My Parents Refused to Separate
36-minute read.
This story was written by Anonymous at 24 years old. His parents never separated. He gave permission for his story to be shared. Names have been changed to respect their anonymity.
HIS STORY
I was born into a Catholic family and am the middle kid of 5 (all sisters). I’ll begin with some background. My parents began fighting when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I wasn’t sure why, but me and my sisters could tell there was something going on. For the first year, it was mostly tense moments and hushed arguments between them. By the time I was about 10 years old, they had evolved into shouting and screaming matches. All of us kids began to pick up on why they were fighting. Me and my sisters began to put the pieces together from our parents shouting about their issues. It turns out my dad had been viewing pornography the entirety of their 17 years of marriage and my mom had found out recently. This was after 6-7 really terrible miscarriages and the (nearly miraculous) birth of our youngest sister in 2010. My mom’s world was shattered. She felt betrayed and deceived. My dad would continue to maintain that he was a changed man and was no longer looking at it.
That same year, I found my dad’s pornography. I can’t imagine the introduction of pornography is easy or not traumatic to any young child. But I found my dad’s. I was devastated. I was scared and confused and utterly lost. I had been a good kid, trying my hardest to pray and serving Mass regularly. But the temptation was too great for me. I remember the absolute hatred I felt for my dad later that night, but I knew it was also directed at myself. How could I do that? I realized the source of my parents’ arguing was due to her distrust of him. He would maintain that he had given it up and was no longer looking at it. Obviously lying to her.
I watched their marriage fall apart, held captive by fear and disgust with myself. I was struggling with my purity and regularly failing, only to be consistently persecuted by my conscience, telling me that it was my fault they were fighting. Every time they fought, I would be tormented with my failure to speak up, to say anything. I watched my mom slowly fall into a depressed state within the next year. My siblings and I stepped up to help with my youngest sister while my mom would stay in her room for longer and longer at a time, miserable and hurting. I believed this was my fault, that I could fix this, except that I was too weak to say anything. I was terrified of the consequences and kept quiet because I did not know what would happen if it was brought to light. I had no one to share with, I spent nights alone in my room, listening to them fighting and I started sneaking out of the house at night to the car where the porn was — a coping mechanism. Anything to distract myself. Other times I used to walk through our yard and on the back roads, trying to distract myself any way possible. There was no relief.
My sisters shared a room and I used to imagine going in there and hanging out, but I couldn’t because I held myself responsible in part for their pain and suffering. I was the one hiding this information from my parents and holding everyone hostage between my parents’ constant fights. I was scared that if I said anything, they would separate and it would be my fault, but them fighting was my fault because I said nothing. No matter what I did, I hurt my family, my parents, and myself. It felt like I was holding my family captive to serve my own desires and as a result of my failures.
Over this time, I would resign myself to fixing their marriage. I didn’t know how to go about it, but it was what I put my hope in. I tried everything I could. I shouted, got angry, wrote them an (obviously written by me) anonymous letter — placed discreetly in our mailbox from a “concerned neighbor” telling them how they were hurting their kids. Each month that passed by was another month of failure, another month of being incapable of making a change. But I refused to give up. My entire family refers to me as the most stubborn person to exist. I needed to be, because to stop throwing myself against a brick wall in an attempt to make a difference was to give up on hope. To give up on peace and happiness. I fought and I fell, and got back up, again and again. This continued for 4 terrible years. All the self-hate. The late nights reading books until I literally passed out with the light on and slouched over my book because I could not fall asleep. My mind would not turn off, or my parents were fighting, or I simply needed a distraction.
Soon after I had discovered the porn, I wrote off my dad. I began to look up to my friends’ dads and I thank God that I got to experience (even briefly) the beauty of a holy and happy marriage, even if it left me with a greater sense of longing and the accompanying despair at the absence of it. I had also been serving every Sunday and most weekdays by the time I was 9 and had developed great respect for my pastor at the time, Fr. M. Despite me acting out throughout my childhood and teen years, despite my anger and rebellious nature, the one person who I always respected was Fr. M. During a time that I was convinced of my fault and burdened with shame and guilt, he encouraged me to keep being holy, to keep fighting, always believing that I was capable of great things which I desperately needed to believe.
