Anonymous

My dad had an explosive anger that he took out on his children. My father abused me and I love him in spite of myself. I don’t want him to die.

I’ll be the first to admit that a large part of my twenties was spent in a euphoric haze brought on by fairly regular pot smoking. I loved the stuff — and it certainly loved me. I don't feel I ever had a “problem” with it, but I did feel a strong pull to have it in my life.

That’s part of the problem, I think. I keep waiting for my sexual partners to figure out how to bring me to orgasm.

My own father was, and still is an alcoholic, and is no longer a part of my life. Although he was never violent, his alcoholism still deeply affected and damaged our family, and me.

When I left the hospital the night that he was admitted, I sat in the parking lot gasping with big ugly sobs and looking for someone to blame — beginning with myself. I'm his mother, and I'm the only consistent parent he's ever had. As I finally made my way home, with tears streaming down my face and my mouth open in a silent scream of pain, all I could ask myself was "what have I done?" How could I have allowed my son to be hurt so deeply, and in so many ways?

If you go, I’ll have to pick up all the dog poop. I will have to take out the trash. I will have to sleep alone.

Moments after this big reveal, as I sat with the knowledge that I was the mother of a queer daughter, we heard about the man in Los Angeles being stopped on his way to Pride with guns and bombs, and I suddenly realized that my daughter was now one of the millions of people at risk because of vile and unreasonable hatred about non-straight sexuality.

I lit-up, inhaled, and slowly released the sweet smoke. It was beautiful and relaxing until I was interrupted with these, dreaded, words: “MOM?! Are you smoking?”

My fiancé proposed with a cubic zirconia or, as some people might say, ‘a fake diamond’. I said yes and let him slide the $500, 2.5 carat extravaganza on my hand.

I spent seventeen years in an abusive relationship. Not only do I the physical scars to prove it, I carefully tote a heavy heap of emotional scars. Humiliation, fear, and shame were poured into my heart for years, by a person that claimed to love me - my mother.