“My suspicions turned out to be true. ‘Ms. Graham, are you able to take a 6-month-old baby?’ I rushed home and waited. Then I saw a car, circling and looking lost with a baby in the back. They hesitated to hand me my baby, like she was unsure how I would hold him.”
‘What happened to your arm?’ I tried to hide it during the interview, but they kept staring. Later, I got a call from my case worker. ‘Discontinue your application. Give up.’
‘My husband told me breast implants would help ‘spice things up’. I was 22 and wanted to feel feminine. I constantly found him viewing pornography, which made me feel undesirable.’
“My joints were swollen and I couldn’t wear my wedding ring anymore. My hair started falling out in chunks that would clog the drain. I figured it was just part of being a new mom and shook it off. No doctor could figure out what was wrong.”
‘You’d be SO MUCH prettier if you lost weight.’ I was 10. My siblings got juice, while I was only offered water. When we got into fights, ‘fatty’ was their low blow.’
“With a disgusted look, my own trainer asked, ‘Why are you SO overweight?’ I felt like I was just punched in my (fat) gut. I cancelled my gym membership and dropped out of high school. Ashamed and embarrassed, I just wanted to crawl in a hole and cry. I always felt in competition with my siblings.”
‘After 6 months of marriage, he sat down and said, ‘I’m not happy, and it’s because of you.’ I told him to get out of our apartment, and be moved out by the time I got back.’
“When he was leaving me, I asked him, ‘Why did you lie? Why did you say you loved me and recite vows to me on our wedding day if you never had intentions of seeing it though?’ He replied, ‘It takes two to have a dysfunctional relationship.’ He was right. I wasn’t dysfunctional any longer.”
‘Motherhood is not a funeral to your old life. You don’t need to mourn it anymore. What makes ME happy? No more guilt.’
“Do you ever sit down at the end of the night, after wiping down another counter, and think, where have I gone? When the only time you have to yourself is the 5 minutes you lay in bed utterly exhausted and fight to stay awake to just have one minute, one second, to be yourself again. Do you ever miss the old you? Me too.”
‘Are you ok tonight?’ I was in the grocery store trying to pretend everything was OK, but it wasn’t. I was bawling my eyes out. ‘This isn’t a forever feeling.’ I’m so grateful to you.’
“I was afraid to leave my house without my husband. ‘I know this is hard for you,’ he would say. ‘Can you tell yourself that you’re safe?’ ‘No,’ I would respond. I reached out as a bit of a last-ditch effort, right there in the grocery store, tears running down my face. The response was incredible. Those women saved me.”
‘Are you sleeping with my husband?’ My baby was 4 months old and she needed her daddy. She dropped a bombshell. They immediately updated their relationship status on Facebook.’
“I’d walk in from work to find them giggling in the kitchen. Just when I thought life couldn’t get any better, I found out I was pregnant. She grinned. ‘Anytime you want me to babysit, I’d be happy to.’ She looked me straight in the eye. ‘I thought you should know…’ she began.”
‘During our photo shoot, a man screamed, ‘Dirty terrorists! Leave my country!’ He was an older gentleman, and looked absolutely disheveled, pointing at us. We were caught off guard.’
“He pulled out his privates while giving us the middle finger. We were shocked, mortified, and disgusted by what we had seen. But we are professionals at what we do. We continued on with our shoot. The man started approaching closer and closer.”
‘My boss said, ‘PLEASE wear makeup like other girls. And do something about your hair.’ It felt intentionally hurtful. ‘Don’t you see it? We’re immigrants. Other staff don’t get treated like we do!’
“I loved my frizzy, wavy mane. I protested and the mind games started. Gossiping to other staff about me. Asking to have me fired daily when I did nothing to deserve being fired. It got personal.”
‘I made my way to the sports aisle and hurried to lift my top. ‘How dare you expose yourself to my husband like that,’ a woman snarled. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’
“One mom said, ‘Do you think she knows who the father is? I mean, look at how nonchalantly she is walking about with her breast out. That says a lot about her morals.’ Mortified, I left the store, leaving everything I had in the cart. I remember thinking, ‘Did I do something wrong?’”