By the time I was 8-9, I had begun to consider priesthood, without really recognizing the true nature of it. I just knew that every time I served, there was a peace that would have me longing for it throughout the week at home. Serving Mass became my safe haven. I looked forward to every weekend and the chance to serve again. Soon after, Fr. encouraged me to consider being a priest. I was now presented with another issue: I felt a strong desire to it, but was convinced in my heart that I was a bad person because of my home life and my struggles with purity. I felt isolated; I did not know holy people struggled with porn. I knew the turds in my sports all joked about this stuff and talked about it without concern, but they weren’t Catholic. I knew this was a major deal, but I was terrified of talking about it. It was so closely linked to my parents. My parents had tried to maintain their social standing, pretending like everything was fine, but talking to their friends and sharing info about the other to their circles. This widened the gap between them and I believe sealed the coffin.
Every Sunday at church, their kids would be in the choir, serve, or be part of the various groups and we would get compliments that only left a sour taste with all of us. They were unwilling to simply sit and have an honest conversation with each other. I thought the solution was so simple — just to sit and talk to each other, and it angered me when they would passive-aggressively mention the other or confide in anyone but themselves. They began to separately pull the kids aside and talk to us, apologize, or complain about the other parent.
This despair continued for 4 years, seeing the steady disintegration of our family life. I still believed this was my fault and resigned myself to dealing with it, but also continued to try and protect my sisters if I could. Our mom would take us to the library about 3 times a week and we would get books. I realized this was an opportunity to try and find a solution. I read about everything, both as a distraction and as a means of helping. I brought books home and would read till I passed out. Books about psychology, philosophy, theology, etc. In this search, I came across the cynics and from there would pick up the Enchiridion and the Stoics. As someone who was struggling daily to convince himself there was hope — and constantly being disappointed — I was drawn into the abyss of indifference that was initially cynicism and eventually became stoicism. This was a way to feel happy! Finally, I was being offered a sure-fire way to remove the constant hurt and pain, the loneliness and shame/guilt. The answer was so simple: to not care. I could have peace if I simply convinced myself I didn’t care about my family, or my ethics, my sisters, my parents, anything. None of them were something I could control. What felt like a lifetime consisting only of failure to have a good effect confirmed me in this delusion. I was never capable of doing them any good to begin with. I was only responsible for myself and my happiness. I’m ashamed to say that it did supply me relief to be so selfish and care only about myself.
I began to analyze myself, recognizing where in my life I was “bound” by feelings of obligation and fondness. I began what I called detachment from my concerns. My family? Merely people I was randomly allotted to assist in my development. Not people who had any impact on myself or my emotions unless I let them. I wrote my first psychological self-evaluation when I was 12 and at the prodding of various books, began to research deeper into philosophy and psychology as I believed it was the cure to my world being a mess. It became the new source of hope. If I could just understand it all better, there was bound to be some solution and an offering of peace and happiness. I thank God that I found stoicism because it primed me for all of the progress to come. However, first came the overcorrection. I began to attack the principle of sympathy — and eventually empathy — as a means to find relief from my guilt. I hyper-fixated on the faults associated with dependency, damning it in all regards, and started to cognitively and physically disassociate myself from all forms of dependency. Dependency from my parents, family, friends. I only needed myself; this was possible, relief was possible, so long as I never counted on anybody. I could never be disappointed.
Except that I knew deep down, no matter how hard I tried, I needed others just as I was compelled to help others. If my sister or friend were struggling, I couldn’t bring myself to justify letting them struggle alone. No matter how selfish I tried to be, focusing on only what I wanted to do or have, I couldn’t bring myself to dismiss others’ needs. I was not perfect at this by any means, but I remember reading the life of St. Don Bosco and being inspired every time I read it, over and over. His life of service and complete surrender to God, his life of service to those poor boys whom I likened myself to. I began to have a great love and desire for the priesthood, to emulate what I read about. To be a source of comfort and a caregiver to those in need. In desolation, I found Don Bosco, the caretaker who watched over me throughout my struggles and low points. Who had a love for boys like me that I so desperately wanted to experience. In St. Don Bosco’s life story, there is mention of another Saint who I credit my life and happiness to: St. Dominic Savio. A sickly boy with nothing, no one to care for him, no family except for a kindly priest and father-figure, Don Bosco. But who remained resolute, never bending, never faltering under attacks and derision. Who, when he saw friends arguing and reaching for stones with which to bash each other’s heads in, stepped in between them and quelled the fight, saying that if they were to throw stones at each other, they must be thrown through him. This young man was capable of what I spent my childhood trying to do. I longed to be like St. Dominic Savio, to stand up between my parents and bring about some miraculous change.
