alcohol and why I am a Christian young woman who does drink and enjoy nightlife (in moderation!):


     In high school- I was about 110% anti-alcohol for minors. I always joke that since I had such a bad experience in high school socially, I ended up eventually making my friends solely based on the fact that they also didn't drink and do drugs (and then once I was in college, I realized how little else I had in common with most of my high school friends- lol!). I spent my freshman year of college at Christian university with a dry campus, and didn't have any friends who drank at the time, which was great. Alcohol just wasn't apart of the first year of my college experience. However, that honestly did not prepare me well for transferring to a more traditional campus in the city the following year! The college that I ended up graduating from had a bit of a partying problem... but then again, I'm sure most public and private universities that aren't religiously affiliated probably do! 

   

    At the school that I transferred to, it was very different than my former university, and campus culture-wise I had a bit of a rough first year settling into the differences, namely the fact that partying was so prevalent with my new classmates. True story: I actually lost some friendships (and almost lost, yet later resolved others) that I made initially at my new college due to me being judgmental about underage drinking and partying. I totally own that now and see how that was really wrong, but it was really hard for me to adjust to the new environment after being in a school and having friends where alcohol just wasn't apart of life. I was in the minority at my new school as I never had a fake ID, something that I'm still very proud of!


    By my senior year of college, I was 21 and had started to adopt different views on alcohol, mostly due to the nature of the university that I was in and the friends that I was surrounding myself with at the time. After turning 21, I started going out on the weekends, a lot. It became rare for the first semester of senior year to have a weekend where I wasn't going to a nightclub with college friends. Although I had started drinking and stepping out of my comfort zone a bit, I will say I am thankful that to this day I can say I have never been blackout drunk. There were many nights during that semester when I drank more than I would now, or might have after having a few drinks said things, worn things, or danced in a way that I'm not proud of or doesn't reflect my faith, however, I am so thankful that in college, I never drank to a point of complete intoxication, or being not in control of my body or my surroundings. That happens to too many people in college- and that should NEVER be a goal! Hungover as I might have been sometimes on weekend mornings of senior year, I always woke up the next morning remembering what happened the night before. I never accepted drinks from strangers. I always tried to look out for my friends that I went out with. I always made it back home in MY bed at the end of the night... never someone else's.


      Due to some serious circumstances that happened in my life around the time I graduated college (which I talk more about in this blog post), I realized I needed to slow down and re-think some of my weekend behaviors, especially as I was leaving college and heading into adulthood. I call myself a Christian woman... were my behaviors on weekend nights reflecting that? One of my biggest pet peeves in the world is people who are blatant hypocrites... something that I never want to be. I knew I needed to think about a lot.


     There are some aspects to nightlife (and I suppose drinking in general) that I do like, and I don't feel compromise my faith or morals. Having a drink or two while out for a nice dinner? I don't see anything wrong with that. Having a little more than I normally drink while enjoying an evening with my best girlfriends, and guaranteeing that Uber will be my ride that night? I also don't see anything wrong with that. If there's one thing you should know about me, it's that I love to dance to my favorite songs. I'm not the best dancer by any means, but my favorite part of nightlife isn't the drinks or meeting guys, it's dancing! Such a good workout and so much fun to do so with your friends. If I want to go to a nightclub or bar so I can dance and have fun with friends who I know and trust, I also don't think there's anything wrong with that! All of my best nights of memories from going out are the nights when the focus is on friendship and dancing, not a focus on trying to meet guys or get overly tipsy.


