Anonymous

I wasn’t thankful. I was too negative. I wasn’t doing enough. When I found out my mood swings weren't my fault, that I had bipolar disorder, I cried.

All of the men I met were married, and wanted to stay married. They said they loved their wives, and most said they were happy; yet the sex at home had diminished and they were men after all and needed their desire fulfilled. Besides the eye-rolling common excuse for infidelity, I believed they were telling the truth about loving their wives.

Women who are nuns do not have intimacy with the opposite sex. Some people never get any. But for me, that was the deal killer. It is like eating potato chips; you can never have just one. Besides, I don't like to watch the news by myself.

I don't recall meeting my first love. It seems he was always with me.

I was married to my own child for 21 years. I thought I was marrying my high school sweetheart, but I was actually becoming my husband's mother.

I often think about the people in my hometown whose lives were ruined because they live in the “wrong” state. That same stigma causes me to feel horrible after I smoke.

What do you do when you have no choice on how you get to work?

This article first appeared on Mamamia and has been republished with perm

The sad thing is, it took someone almost destroying me to make me open my eyes to the extent of what happens when we talk not about a culture of consent, but about temptation and defense instead.

Over those five years, I volunteered on hot summer days and rainy mornings. I stood in snow, wearing warm layers and fleece mittens. I volunteered beside women and men, many of them young, like me, but some older and wiser and living out a lifetime of experience on those sidewalks.