I began to recognize that stoicism at its best failed to satisfy the needs of the human condition. I did believe stoicism held truths about resilience and concern, so I began looking further into it. Eventually, in my later teen years, when I was about 14-15, I came across Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and its successor Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Through CBT (the therapy, not the drug), I found a source of hope. I knew I was going through things and I knew I needed help, but I was still unable to ask for it, so I began — quite clumsily — treating myself.
Now it is important to take a moment to mention my pastor once more. When I look back at my life, he seems to be the only constant. An unwavering symbol of pastoral and fatherly care. I really began to look at Fr. M not as just a priest, but as my father figure. As a teenager, I distinctly remember deciding that Fr. M was a man that I would like to be like someday. He was the virtuous role model I was longing for, and I learned a lot about what it meant to be a man from watching him. Many say he is a bit of a hard-ass, but to a young boy looking for a father — Fr. was a wonderful example of fatherhood and a real source of consolation to my troubled childhood. One of the only reasons I am not in jail or worse. I was also beginning to understand what the priesthood meant and continued to feel a strong pull to discernment of it. In this, I was encouraged by Fr. M and so I began to read, pray, and discern the priesthood when I was about 14 years old.
But shame persists through every obstacle; my parents’ relationship got really bad and every once in a while, my mom would be so angry, she would take the car and leave for the night or a couple of hours. Things were bad and I regressed into a miserable state. At this same time, my struggles with pornography were debilitating. Removing the joy I had been receiving from Mass and the Sacraments, while also making me feel like a liar — like my dad — every time someone said I was a good kid, or Fr. encouraged me to be a priest. I soon dreaded serving. Every time I was told I should be a priest, I was struck with sorrow because I couldn’t imagine how I could possibly be worthy.
I had been in a boys’ high school youth group with two friends for a year or so before we went to Georgia for a national conference. It was there that a group of teenage boys all openly and honestly shared their struggles with pornography and masturbation. I was dumbfounded, awestruck. I had no clue others struggled to the extent that I did. My world and years of shame were turned upside down as I tried to process this. My close friend then shared his own struggles and I was next. I was being asked to be honest about something I had spent years covering up, pushing down, and associating so much guilt and shame with. I felt like I was not only admitting to struggling with porn but also outing my family’s dysfunction. I WAS PETRIFIED. And I still feel such disgust for myself in that moment because I looked at all of these guys and my close friends in the eyes and I lied. I lied about the porn to those who had been so honest with me. It destroyed me a little bit to have withheld that from them. I told them it wasn’t really something that I struggled with. I was so lost and broken, in my mind, I had become my dad. I had lied to those who cared for me and betrayed my friendship with others. I spent an hour walking around alone before I found a young adult leader who had traveled with us. I broke down and needed to prove that I was a good person, so I told him I was struggling with porn and needed help. God bless him, he had no clue what to do with that info and I don’t blame him. He never brought it up after that night and neither did I. I was once again miserable because nothing had changed and I had still betrayed the trust of my friends.
A week after we got back, we went on a boys’ camping retreat where I was surrounded by the guys I had lied to. I was miserable and depressed. I couldn’t bear to be near them and didn’t have the strength to ask for help again. I constantly wandered off to be alone because I hated myself every time I was near them. One morning, I snuck down to the river and sat there alone while everyone else was eating breakfast. I remember sitting there and just feeling the waves of misery running through me. I felt physically and mentally numb, like nothing mattered and even if it did, I wasn’t capable of anything. I remember thinking about going back home, but thinking that there was no way I could. I couldn’t live there. I never wanted to leave the spot I was sitting, if only to never go home again.
During this, Fr. M walked down the hill and joined me. I don’t know why he was down there — it could have been because my mom or dad had been to spiritual direction with him to complain about each other, so he was keeping an eye on me. Or maybe he saw me sulking and was concerned. Or maybe he just wanted time alone and I surprised him by being there. After some light pleasantries and a silence, he asked me out of the blue:
“Are you melancholic?”
He had asked in a delicate, almost playful manner. I do not know if he was asking to test the waters or if he was just making fun of me for sitting alone. But I was stunned. I didn’t know how to respond because I was so much more than that. He sat with the brief silence and pressed:
“Do you know what melancholic means?”