    (To lighten up this post for a second... if you're curious by what I mean when I say I "love dancing".... see the photos below from when I was a bridesmaid in a wedding this spring!! This is the same way that I dance when I go out! {I think my interesting dancing actually thankfully scares away a lot of creepy club guys- lol!})

   
      There were a lot of nights my senior year of college when I went out looking to dance with guys I didn't know, seeking the feeling of attention that I wasn't getting in other aspects of my life, since I was single and really unhappy about it at the time. Sure- I wasn't going home with these guys and sleeping with them, but even dancing with them in the manner that I was in public, around many of my peers from school... probably wasn't the best reflection of me. And I see that now. And now when I go out, it's not with the goal in mind of grinding up on some stranger! (In blunt terms. 😉)



     So to wrap all of this up.... if these ramblings have made any sense at all.... I am a fan of nightlife, and moderate social drinking, when both are being done appropriately, and with the right intentions. I thank God all the time for the lessons that I learned during my senior year of college. Now in Vermont- I'm kind of in a place where I would like to be going out more, however I still haven't met a ton of people up here yet... and another one of my main tips would be DO NOT go to a nightclub alone (Probably a given, but true!).... so my weekend social life has been pretty quiet since the big move.  And you know what? That's okay! There is more to life than drinking and nightclubs. Things like developing your faith, hobbies, investing in relationships... it all comes back to that sermon I talked about in the beginning of this blog post. When nightlife and/or drinking begins to become an idol in someone's life, something is wrong.



     And now that I have written something along the lines of an essay that's probably longer than most papers I wrote in college... let me turn this over to Caroline!

    First off, I want to thank Annaliese for the friendship she has shared with me. Some of my sweetest memories of college are from our morning talks in our suite bathroom. She would sit on the counter and I on the floor. Here, we shared our hearts, our dreams and our fears, and in these moments of vulnerability, we grew and forged a committed friendship. Thank you for asking me to be a part of this blog post. It’s one of the highest compliments you could have given.

     In the Christian community, there seem to be the three great sins: drugs, sex, and alcohol. Whether you or not you have grown up in the Christian community, I believe many individuals view these three the problems, however, their abuse often come from a heart condition. Maybe the condition is disappointment, maybe rebellion. The point is that there is usually more to the story than meets our eye, and often, nightlife or “partying” is the setting we have been told (or maybe have personally experienced) all three co-exist. Bur for many of us, there is a draw toward this setting. There seems to be a kind of zeal to it that may be missing in our day-to-day lives.

     So how is a Christian supposed to feel about nightlife? Is it a moral sin? Does it glorify God?

     Why do we even feel this torn up about the subject?

     Restlessness.

     I want to look at Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son for some insight. The parable begins: “A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.”

     Many of us have heard this story before, and we hear this beginning with the notion that it was wrong of the youngest son to ask for his share of his father’s estate. I want to challenge this notion. What if the younger son wasn’t acting rebelliously or with disrespect? What if he had this desire for more, a restlessness for a life of

     Like the youngest son, I think many of us have this gut deep feeling that there has to be more. More life. More hope. More strength. More something. Just more.

     We were meant to live. I mean, isn’t that what Jesus’ entire message and purpose was for? He preached life. Eternal life. A present life forgiven by grace and surrounded in a community of his spirit, his angels, and those here on Earth who know and revere his name. We were designed to celebrate, to dance and sing, to dare, to hope. We are even commanded to: “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful” Hebrews 10:23.

     I’m not going to tell you what you should or shouldn’t believe specifically about nightlife. But I will tell you this: You are loved. And your actions will show whether or not you believe in the value the Lord has placed over you and your life. You were designed for abundance of spirit. You were not intended to be alone or forgotten. The restlessness you feel means you are still alive—and you are still hoping. Live life in the fullness we as Christians are called to live, in the humility to sit at his feet and love him openly, and don’t you dare let fear keep you from experiencing freedom before the Lord. But most importantly, follow peace. His peace guards our hearts (Colossians 3:15). His will is found in His peace.

      I want to end with one of my favorite quotes of all time by author Francine Rivers. It is from her book Redeeming Love. I believe that at the end of the day, this charge is something we should all desire and strive to live our lives according to.“Love the Lord your God, and love one another. Love one another as He loves. Love with strength and purpose and passion and no matter what comes against you. Don't weaken. Stand against the darkness, and love. That's the way back into Eden. That's the way back to life.” 



