I was 13. I didn’t even know to call it sexual abuse until I talked to my therapist about it a few years back.  He was a kid from the neighborhood- one of my best friend’s brothers.  He was 11 or so.  I always thought it needed to be done by an adult for it…

April. Following the appointments and the blood tests and the waiting and the googling – oh, the googling – leading me to suspect what the phone call will tell me: “Your labs and symptoms point to Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. It doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to conceive, but you’ll need help. To confirm…

Near the end of my pregnancy with my second son, my parents came to visit. On this particular visit, before even greeting me, I opened the door and in they came, carrying the contents of my childhood in about ten cumbersome cardboard boxes. They were preparing to move seven states away from where I grew…

When I was thirteen years old my mom remarried. My dad wasn’t in my life so I was sooo excited to be part of a “real” family for the first time. At first it was great. He had money and so we weren’t struggling all the time to pay the bills and we even had…

I tried so hard to avoid my uncle when I had to stay at his house. I learned to for the most part but he still got to me. He would usually sneak up on me and he would sexually abuse me. He started abusing me when I was in kindergarten. I was too little…

I never used to think of them as flashbacks. For a long time I didn’t really remember my abuse. My parents didn’t believe me and over time I began to question whether it was real. The clear memories started coming back when I was in college. I think maybe it was because I was beginning…

Flashbacks are cruel. In my case, they are also punishment. My brain splintered into lots of people when bad stuff happened. I allowed those people to feel all the things. The punishment is that I must now feel all the things. I cannot predict when a flashback will find its entry point. It sneaks up…

Lies do not occur in a vacuum. They don’t appear out of nothing. And the best ones carry just enough truth to make them appear plausible. They often have roots in our childhood. Abusive childhood experiences are fertile ground in which the enemy can sow the seeds of lies. Seeds that eventually blossom not into…

The perpetrator in my life was my mother’s 2nd husband.  She brought six children into the marriage; they had one together.  I refuse to refer to him as my “stepfather” because he was, by far, not a father in any sense of the word.  They were married for approximately 13 years.  He was an alcoholic who…

“My brother molested me.”   Four words.  Small ones, really.  Yet, it took many years to put them together and to understand what they mean in my life, for real.   When you’re 11, you don’t have any words at all.  Something is not OK, but how can I tell anyone without any words?  …

My sister was born when I was 2. My mother had to have a cesarean and there were some issues so she was in the hospital for 10 days. I was home alone with my father, who had me in his bed every night. He told me that I needed to be the mom now…

My father was an alcoholic. He would abuse my mother when he had a few too many but she always forgave him afterwards when he came home sober saying it would never happen again. I was 5 when she finally had enough and kicked him to the curb. We stayed with family for a while…