That — for some reason — pushed me out of my stupor and I arrogantly replied:
“Yes, I know what melancholic means, Fr.”
Other kids began walking down to join us at this point, but I was left with a multitude of emotions. I had wanted to break down right in front of Fr. and tell him everything, to ask him to help me. I had felt a warm and comforting feeling of genuine concern from him. I have always been a reserved kid when it came to emotions (except for anger) and was very good at masking my pain. But for the first time, I had let it slip. I was being asked how I was doing with genuine concern, from someone who had always been there for me, from someone who did not use me as fodder in their arguments. Concern from someone who loved me unconditionally, from the man who showed true fatherhood in his example and pastoral care. I was struck by that and within the next 5 minutes I had decided I would tell him everything and ask him what I should do. He was to be the St. Don Bosco to my St. Dominic Savio.
After that decision alone, there was already a sense of consolation being given to me. I chased that. Throughout the entire day, I kept looking for an opportunity to pull Fr. aside or for an opportunity to talk in private. Eventually that night, I resolved to talk to him during Exposition while he was hearing confessions. We were outside near the waterfall and I remember trembling with fear as my feet dragged walking up the small hill to the “confessional.” I encountered a rush of every thought possible, designed and pointed to deterring me from sharing. Every question of my self-worth, every failure, every weakness, and my inability to do things. Through the grace of God, I persisted. I walked up and pulled the chair set up for me so that instead, we were face-to-face. I unloaded my situation and failures and struggles. For the first time in my life, I was sharing everything. There was relief from my burden. I asked for help and was completely honest for the first time in my life. I will spare the details of the confession except to say that Fr. showed fatherly love in his concern, and for the first time in my life, there was someone I could lean on. I could ask for help and there was someone who would look out for me.
Fr. asked me to find him after confession and talk to him again (in respect for the Seal of Confession). I will not even try to describe the joy I felt. I am still unable to express my feelings into words as I waited to talk to Fr. after Benediction. Afterwards, Fr. walked off a little ways from the group and made sure that he gave me the opportunity to talk to him. In that conversation, he asked me if I would like him to talk to my dad about the porn. To this day, I cannot thank him enough for being willing to do that for me. It might have been just a difficult conversation for him to have with his parishioner, but for me, this was the single hardest thing I had ever wanted to do and had never been able to overcome. The following weekend after we had returned from the retreat, Fr pulled my dad aside and talked to him about his porn. My dad and I would later sit down and he would talk to me about it and apologize. I was not capable of forgiving him in that moment, and there didn’t seem to be any change. In fact, I had to be the one to get rid of some of the pornographic CDs. I somewhat melodramatically broke them and burned them one night, about a week after.
Things were good for a while. My relationship with my parents was strained, but gone were the days of feeling guilty for their problems and the struggles of my family. I made progress in the pursuit of chastity for the first time in my life. Things seemed like they were on the right track. I began to wrestle with concerns about my worthiness to become a priest and I began to take a closer look at my motivations and where I would like to be in the future. I became convinced that my desire for the priesthood was simply a product of trauma-induced idolization of my father figure and not a genuine call. I believed there might be a real avoidance and fear of marriage that I was hiding from by pursuing priesthood, and so I decided that I needed to carefully examine myself and work through some things first before I went through with it.
But we are still human, and when I was 16, I was put into the Running Start program at a nearby community college. If you aren’t familiar with it, essentially you are taking college classes in place of the last two years of high school and — if completed — would graduate with a high school diploma and an Associate’s degree at the age of 18.
What followed, I will simply say, was the lowest point of my life. I very quickly met a bad crowd and started to spiral out of my faith and moral decency. I began dating, and very little of it was done properly. I began to struggle with depression and coped with alcohol and impurity. My family situation had been steadily getting worse. My parents refused to separate, but were unable to even have simple conversations without venom and arguments ensuing. They had been living in separate rooms for quite some time and were living as “friends.” Every disagreement had 5 stages:
They argue about how the other person was in the wrong
They each confide in us separately and explain why the other one was wrong
They argue about each other, using the kids as weapons and turning us against each other
They texted/emailed us each an explanation of what happened and what they had done/said to the other person, or an apology
They confronted each other about reaching out to the kids, and this was usually stage 1 of the next fight (or at least fuel for it)
This has remained the case until even today, when I am 24, still getting texts and emails about their disagreements.
