The MEND Project is here for you.
When you’re in a difficult, confusing, or abusive relationship, one of the most overwhelming challenges is finding the words to describe what you are experiencing. At The MEND Project, our mission is to help you name your experience and take empowered steps toward safety and healing.
Through our free, easy-to-read handouts, monthly webinars, coaching community, and self-paced or accredited courses, The MEND Project provides both survivors and responders with language and a framework that create pathways toward relational safety, authentic connection, and renewed hope. When a survivor believes emotional health and healing are real possibilities, hope feels tangible. It's hope that drives us all to keep moving forward as we look toward positive outcomes from painful situations.
The process of healing unfolds in different ways for each person. There is no single right way or a set amount of time that anyone can give you. The beauty in healing is that you are on your own journey, and you are allowed to move at your own pace.
Below, we will walk through the resources MEND offers to you or to someone you may be walking alongside in their journey of healing.
Handouts: Tools for Understanding and Naming What’s Happening
When survivors find our tools and resources, they often say they have finally found the words they had been searching for to describe their experience. Written with compassion, care, and practicality, these tools avoid overwhelming those who are still processing what they have been through. They provide clear, concise, and profound insight into the tactics and patterns of harmful relationships or abuse.
For many, our handouts become the first point of clarity.
According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of “clarity” includes both “the quality of being easily understood” and “the quality of transparency.” We believe that clearly understanding and naming harmful behaviors is a crucial step toward healing.
Without words, survivors remain stuck in confusion. With words, survivors can name their experience and take informed and empowered steps forward.
Our handouts and resources prioritize simple, non-clinical language that allows both survivors and responders to speak about difficult relational dynamics with confidence.
Please find a list of our handouts below, which you will receive when you enter your email on our resources page:
What is Original Abuse? – Many people can identify overt forms of abuse, such as shouting or physical intimidation. Yet covert emotional abuse can be harder to detect, and over time, it can be even more damaging. This handout explains how manipulation, control, and other harmful behaviors impact overall well-being.
What is Double Abuse®? – When survivors experience additional harm from the people or systems they turned to for help, this is Double Abuse. This harm might look like judgment, disbelief, apathy, or ultimatums. This handout provides a deep understanding to prevent Double Abuse. It is life-changing—it validates the survivor and gives them what they need and deserve.
Terms and Definitions – Clarity is the first necessary step toward healing. Survivors often struggle because they cannot find the words to describe their experiences accurately. This handout provides non-clinical terms that equip them to name harmful behaviors with confidence and bring deeper meaning to what they endured.
The Maze of Confusion – Many survivors experience conversations that go in circles with an abuser. Truth is twisted, reality is denied, and the survivor ends up doubting their own memory or perception. This tool provides a visual for what it looks and feels like when talking with an abuser—conversations that lead to dead ends; intentionally employed tactics to keep the victim off balance and exert control.
The Pillars of Abuse – Understanding the mindset of the abuser is key. This handout identifies the pillars the abuser stands on, including a faulty belief system, entitlement, image management, low emotional intelligence, and hierarchical thinking. Naming these pillars helps survivors and responders understand the mentality of an abuser and why abusive behavior persists.
The Iceberg Analogy – The largest part of an iceberg is unseen under water. Similarly, the harm of Double Abuse® exists beneath the surface. For example, a dismissive remark might seem small, but beneath it lies a foundation of invalidation, judgment, and emotional withdrawal. This handout helps to recognize the added harm hidden underneath the original abuse and trauma experienced, giving victims and survivors words to name what they were met with when they reached out for help, and it also equips responders to realize the importance of preventing Double Abuse.
The Healing Model of Compassion – Survivors need a validating presence. This model provides responders—including friends, family, clergy, and professionals—with concrete ways to offer support: Listen, Accept, Empathize, Validate, Identify, Encourage, Ask, and Grieve.
The Accountability Model of Courage – Because abuse thrives in silence, accountability matters. This model equips responders to confront harmful behavior when it is first approved by the one who has been harmed, in a way that is appropriate and always in alignment with the survivor’s needs, not the abuser's or responder’s agenda.
