Kristi Pahr

I’m frazzled, y’all; I’m a mess. I’m a basketcase of anxiety and stress and I need to chill.

These women are from all over the world. They are from different socioeconomic brackets. Their assaults took place during different times over the last 35 years. The victims are completely different, but the stories are all so similar. Victims of assault, rape, harassment, coming forward, being brave and telling the truth, and being stigmatized, ostracized, blamed, ignored, ridiculed. People they love, people they trust, people whose job it is to protect them, blaming them for their assault. It’s common. Almost expected. That women are assaulted, harassed by men, is a given in our culture. That women are blamed is standard procedure. Is it really any wonder that the majority of sexual assaults go unreported? Is it really shocking that a woman would want to save herself additional trauma?

My version of self-care is a little less “best life” and a little more “no life”, but it works for me.

I found my first gray hair when I was 12 years old. Twelve. I had gray hair before I had a period.

If a person meets a certain threshold, it’s considered a pathology called Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Here's how you can spot a narcissist.

Don’t be an asshole is my barometer. It’s my go-to for figuring out how to respond to any given situation, big or small, personal, local, or global.

Life looks a lot different at 40 than it did at 25, and I have a whole new list of things to worry about. It's a very long list, and it makes me anxious on the best day, plain terrified on the worst day, and on a run-of-the-mill day, it just keeps reminding me that I'm clueless about what to think and what to do and how to be grown.

It seems like everyone is an introvert these days.

2016 sucked. If we can’t agree on anything else, I think we can all agree on at least that much.

As a mother of boys, I find this trend disturbing. Yes, we need to build up our girls. We need to empower them and teach them that they are capable and viable and powerful — that they are smart and that they matter. But we cannot devalue our boys in the process.