I had begun working soon after I started college at 16 and was soon working two part-time jobs and bought a car. I picked up some work under the table in addition to the two other jobs and began skipping classes for work and to party with friends later that night. Throughout all of this, my parents had devolved into nightmares. Unable to bear the other, they had stopped doing anything together and would really only ever fight when they were forced to interact, yet they refused to separate. My mom had spent most of our lives using us as counselors, sharing too much information and burdening us all with things that she needed to talk to a therapist about. My dad had begun pushing himself into our lives and became overbearing. My older sisters left as soon as they were 18, and I became the “guardian” of my younger siblings. I hated every minute of my life at home and tried my hardest not to blame my younger sisters for it. I wanted more than anything to just leave, to even live out of my car rather than continue where I was.
Each of the older kids knew deep down that this was not going to be reconciled. We had lost hope and were in the emotional fetal position for most of our lives already. I began to recognize that my behaviors were building up to something which was going to wreck my life and after a particularly close call with law enforcement, I decided I needed to get away from my life. I needed to get away.
I remember one day specifically where my parents had fought most of the prior day, and on the following day (Sunday), they began to audibly shout at each other directly over my 6 or 7-year-old sister. They were arguing and hurling accusations at each other over who got to bring her to Mass with them, and something inside of me snapped. I was so fed up and I yelled at them, telling them neither of them were taking her but instead I would take her to Mass and they needed to work out their shit. I realized right then and there that my sisters desperately needed me, but I also recognized that I was not strong enough for them. I was crushed for the next year, unsure what I should do. I wanted to be strong enough for them and I stretched myself to the breaking point. Until I decided at 18 that I needed to move out, or else I wasn’t sure what would happen. I have wrestled with the guilt I have felt from leaving my younger sisters for years and I continue to do so.
I moved out at 18, within a week of being offered a room in an apartment with a friend of mine. This was without my high school diploma (because I had skipped a full year of classes) and without giving my parents notice beyond a week.
I spent a year collecting myself and working my ass off to be self sufficient. I got promoted at work and became a nutrition coordinator. I began dating and spent a portion of my life considering married life. Constantly feeling unfulfilled, I began volunteering at my parish again and stopped dating to continue discernment of the priesthood. I can only barely touch on the friendships and brotherhoods I’ve had over the years. A lot of mistakes and dysfunction, mostly borne out of my lack of boundaries and out of my personal issues. I spent that time getting my porn use under control. By the time I was 23, I recognized the need to take control of my education. I went back to a High School+ program and began taking classes while working full time and volunteering at the Church. I decided the HS+ classes were taking too long and got my GED. Immediately after, I started taking college classes again to complete my Associate’s.
About 2-3 years ago, while hanging out with my sister, she broke down and began crying when I asked her how she was. Ultimately, it turned out to be my mom and dad causing her severe anxiety. She could not control her emotions in public and found herself breaking down in public and in front of friends. Now they refuse to separate but are incapable of living harmoniously together. My mom is “suffering” through this for the family and they both are scared of losing the family if they separate, so they are mutually holding each other hostage. This created an awful environment for my youngest sister, who was now living alone at home without any of my other siblings (AKA, no buffer or immediate support). The condo I was renting from a friend was not going to be available in 3 months so I decided to move into my folks’ place for a year leading into the seminary.
This was prefaced by sitting down with my parents and telling them they needed to stop fighting in front of my youngest sister. I had my older sister take the youngest for the night and invited myself over for dinner. I sat down with them and convinced them of hurting their daughter, informing them that she felt isolated and alone, suffering through everything they were blind to. Fighting had become such a routine thing for them, they had no shame in subjecting their daughter to their fighting.
I also informed them that I would be buying my sister a phone and paying for the plan so that she was not sitting alone in her room, crying over our parents fighting in the other room. This phone was something that they would not be able to take away from her, as it was because of them and it would remain under my control. I also told them that I would move in for the remaining year before seminary. I was doing this to be there for her when I could and to essentially (while it was never verbalized) parent them.