     Thank you so much for reading today's post! It's been on my heart to share a post on this subject for a long time here on the blog (Really- this has been over a year in the works in my head!), and I'm so glad one of my dearest friends was able to share her heart on the subject as well. Caroline and I would love to hear your comments and thoughts on the subject!



     And my best nightlife of Charlotte post will be coming soon... 😊




     God Bless,




     xoxo Annaliese

How To Help a Friend Going Through a Legal Situation.

      I've certainly written my fair share of personal blog posts in the five+ years that I've had Southern Belle in Training. I've talked to y'all about faith, falling outs with high school friends, my first experience with a true broken heart, the ups and downs of my move to Vermont this year, and many other topics. But out of everything that I've ever written in the past years... this is the most important blog post, hands down. My words today are more important than any outfit that I'll ever wear, travel guide I'll curate, or broadcasting career advice I'll share.

{Yes- this is one of the outfits that I wore to court. It felt empowering to later wear it on my blog, although at the time I didn't share the meaning behind the outfit! Photo by Deeana Kourtney Photography.}

      Almost a year and a half ago, my world was turned upside after the unthinkable happened, and I was the victim of a crime just a few weeks before graduating college. After much prayer and thought, and a decision that only I could make as the victim, I decided to move forward with pursuing legal action. This was a part of my daily life from April-October 2016 that I completely hid from the blog side of my life. And that in itself, was one of the hardest things that I've ever gone through. I absolutely adore blogging with my whole heart and soul, and although obviously I blog because it's both my passion and a business venture, I also do so because writing creatively is one of my favorite forms of stress relief. To be able to go through something so painful for so much of last year and not be able to process it through blogging, which is such a notable form of stress relief for me, was really hard. In December, to close out the end of the painful year, I finally shared an extremely vague blog post just to let everyone know that it hadn't been the easiest year. But I was, and still am, prevented to really talk about what I went through due to the confidentiality of the situation, which I'll dive into more later in this post. Anyways, the fact that I couldn't share such a big and painful part of my life with y'all last year made me feel like I was being re-victimized every single day.



      Today, exactly one year ago, the door to this very painful, awful, legal situation was CLOSED. I can't believe it's been a year. I wish I could tell you that it all goes away once it's "legally" over. But it doesn't. It does get better certainly, time is a great healer. So is relying on the Lord. But it never completely goes away. Sometimes I don't think about it for weeks, days, hours.... other nights it all comes back in vivid and intense flashbacks, and I cry myself to sleep. Those are the times when I'm happy to live alone in a far away state from where this happened. Vermont has certainly been healing on my heart.


     Anyways, before I get very off track here, the point of today's post wasn't to talk about how I've been in the past year, as I still can't really give details into the situation that I went through. (I did disclose in my December blog post that I was not a victim of rape or a sexual related crime, but that's all that I want to and really can say.) What I do want to talk about... is how to provide support to people going through legal situations. I was very naive before I went through one myself!! I was a goody-goody two shoes for most of college, and kind of naively always believed that if I was a "good girl" and "stayed out of trouble," bad things don't happen to careful people. I hate to admit this, but I also kind of believed that rape cases were the only types of crime situations that lead college girls to press charges. Well- I'm not a rape victim, and I still went through six months of hell last year for something completely unrelated.


     Research and hearing about other people going through similar things always makes me feel better- about anything in life! Before moving to Vermont to take my job, I looked up stories of other radio personalities who left big cities and moved to tiny markets to get their career off the ground. When I started blogging years ago, I read lots of posts from "bigger bloggers" sharing social media and blogging tips about how to gain a following and curate better content. So naturally when I was going through all of this last year, I kept doing research online, trying to find a story of someone who had been through a story similar to mine, and hopefully the story had a happy ending. I found nothing. There was lots of support on the internet for female sexual harassment, assault, and rape victims- which is great! I'm so glad that prosecution is becoming harsher for these crimes, and that these topics are becoming more talked about at universities. However as I mentioned- I wasn't a victim of one of these things. So most of these stories weren't relevant to me specifically. I felt so alone and almost hopeless as I would spend late nights on my computer, looking for someone, anyone, who had been through a similar situation, but I never found it.


