Anonymous

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.

Anorexia is not what you think. Warning: Triggering pictures included.

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?

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?

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.

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?”

I had a rough idea of what I wanted to say to him about porn. The way I parent is to give my children all the information and then let them make decisions for themselves. I feel that if I restrict activities I make them more alluring. That’s why I don’t join my mom friends in banning technology throughout the school week and that’s why I don’t ever ban junk food. Instead I sit the kids down, explain my concerns, and then monitor their use or consumption, making suggestions along the way.

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

I never imagined myself being anyone’s wife so I grieved for my single life when I got married. I began to secretly long for the life I’d left behind.