“Just a simple phrase ‘you know if you ever need to talk, I am here’ became the foundation for one of the strongest relationships in my life.”
‘What are they going to say today?’ I missed 2/3 of school, my teachers never batted an eye. By the end of middle school my life felt surreal, I thought ‘this will never change.’
‘I stayed in a destroyed marriage for a year, convinced we could make it through. It didn’t matter he was in love with another woman; I KNEW he would come to his senses.’
“I would hide in vain in my closet. ‘Get up!’ I would tell myself, ‘Get up!’ I wanted to get up; I didn’t want my son to find me like this- to see me like this. But he would and it started to become a regular occurrence.”
‘My son’s teacher recently friended me on social media. I came upon a picture of her holding a chalkboard sign that read, ‘I said YES!’ She’s already married, so it struck me as odd.’: Mom thanks ‘hero’ teachers
“Until I read the caption. I couldn’t stop crying.”
‘My father sent me out for cigarettes. I decided to run away. I needed to find a place he’d never find me.’: Man rescued from abusive family, returns favor by fostering children in need
“After a year of living on the street, strangers approached me and said, ‘We want to take you to school.’ Coming from an abusive household, I had never really learned to trust. I said yes, not really sure what I was agreeing to. I had no home, hope, future, and they gave me all of that and more. I knew I wanted to do the same for other kids.”
‘I cleared out my boyfriend’s savings.’: After losing love of her life, child trauma survivor overcomes kleptomania addiction
“Please understand that people like me are not evil. We just come from it. And we spend our entire lives running away from it, never realizing when we slowly start to become it.”
‘She’s been promising her baby to 4 other families.’ We’d been scammed by our birth mother. Tears streaming, I hoped it was a bad dream. All I wanted was to be a mother.’
“At that same ultrasound, while holding the hand of another adoptive mother, she was texting me details of the visit and sex of the baby. She’d ‘panic’ and ask for more money so she wouldn’t change her mind and take him away from us. She knew all about me and my infertility. She knew exactly what she was doing.”
‘Do I need to separate you two?,’ the flight attendant asked. WHAT? I looked up, confused. My kid sniffled. ‘Nothing gets better at 30,000 feet,’ she continued.’: Mom hysterically recalls run-in with rude flight attendant
“My first thought was, ‘Does your ATTITUDE, Janet?’ This was all because my 16-year-old daughter had to leave her boyfriend behind to see her sister graduate from COLLEGE. I thought she would ballet leap onto the plane. I was wrong, friends. I was so wrong.”
‘Get down from there.’ ‘Please stop. That is dangerous.’ Aggressive meltdowns led to restraining him to prevent self-harm or harm to others. Finally, we decided to medicate our son.’
“Barring the dangerous, we would not say a word. Nothing. No emotion. Silence. Instead of avoiding a festival or a park because, what if he has a meltdown in public, we say ‘Yes.'”
‘Pardon my smell. This is how I attended my kids’ end-of-the-year school performance. Like a sweaty, hot mess.’
“Today being a special, celebratory event for my munchkins, I probably could have (and maybe should have) dressed up a bit, or at least not looked so wrecked. But, I didn’t.”
‘I asked for $20 for diapers. My husband called me a ‘pathetic gold-digger.’ It felt like a cruel joke. Post-labor, I became a full-time mom while he worked. We made this decision TOGETHER.’: Woman leaves ‘monster of a man,’ says ‘I cannot tell you how lucky I am’
“I felt my blood boiling. ‘Was this your plan all along? Mooch off me while you do NOTHING all day.’ He followed me into the bedroom. Nothing could have prepared me. I felt an instant, excruciating pain. ‘You will never have a penny from me, you pathetic gold-digger,’ he said.”