I began to feel that I should have had better control of my emotions.

I don’t think they knew how to react to someone so mean and out of control of their emotions.

For a long time every night, I would go to bed and wish I would wake up and it was all a dream. My sense of self and safety was destroyed.

This made my adolescent years a living hell. I experienced strong emotions of mere anger and mere sorrow that resulted in many nights of loud and intense crying and screaming at the top of my lungs.

When I was 3 or 4 years old, my dad sat me down to tell me that he and my mom were no longer going to live together. I simply responded, “Forever?”

I started self-harming, had a string of abusive relationships, unsafe sex with random people, drug addiction, suicidal thoughts and attempts, mental illness, stints in rehabs and psych units, failed friendships, constant relocation, never feeling home/wanted/loved

It is not my fault what happened between my parents. It hurt me and mattered, yes. Yet, it is not the end of my story. There is hope. There is freedom. There is life after this death.