“I made a phone call that no mom ever wants to get. Within an hour, my mom was at my apartment and I will never forget the look of absolute terror on her face.”
‘I woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed covered in my own vomit, dirt and mud caked in my ears and under my perfectly manicured acrylic nails.’
‘I found out I was pregnant. My ex-boyfriend refused to believe the baby was his. We tried to come to a resolution, but within a month, he was found dead in his bed.’
“I had my first serious boyfriend. He was older. That is the night my destiny changed. I became very ill the next week. I had a severe fever, so physically exhausted I couldn’t even get out of bed.”
‘Dear neighbor, It’s me. The girl on the other side of your walls. The one who dialed 911 at 2:30 a.m. last night.’
“The one who heard you screeching as your alcoholic husband was screaming in a drunken fury. I’m the one who told the police that you have 5 children. As a survivor of domestic abuse, it pulls at my heart every time I hear yelling next door.”
‘Molly, I am sick again. I promise I’m going to get better this time.’ I hang up, but she is all I can think about. How can I love her so much, and be such a constant source of disappointment?’
“I don’t want to catch a glimpse of her beautiful face in my mind. It hurts too much. She is so perfect. How can she still utter the words, ‘It’s okay mom, I love you’? I don’t deserve her love or her forgiveness.”
‘Everything went dark, and when I came to, I had no idea if I had been out for 5 minutes or 5 hours. There was no one left to call, and no one was coming.’
“I started drinking at what felt like a normal age – 12 or 13 years old. I was in 7th grade. I had no idea pretty, little girls from affluent East Coast towns could wind up alcoholic.”
‘His mommy issues consumed him. He got involved with women who resembled his mother. He was in a dark, dark place. He looked for a way out of that pain, and what he found, was heroin.’
“He was sneaky, and he didn’t like to be told what to do. He loved me more than anything. He was so, so proud to have finally ‘conquered me,’ as he would say. But that love wasn’t enough.”
‘I called my dad and he didn’t answer, which was weird. I drove over to his house. His car was there, but he wasn’t. I started panicking. I knew something had to be horribly wrong.’
“He laughed and said, ‘Don’t worry honey, I have no plans to die today.’ He tried to convince me to come watch a movie with him, but I declined. I told him I was tired and would talk to him in the morning.”
‘My mom drank. A lot. We were placed in separate foster homes. It was difficult to prove a mother unfit. She showed up to court intoxicated. The judge granted Dad custody.’
“Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. It’s unbearable to think about. It has always been the 3 of us that make sure the other is okay.”
‘I had my first alcoholic drink at the age of 10. I deployed to Afghanistan in 2015. I drank to calm my nerves. The drinking kept escalating.’
“I returned to the States. I started drinking even more. My marriage was falling apart. When I woke up from the coma, I was still hallucinating. The VA had no inpatient treatment facility spot open for me.”
‘We had just been to Disney celebrating her birthday. She got a magical princess makeover. Little did we know she was practicing to be a Princess in Heaven a few days later.’
“She threw up and had a fever. I took her to her doctor. She was so lethargic. We were told it is just a stomach virus – 20 hours later she was dead.”
