“After a year of living on the street, strangers approached me and said, ‘We want to take you to school.’ Coming from an abusive household, I had never really learned to trust. I said yes, not really sure what I was agreeing to. I had no home, hope, future, and they gave me all of that and more. I knew I wanted to do the same for other kids.”
‘My father sent me out for cigarettes. I decided to run away. I needed to find a place he’d never find me.’: Man rescued from abusive family, returns favor by fostering children in need
‘I cleared out my boyfriend’s savings.’: After losing love of her life, child trauma survivor overcomes kleptomania addiction
“Please understand that people like me are not evil. We just come from it. And we spend our entire lives running away from it, never realizing when we slowly start to become it.”
‘This was the house we intended to raise our babies in. We were here to stay. But then he died.’
“I joke that we really bought my clawfoot tub and the house came with it. We had only moved in 6 months ago and we were so excited to make it our own. Then everything I thought was real disappeared before my eyes. Until I then I saw this.”
‘I lied to you,’ my fiancé said. ‘It has all been a lie.’ I felt sick to my stomach. He told me there had been another incident with the woman from work. Turns out, that was the LEAST of my problems.’
“‘I don’t want to get involved in a relationship with you until she is out of the picture,’ I told him. I asked him outright, ‘Is there anything I should be worried about?’ He reassured me, ‘no.’ I could see there was something on his mind. Nothing prepared me for what followed.”
‘I spent my whole life wanting time to speed up, wanting to be somewhere else. Now, here I am. Laying in my 2-year-old’s room, staring at him with tears rolling down my face.’
“In high school, I couldn’t wait to get to college. When I got to college I couldn’t wait to be a working adult. When I fell In love, I couldn’t wait to get married. When all of that happened, I couldn’t wait to start a family. Now, it’s just my baby in my arms. I rock him for ME.”
‘She’s been promising her baby to 4 other families.’ We’d been scammed by our birth mother. Tears streaming, I hoped it was a bad dream. All I wanted was to be a mother.’
“At that same ultrasound, while holding the hand of another adoptive mother, she was texting me details of the visit and sex of the baby. She’d ‘panic’ and ask for more money so she wouldn’t change her mind and take him away from us. She knew all about me and my infertility. She knew exactly what she was doing.”
‘Do I need to separate you two?,’ the flight attendant asked. WHAT? I looked up, confused. My kid sniffled. ‘Nothing gets better at 30,000 feet,’ she continued.’: Mom hysterically recalls run-in with rude flight attendant
“My first thought was, ‘Does your ATTITUDE, Janet?’ This was all because my 16-year-old daughter had to leave her boyfriend behind to see her sister graduate from COLLEGE. I thought she would ballet leap onto the plane. I was wrong, friends. I was so wrong.”
‘Get down from there.’ ‘Please stop. That is dangerous.’ Aggressive meltdowns led to restraining him to prevent self-harm or harm to others. Finally, we decided to medicate our son.’
“Barring the dangerous, we would not say a word. Nothing. No emotion. Silence. Instead of avoiding a festival or a park because, what if he has a meltdown in public, we say ‘Yes.'”
‘This will be my Dad’s last parade. His heart is failing. ‘Are you coming? I’ll be in my uniform.’: Daughter honors veteran father on Memorial Day
“We were unsure how to tell him he’s too weak to ride through the parade. Then we made the decision – we are going for it. We are putting him in his uniform and into a car, with a nurse, so one last time, he can see what he and his beloved wife did for our little town.”
‘Pardon my smell. This is how I attended my kids’ end-of-the-year school performance. Like a sweaty, hot mess.’
“Today being a special, celebratory event for my munchkins, I probably could have (and maybe should have) dressed up a bit, or at least not looked so wrecked. But, I didn’t.”