HOW HIS FAMILY LIFE IMPACTED HIM
I have spent some time working through this all and discerning, and I have realized that while the past six years have produced fruit, ultimately they were nothing more than actual avoidance of God’s Will in my life. That morning when my sister was sobbing in my car because she couldn’t stand it anymore was too much for me. I saw her struggling through everything that I had dealt with and something inside me broke. Because of this, I have been dealing with a lot of emotions over the past year that I had become quite adept at avoiding, and have been a bit of a mess at times as I try to navigate these emotions while living in the same house that caused me so much discomfort.
I’ve worked through some things throughout my life and a lot of it hasn’t been easy. It is a continual struggle, but in everything, I want to exemplify the consoling heart of Christ to those I will serve in ministry as a priest. I spent a long time convincing myself that my past and pain made me incapable of being a good priest, but I have come to realize that these are what embolden my soul in ministry. The pain that I have experienced is the fuel for the compassionate love of Christ that I am called to offer others. These trials and tribulations experienced through my family are the same things that I hope to be equipped to handle for others. I want and have a call to be what my own pastor was for me.
I still have an unpleasant relationship with my dad and there was definitely some sour feelings about being named after him throughout my entire life.
I developed OCD tendencies later in life. I was a very messy kid while I was living at home, purposely so at times to stick it to my parents. But when I moved out, I fell into the obsessive need for everything to be in its place. This is something that my mom had been doing throughout most of our teenage years as a coping mechanism. If the house was messy, she would spiral out and have a meltdown at times. Shouting and unable to control her emotions. She was unable to control anything else except the house’s cleanliness and I began to do the same in my late teen years as I was struggling with a sense of helplessness and lack of control.
I utilized many things throughout the years as coping mechanisms or distractions. Notably: porn, alcohol, work, and sweets. I began drinking at 16 with some friends and it quickly became an outlet to forget my issues. Porn has always been a coping mechanism since I was a young kid, and I had no moderation at all as a kid. I was seemingly unable to help myself around sweets, often getting in trouble for stealing desserts. I would put all of my money into candy bars or ice cream as a kid and would often end up eating 2-3 full-sized candy bars in one sitting. I can still recognize this as a coping mechanism as I often find myself listlessly strolling through store aisles and sugar loading whenever I feel off or sad.
I had an unhealthy feeling of responsibility for my family’s well-being, which put my own at risk. I was unable to enjoy my own life because I was so fixated on my family and their issues that I regularly overlooked or allowed their issues to cloud my personal life and progress.
I’ve seen this play out in my relationships and even friendships where there is a real fear that love is something that can be taken away at the slightest inconvenience. I felt the need to check in at the smallest disagreements and problems. Eventually, some friendships became relationships of tense and awkward neediness for validation of love.
I sought conflict or to be contrarian throughout my entire life. Always picking fights and would be willing to stubbornly argue my point till others gave up on me because there is a corrupt sense of comfort in conflict.
FINDING HEALING
I have been working as a youth and young adult minister for the past year, leading into the seminary where I will begin this July. I have been working diligently to adequately deal with my past. But it is an incredibly slow process, as until two years ago, I had been in denial of the pain that I had been feeling. I still find myself fighting to control my emotions over simple things.
I recently went to Seek 2025 and found myself crying in a seat at Joey’s talk. I had tried to find a time to meet him and thank him in person throughout that entire conference, but couldn’t make it work between the shifts at the booth where I was volunteering. However, the last day of the conference, as we were leaving, my boss had ordered an Uber and it ended up being too small for us all to fit, so I volunteered to stay behind and wait for another car. As our ride pulled up, my friend and I were walking to the Uber from our hotel when Joey walked right in front of me to his own ride to the airport. I was struck by the opportunity. Without being able to help myself, I interrupted him loading his bags into the trunk to introduce myself and thank him. I want to echo those thanks once more by saying that Restored’s work is appreciated and truly a source of consolation and inspiration to me.
I had been recommended to read Dr Bob Schutts when I was 16 by my spiritual director and quickly found Jason Evert, before being introduced more recently to Restored and Joey’s work through their collaboration. I have listened, cried, and been moved by many of Restored’s podcasts, as I have been so unable to express any of the thoughts or feelings that I have had to those around me, especially to those people that I am trying not to hurt, but am unable to explain why I acted the way I did. Your podcasts and book have been the explanation for my struggles and weaknesses that I have been unable to voice to those I love and have hurt.
Are you interested in sharing your story with Restored? If so, click the button above. Sharing your story can help you begin healing.
Be assured: Your privacy is very important to us. Your name and story will never be shared unless you give explicit permission.