     What I did find though, was peace about how I could eventually share part of the story here on the blog to help others. This is something that became startlingly clearer to me as the months and then year went on. I might not be able to share the details of my situation specifically with you all. But something that I can share is what it felt like to be a victim, and how that can be channeled into helping others. It started to dawn on me after awhile that legal situations really are a part of life. They're kind of like a cancer diagnosis, or a bad car accident. No one expects to deal with one, no one ever asks for one to happen to them or a loved one, but they still happen. Chances are- someone near and dear in your life will deal with a legal situation at some time or another. It could be a family member, a spouse, a friend, or even yourself. Circumstances for pressing charges vary between all types of crimes, but the emotions behind being a victim and dealing with a legal situation are still similar between most cases. I lost friendships over what I dealt with last year. I repeat- I lost friendships. Multiple. Plural. Let that sink in. At the same time, I also learned who my true friends were, and some of them showered me with incredible love and kindness, in addition to my parents of course, who supported me greatly during that time.



     This is all a very long way of saying, I wanted to use today's blog post to share some tips on how to help a friend (or someone else you're close to) who is going through a legal situation. Of course, I'm writing this post from the perspective of helping a victim/plaintiff, as that's the side of things that I've been on.



     1. Remind them that it's not their fault: This probably seems like a given... but if someone you know has been the victim of a crime and moves forward with a legal case, they will have to re-live the circumstances of what happened many, many times in months to come. I know that I personally tend to over-analyze everything, so being in a situation like this was terrible for my personality, and triggered a lot of anxiety as expected. Being a victim is exactly that, it's not your fault!! But it can be easy to let your mind play tricks on you and start thinking that you did something to deserve the situation that you're in. One of the best things that you can do as a support person to someone dealing with a legal situation is just to keep reminding them that it's not their fault. Bad things do happen to good people- it's a part of life (there's of course a faith explanation behind it too), but the bottom line is that if your friend or loved one is a victim, they didn't do anything to deserve being in that position, and reminding them of that really does help.


     2. Don't make guesses about the end result: This one is so, so, SO important, as a lot of well-meaning friends who were trying to be supportive did this, but it ended up making things emotionally much more detrimental for me for many months after to come (even somewhat now still).
     If someone you know is a victim of a crime and decides to follow through with legal action, that is a brave and admirable decision. It is GREAT to support them!! However, the absolute worst thing that you can do is start promising them end results. Again- I can't disclose a lot about my own situation, but I will say that I learned last year that the justice system isn't fair. I mean heck... sometimes murderers aren't even convicted (and that's something much more serious than what I went through). So many people that I knew when they found out I was taking legal action would say things insinuating that I would have a certain outcome solely because I decided to pursue legal action.... and guess what? I didn't get that outcome. At all. And that hurt a lot. I knew that all of my friends who made comments like this truly did mean well... but when person after person for months is telling you they think they know the story will have a happy ending.... but it doesn't.... it makes it worse. So support your friend, but don't promise results. You aren't their lawyer or district attorney, you probably know very little about the legal system (I still don't know that much even after going through it).


     3. Accept the confidentiality: For the same reason that I'm not disclosing a lot about what happened here on the blog, I also did the same with many people in my life. A lot of people that I knew last year when they found out that I was dealing with a serious situation wanted to ask questions to try and understand and support me, and while I so appreciated that, legal situations come with a lot of confidentiality attached. I couldn't just tell people all of the details about what was going on. If you're being a support to a victim and there's certain aspects to the legal situation that they can't tell you, it probably has nothing to do with you as a friend. Respect the fact that they can't disclose certain things, but still offer your support! Trust me- it will mean a lot to them!


