As a survivor of child abuse and sexual assault, April 1st not only starts month-long awareness campaigns for both causes, but commemorates my three-month sobriety. I share my story to raise awareness that victims and survivors of these types of traumas are more likely to use and abuse alcohol, at times losing their lives and closest relationships.
I started drinking soon after I was raped. I was fifteen and was told booze made you feel good. I didn’t know what that meant.
Read MoreI have work to do, but I can’t stop crying. I have to get it out first. I have to be with this. I have to feel it all. Even when my breath tightens, even when my legs can’t stop shaking, even when I have to pause typing for every word to cry. I have to understand why I feel like such a failure. I have to know to go forward. Deep down I already know what it is, I’ve just never named it. Only shamed and blamed it in others.
This is my mid-life crisis. This is where I see all of my shit. Where I face my shadows, the darker parts of myself that I don’t want you to know. So why am I telling you now? Because I’m done hiding.
Read MoreI knew next to nothing about the fathers of my children. All three of them. Third times the charm? In the sense that I‘m certain I’ll never have another baby with a man I barely know? Absolutely. Not only because I’m 44, but because I’m over the concept that I need to be with the father to be there for our child. We are. We will be. I’m trusting that John and I will show up for Sophia in the ways she needs, since we weren’t showing up for each other, which was unfair to us all.
I’ve been here before. I know what usually happens... I get the kid and he and I hate each other, forever. As if that tactic worked with my first two children who have since confessed that I regularly crossed their boundaries by sharing too much, and rarely got consent from their fathers for making choices that concerned our children. Not this time.
Read MoreMy Mama wasn’t allowed to be a kid. At twelve she started working outside her family's home, but at six she had been instructed to work inside. The third of twelve children, there was little opportunity for her to go outside and play. She soon forgot what play was. I wanted to remind her by giving her a day to let her Inside Kid OUT at Wonderspaces.
We had lots of fun... exploring, laughing, until we didn't. An hour after smiling for the camera, we were arguing with each other.
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