Anonymous

Seven years before I was born, my mother made a decision that would change her life—and lead to mine.

This support my gender-fluid child receives at school means so much to my family, but the ripple effects of what the children will learn will go far.

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 remained silent, after I was sexually harassed at work. I was terrified if I spoke up I would lose my job for making a mountain out of a molehill.

I thought I knew everything I needed to know about personal style and fashion until I started teaching elementary school. I had more fashion lessons this year than a makeover-show contestant, courtesy of 6-year-old girls.

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.

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

My dad had an explosive anger that he took out on his children. My father abused me and I love him in spite of myself. I don’t want him to die.

It’s real sticky-wicked to have your body become unpredictable and tortuously painful. So here I am. Homeless. Meditation is my medication.

In my checkered past, long before I was a member of the PTA, I sometimes worked behind the scenes in X-rated films