‘I’m a sucky wife some days. He gets the leftovers, life gets the main dish. Most nights, I’m asleep before he even graces the bedroom.’: Woman ‘thankful’ for husband who ‘doesn’t ask more of me than he knows I can give this season’

“I don’t have that same twinkle in my eye. I can no longer give him my full attention like I used to. My energy goes into playing hot wheels and throwing together loads of laundry. We share half-hearted conversations as we each scroll through stupid Facebook videos at the end of a long day. I pour so much of myself into every area of my life that my husband often gets the drips of what is left. It’s not fair. But I’m thankful.”

‘He was born looking like he’d been in a boxing match. His face was bruised, but no one seemed very concerned about it.’: Baby is born with microcephaly, ‘I truly see Grayson as the blessing he is’

“They have been unable to find a reason why this happened. I didn’t go out of the country while pregnant, I wasn’t exposed to Zika. He didn’t have a stroke in utero, and there is no gene to blame. We had no idea there was anything wrong before he was born. His whole life has been an emotional whirlwind. I wouldn’t have chosen this for him or for us, but I wouldn’t change it either.”

‘We placed my son in the back of a black SUV and said goodbye. I lost all hope. Just before I drank myself to death, I found out I was pregnant.’: Mom’s harrowing journey to recovery, ‘It’s up to you to break the cycle’

“Right after I turned 15, I met the absolute love of my life. Apparently, we were never really exclusive. In the summer going into my senior year, I got pregnant. I learned alcohol numbed the pain. After my daughter’s father left without telling me, I started partying more. He had no more fight in him. Days after his 4th birthday, we brought him home on hospice care.”

‘How was your trip?’ It broke my heart. Their schoolhouse was an open room separated by wooden dividers. The roof leaked every time it rained.’: Woman’s trip to Liberia was ‘eye-opening’ and ‘enlightening’

“This was the tough part for me. Thinking back to how I grew up, and seeing how drastically different it was from them, broke my heart. As a kid, I remember asking for updated decor for my room or a new, more comfortable bed to sleep in, and my parents working their butts off to make it a reality for me. But these kids didn’t have that.”

‘I’m positive you’re depressed, and that’s just from this one conversation.’ I froze inside.’: College student shocked by depression diagnosis, ‘It’s good to know people aren’t supposed to operate like this.’

“My family is very against medicine and doctors. My parents still don’t know I went to the doctor, or that I attend therapy regularly now. I don’t know what they would do, honestly. It’s ridiculous I need to hide going to the doctor, especially when it’s for my brain. My roommate was sharing how she couldn’t get out of bed. ‘It’s like someone placed you into a blank room, with no furniture or door or windows, and they expect you to thrive in it.’ It all clicked.”

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