Anonymous

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’ve shared my struggles in navigating when your kid is struggling with their sexuality, at the end of the day, this is my daughter’s story.

Being a human is hard. Being a human with an eating disorder is inexplicably hard. Every time I think I have control over the situation, my eating disorder pulls a fast one on me and reminds me what is really in charge — food and exercise.

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.

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

There really isn't anything unusual about our union. For all intents and purposes it's actually a pretty typical marriage. Except we're in an open marriage.

... the last thing I want to do is open my legs for a man to penetrate me. Or to pleasure a man with any part of my body. Even if that man is my loving fiancé, who does listen, who does understand (as best he can), who does respect me through this ongoing turmoil. It is all too symbolic of the lifetime I have already experienced of being fucked and then told to smile and politely ask for more.

Yelling. Throwing things. Name-calling. The only thing that holds me back from calling my teenager’s behavior abuse is that they are my child.

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.

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.