“You deem her unworthy before she even has the chance to speak for herself. She’s not a woman who finally found the courage to be who she is, dress how she wants, stand up for what she believes in. Trying not to let the coldness and cruelty of this world break her. Instead, she gets labeled. Simply because she just exists.”
‘Maybe her shorts are too short, her jeans too tight. Maybe you think her dress is too revealing. What you don’t see is a woman falling apart.’: Woman urges ‘we are all just trying to do our best’
‘You’re the girl who cries on her way to work but walks in with a smile on her face. The girl who never asks for help.’: Woman reminds us ‘there is no shame in being vulnerable’
“I never reached out to anyone for help in any way — whether it be a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, or just some advice, support, and borrowed strength. I know many reading this have been there as well. We are not so different.”
‘People always tell me how lucky I am to be a stay-at-home mom. All I can think is, ‘Then why do I feel so f*cking lonely all the time?’: Woman shares candid reality of being a stay-at-home parent
“When I gave birth to my daughter at 19, people always asked, ‘When do you plan to go back to work?’ When I said I planned to be a stay-at-home mom, they’d always say how appreciative I should be. Nobody tells you how draining being stuck in the same routine, everyday, is. The same pile of dishes, the same pile of laundry, the same toys lying all over the floor. No matter how many hours are in a day, you still won’t feel like you’ve done enough.”
‘I was incarcerated at age 12. I sold all my parents’ electronics and disappeared. By the end of the night, I injected heroin into my arm.’: Man beats life-long addiction, ‘My recovery is nothing but a miracle’
“I was on parole with a daughter on the way. I smoked it. I was so delusional I believed if I didn’t inject it, I wouldn’t become addicted. I was so numb to the world, digging myself into my misery with each high. One night, I was in a drug-induced haze and the most incredible thing happened. Brittany’s water broke. She was in labor.”
‘I remember feeling venom shoot through me. I fell into a deep, incoherent state as my veins pulsated into my head.’: Woman celebrates 6 years of sobriety after heroin addiction
“I had 4 children, 3 triplets. Truthfully, none of them were planned. The chaos I created was unraveling at the seams. I was leaving a women’s prison to live in a homeless shelter because not a single person wanted me paroled to their home. If I felt I didn’t belong, I’d draw a line of cocaine. As the need for the next high got more severe, so did the consequences. I wanted the heroin to remove the dirty feeling on my skin.”
‘I want to buy Sean’s grave.’ I was shocked. ‘What?’ Silent tears ran down my cheeks. I gave him a tight hug. ‘Thank you so much. I don’t know what to say.’: Widow shares kind act that helped relieve financial burden after husband’s sudden death
“Greg stepped forward. He looked right at me. ‘A few months back, Sean came and saved me from a plumbing nightmare when my water heater went out. He wouldn’t let me pay him for the labor. Sean’s not here to argue with me. Let me give him this final gift of thanks.’ I was speechless.”
‘It wasn’t bullying because she wasn’t picked on. It was almost as crushing – she was ignored.’: Mother urges school kids to reach out to ‘lonely’ students, ‘include them in their circle’
“I spent many nights with her crying in her bed asking me questions I couldn’t answer: ‘Why don’t I have any friends? Why don’t I get invited anywhere? What is wrong with me?’ I had no answers as I laid beside her as she sobbed. As important as it is to teach our children to study, to get good grades, it is also important to teach them to be kind.”
‘My heart hammering, I answered the phone. ‘It’s very serious, there’s no cure yet.’ This disease takes everything.’: Mom raises awareness about Childhood Alzheimer’s after 18-month-old diagnosed
“‘Is this a good time to talk?’ With those words, I knew it was something awful. As my daughter was giggling, bursting with love in the next room, I was learning she wouldn’t be growing up at all. I didn’t know diseases like this even existed, not to mention strike children, our child.”
‘It is never enough. You can see the loneliness in his eyes when he hugs us goodbye.’: Daughter’s ‘gut wrenching’ nightmare makes her realize just how lonely her elderly father is after wife’s death to dementia
“I had a nightmare. I was being taken to a home I didn’t recognize and into a room I had never been in before. I was in a wheelchair. My mom is telling me it will be OK. She is holding my hand, and I am crying. I tell her I want to go home, but she is telling me I am home. My heart aches for dad on the other side of the door, knowing he will lie there, waiting, for the next visit.”
‘My husband left me after going into a depression. He just kept saying it was ‘his problem.’ He decided this life, our life, wasn’t for him.’
“He was stuck in a marriage he didn’t want to be in. The night we separated he told me he loved me but, ‘Not in that way’ anymore. He told me not to cry, he couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t breathe.”