Our Website: A Hub of Healing and Education
The MEND Project website is far more than an information page. It is a refuge for survivors and a learning center for responders and professionals.
Here, you can access:
Free Monthly Webinars & On-Demand Recordings
Every month, The MEND Project hosts free virtual webinars for anyone in a difficult or confusing relationship, survivors, responders, and professionals. These gatherings cover relevant topics surrounding the pervasive issue of abuse and trauma.
If you cannot join us live, the recordings are added to our YouTube channel. Survivors often return to these sessions, finding fresh insight each time as their journey evolves.
Many participants describe these webinars as their first breakthrough—the moment they realized their experience had a name and that they were not to blame. They come with the expectation of learning, and often walk away with so much more—including clarity and validation in a compassionate and supportive environment.
What is discussed during these events can bring new language, new perspectives, and a renewed sense of personal power.
Coaching Calls & Supportive Community
For anyone wanting to process their experiences more personally, our Restore Coaching Calls offer small-group, virtual sessions led by our founder, Annette Oltmans.
Our Restore coaching community welcomes both survivors and responders to:
Ask questions about their situations
Receive compassionate, validating feedback
Learn how to apply MEND’s handouts and models
Connect with others who truly understand
Survivors have provided us with continual positive, life-changing feedback from these calls, where they bring their questions, all of which are asked anonymously, and receive personalized responses. These coaching calls provide a meaningful connection, even for those who aren't ready to participate and join us to listen.
Self-Paced Courses for Survivors and Responders
Our self-paced survivors course, Finding Clarity and Healing in Difficult, Confusing, or Abusive Relationships, is designed to help participants identify behaviors, recognize patterns, understand relational dynamics, and gain the insight needed to make empowered decisions.
Students often describe this course as providing deep processing and “saving a year of therapy.” It condenses years of knowledge into digestible, compassionate lessons that provide language, tools, and confidence without ever telling a survivor what they “should” do. Instead, it equips them to decide for themselves—based on their values, their desires, and their expectations of what healing looks like.
Many have shared how this course helped them reclaim their voice after what they survived and completely shifted their outlook on what healing could be.
We also offer a self-paced Responder course. A responder is anyone a victim might turn to for help—a parent, a sibling, a relative, a friend, a colleague, or a faith leader or mentor walking alongside them. In this course, you will gain the knowledge and insight to recognize hidden forms of emotional abuse, and you will walk away feeling equipped with the confidence to help without causing additional harm. This course is for anyone; we are all responders at some point in our lives.
Continuing Education Courses for Professionals
Professionals who want to respond with understanding, compassion, and meaningful care can enroll in our APA-accredited 9.5-hour continuing education course. This training, led by Annette Oltmans and Dr. David Hawkins, provides professionals with the ability to:
Recognize covert emotional abuse behaviors
Differentiate the one being harmed from the one causing harm
Respond effectively without causing further damage
Prevent Double Abuse® in their practice
Therapists, clergy, educators, and coaches have found this course invaluable for offering care that is both informed and healing. It reinforces the expectation that professional responders be equipped with clarity and compassion—and take initiative to educate themselves before offering support.
Why These Resources Matter
While every survivor’s journey is unique, certain experiences like the ones below are quite common:
Feeling like you’re walking on eggshells
Questioning your own memory or perception
Being told you are “too sensitive” or “too emotional”
Feeling more alone after asking for help than before
Our resources exist to clear the confusion. Survivors gain the words to name what is happening. Responders learn how to support without unintentionally causing harm. And professionals are empowered to address abuse with precision and compassion—honoring the meaning, importance, and weight of the stories they are trusted to hear.
Your Story Matters
At The MEND Project, we believe:
You can heal.
Every part deserves care.
Each day, you can rebuild your life anew.
Whether you download a handout, join a webinar, enroll in a course, or join our coaching call community, you will find a space that honors your journey at your pace.
You are not alone. We are here to walk with you toward healing—one step at a time.