    4. Realize different things can cause flashbacks / panic attacks: Whatever the circumstances were that caused your friend or loved one to be in a victim position in a legal situation... it probably wasn't a positive or happy situation. My situation definitely wasn't. I was and still am proud of myself for the healing that I've accomplished in the last year and a half, but that doesn't mean that I don't sometimes still get flashbacks to the incident itself, and painful memories in the legal process. Weird things can trigger these... hearing certain a song on the radio, seeing something on Facebook, eating a certain food, it's crazy. You can't predict when a flashback will hit. The worst panic attack that I had during this whole process was actually during the weekend of The Blog Societies conference in Charleston last summer, when a bunch of bloggers and myself were out at a bar to celebrate the last night of the conference. Something came over me and I thought I was going to by physically ill- I finally realized back in the hotel room that I'd been experiencing a panic attack. The best thing that you can do is support your friend in these instances, and offer love and a distraction.


     5. Buy or make them a thoughtful gift: As I'm hopefully stressing throughout this whole post, being a victim in a legal situation is a really awful situation to be in. Gifts happen to be my top love language, and if they're also a high love language for your friend or loved one, consider getting them something thoughtful around their court date. It doesn't have to be something huge or expensive, but just something small to let them know they will get through this, and you're thinking of them. The best example of this I have is what my roommate who I was living with last year, Ciera, bought me at this time last year. She and I had gone to Las Vegas the month before, and while shopping there I had debated buying a set of bath bombs, but ended up using the money for other things on the trip. Ciera went to LUSH in Charlotte and bought me some beautiful bath bombs so that I could treat myself to relaxing baths before and after court! It was the most thoughtful gift, and meant so much to me. Someone from my broadcasting school wrote me a long letter filled with bible verses for me to bring to court with me... this is the type of gift that costs nothing to make, but ended up being one of the most special at the time.


     6. Encourage them to go to counseling: I am so glad that so many important people in my life encouraged me to do this! Going through a legal situation is something serious, and even if you're able to love on your friend and be there for them, they've probably been through some sort of stress and trauma that is best processed with a professional. I went to counseling for about nine months related to this situation (as well as a few other things), and it was so helpful in terms of processing and moving on with my life, as well as preparing for my (literal) move to Vermont.



      7. Be down to CELEBRATE! Eventually, the situation will come to and end. It will probably take awhile, and be long and drawn out. (Felonies are usually longer than misdemeanors. The legal system doesn't usually move quickly!) But once it's over- it's OVER! And that's something to celebrate, irregardless of whether your friend received the outcome that they wanted or not. During the six months that I was involved in my situation, I was miserable most of the time. I threw myself into broadcasting school and my retail job. School, and dreaming of working full-time in radio, was my savior at this point in my life. I didn't want to do a lot with friends, and I certainly wasn't into going out and doing a lot of the stuff I used to do for fun in college anymore. A couple nights after everything ended last October, I planned a very special celebration with some dear friends. Some from college, my blogging bestie, and a couple from broadcasting school! My parents were still in Charlotte and took me to my favorite mall that day to buy me a new dress for that night. Then my friends and I had dessert and drinks at an upscale lounge in Uptown Charlotte. It was such a special night to remember, and a great way to close out one chapter of my life and begin a new one! If your friend's legal situation is coming to a close, if they're down, try and plan a celebration for them! Here's a few pictures from mine:

     I genuinely hope and pray that you and no one that you know has to be put in a position or a situation like I was last year! Every part of it sucked. I'm forever changed because of it. But, like I said earlier in the post, legal situations are apart of life. Chances are you will at some point, know someone in a position like this. So my hope is that I went through all of that last year to share this part of the story.... and that through these words, you might be able to offer helpful support to someone you love and care about.



    Thank you for reading, and thank you to all who followed my social media and read my blog last year. You all were my sunshine for much of 2016, possibly more than you'll ever know!



     God Bless,




     xoxo Annaliese