“People are constantly telling you how you should feed your kids. When does it all stop? I felt the need to please everyone, all the time. I became a pleaser. For the fear of letting anyone down, I did whatever I could to make everyone happy. Meanwhile, I was losing myself.”
‘Why are you still nursing her? Isn’t she too OLD for that?’ Mom shamed for breastfeeding 1-year-old daughter
‘My phone rings. ‘I don’t have time for this. I need to get my kids.’ Then my mouth dropped. We were greeted by 2 officers as we drove down the long gravel driveway.’
“I had already popped a bunch of pills and drank a bunch of Vodka. ‘I want to see him!’ I screamed, shaking profusely. My mom said, ‘No, you don’t. He shot and killed himself with a 12-gauge shotgun in his mouth.’ I look at my phone. It reads, ‘I love you.’ 6:24 pm.”
‘You were sending me strange text messages. I returned home to you acting even stranger. The paranoia set in. You accused me of infidelity. I did not recognize this man screaming at me.’
“I got the boys from school. We went straight home. I could feel your presence had been there. I went into your closet and your guns were missing. Two hours later, there was a knock on our door. I looked out the peep hole and there was a man dressed nicely with a manila envelope.”
‘At 7 months pregnant, I found messages online to a dozen women, telling them he hated me, wished I was dead. He was my best friend, and had promised we could co-parent.’
“He cheated with lots of women, without protection, one of them had an STD. I spent months trying to love a baby that had the face of the person who ruined my life. And then I had an idea – Turns out my daughter was not all him, she was a lot of me too.”
‘My friends invited me for a weekend getaway. I got a few itchy bites. ‘Are you pregnant?’ ‘Maybe it’s bacterial?’ This was a disease I had never heard of. There is NO cure for it.’
“I assumed it was the flu. I drank plenty of fluids and stayed in bed. But I wasn’t getting better. I had shooting pains all the way up my spine, as if someone was sawing me open. I went back to the doctor. ‘I think it’s food poisoning.’ ‘Maybe cancer.’ ‘HIV.’ ‘Is it possible you’re pregnant?’ No.”
‘After a short drive, he stopped the car. I thought I’d done something wrong. I’d been giggling with excitement, but that was about to change. The next minute, I spiraled out of control.’
“He carefully groomed me, became my friend and the father figure I was missing. But there was a price to pay. He was everywhere I went. I kept quiet about our secret.”
‘A woman had a home that was ‘perfect for a couple that isn’t together, to live together.’ 2 years from the day I moved out, we moved back in together, as a co-parenting family.’
“The first night, Onyx cried out and before I could rush to his side, Tyler was already there soothing him back to sleep. I knew in that moment that although this was unconventional, this was right for us.”
‘I didn’t know then, as he held me in his arms, that less than 5 years from that night he would be dead.’
“I didn’t know this moment would be one of the few. When our babies fell asleep, and we’d have enough energy to dance in the kitchen, suds still on my hands from the dishes as he would pull me away from the sink when his favorite song would come on.”
‘I went to church. We ate dinner as a family every night. And yet, I became an alcoholic and drug addict’
“At this point cocaine was the drug of choice, though I would take any drug offered to me, and alcohol was a constant.”
‘I’m never ever ever EVER, doing yoga again.’
“I farted. I farted at yoga. I’m a walking cliche. My pelvic floor has failed me.”
