“When he would chase me around the apartment with a shotgun, I thought it was normal. When he confronted me about scabs and boils all over his body, I thought he needed to go to a clinic – maybe he had an STD?”
‘I’m done helping you, brother. You had kids, and we all thought it would change you. It won’t be me who funds your final hit.’: Man shares emotional journey through brother’s battle with addiction
‘I still love you.’ When he was 13, he told me he was pansexual. I wasn’t sure what steps I should take as his mother.’: Mom of pansexual son encourages others ‘to celebrate our similarities and differences’
“I wanted to prove to Adrian that there is support for him beyond what he saw. Most people have heard that a number of transgender people will attempt suicide. Regardless, this is simply not a risk I was willing to take.”
‘He was my first baby. Sometimes I think, hell, just OD already. I didn’t raise you this way. I wait for that final phone call. Then I hate myself even more.’
“My son is homeless, living on the street, with who knows how little warm clothing. Is he even still alive? I drive by his haunts. He hangs out by my work neighborhood often. How does that make me feel? Like he wants to be close, but oh so far away.”
‘She’s just a nervous child.’ The words still burn. I was 13, about to start high school. But I was different. My life was consumed with excruciating pain, diarrhea, and the toilet.’: Woman recounts her struggle with chronic illness
“I was standing in the kitchen alone. My phone rang. Assuming it was my husband, I answered. But it wasn’t my husband. All I could do was freeze. I was in shock. I hadn’t processed his words until I heard the ‘click.’ My body shook as I collapsed.”
‘Hi, I was 5 minutes away from calling you.’ Our baby’s heart was not sitting on the left side of her chest, but shifted to the right side. My stomach dropped with those words.’
“Silently, he began drawing on a blank piece of paper. When he was done, he turned to us, showed us his drawing, and began explaining what our future would look like. I started bawling. But we knew we needed to do it.”
‘As I wheeled away, I was squeezing the hand of a stranger. Finally, my husband was allowed in. ‘She’s beautiful,’ nurses said as they whisked her away. She never cried.’
“I will never forget going to get a pedicure on our anniversary. I thought, ‘Okay, this will be a time to relax,’ then in walks a woman, 34 weeks pregnant, due just around when I was supposed to be due. She was glowing and I was sinking… fast.”
‘Extreme people pleaser here. I’m addicted. It’s desperate, honestly. ‘Will they like me?’ ‘Do they want me?’ ‘Did I say something stupid?’
“Not in a ‘Ohhhhh, she is so sweet! She just takes care of the people around her’ kind of way. But in a ‘I’m addicted, and I don’t know how to function without it’ kind of way. It’s not good. Not for me. Not for my family. Not for my friends. I don’t want their approval. I need their approval.”
‘I met an older couple before our flight. They had the unfortunate chance of sitting next to us. Sofia is truly the devil’s child, and acted accordingly.’
“My children had never flown before. Sofia hates loud noises and is spooked easily. I was really worried.”
‘We were two girls having fun, or so we thought. We loved each other at 16-years-old.’: Young women fall in love in secret and worry about their love being ‘accepted’
“I was sick of being a secret, as if it was wrong or dirty, as if our love wasn’t acceptable. I returned home to find a sign on my gate door saying, ‘this way to happy ever after.’ I thought nothing of it. Zaynah stood there looking as pretty as a picture with a Build-A-Bear teddy and a rose which said, ‘I Love You, Will You Marry Me?’“
‘Come get her. I don’t want her. I can’t afford her,’ but she always took her back. Years went by. Then I got a phone call.’: Woman reunites with the ‘daughter’ she was meant to adopt
“I got on the bus. A pregnant woman was struggling with trash bags and 2 toddlers. After talking with me for 20 hours, she was open to me adopting her child. I was over the moon!”
‘He swears he won’t do it again. He’s broken over this. I deserved it. It’s okay. My jaw isn’t bruised that bad.’
“The two extremes of how you loved me so gently, and also tore my soul to shreds so easily. When you punched me so hard I couldn’t close my mouth. How could you be both those things in one man – and how could I love someone who healed me, and hurt me, all in the same movements.”
‘There was a catch. This boy was technically a man. At 20-years-old, our sexual relationship was illegal. After hiding our meetups, I came home to find a police officer on my couch.’: Woman learns to love herself after tumultuous relationships
“My first true love went to jail, and I became a small-town girl with an over-sexualized reputation. Teachers hit on me. Dads from the daycare I worked at stalked me. I was ridiculed, taunted, labeled easy. Enter more boys.”
‘It’s just something everyone does and I was better at it than most. It was a bandage covering a gaping wound I refused to address. Deep down, I knew.’
“Escaping anxiety, suppressing depression, avoiding life for just a few hours. But what Jessica wants to do in the end is always what Jessica is going to do.”
‘But that won’t be the case for you,’ he said. I was 18 weeks pregnant when I was told to ‘just terminate’ the life of my unborn baby.
“I was told to terminate his life because there was very little chance he would survive pregnancy. And if by some miracle he did, he would most certainly endure a life of suffering marked by severe disabilities.”
‘I completely forgot I was pregnant, or that I was even married. I was only 21. It was a nightmare.’: Woman suffers amnesia in car accident
“The day before we were to be induced we were hit head on by a fatigued driver. We were a mile down the road when we were hit head on. We were in my hometown for my little sister’s high school graduation, preparing our soon-to-be home before our sweet baby girl’s due date.”
‘She seemed off. Not eating, stomach aches, lying around. The pediatrician basically laughed at Tim, confused why they were there. How did all the doctors miss it?’
“It started with a fever, and then her limp would get bad and she would be up all-night crying and screaming in pain. Eventually she slept in our bed because I couldn’t keep going back and forth to her room. What about our other daughter, Lily?! We were going to have a new baby almost any time! I immediately left the room and sobbed.”
‘Dad needs you! There’s water everywhere!’ I run downstairs, my husband is on his knees under the sink, water gushing all over everything! ‘Where’s the valve to shut it off?’ ‘We need the ‘special key!’
“I run outside, half naked, looking around in the moonlight for this shut-off valve… I throw on some clothes and grab my phone to Google. ‘You had time to put on skinny jeans?!?’”
‘I’m busy right now,’ he said. I describe my 11-year-old as a slug of a boy. He was playing on the laptop, wearing sweatpants, on the sofa, feet on the coffee table.’: Father realizes he’s never been ‘prouder’ of his son
“‘No, you’re not,’ I said. There was a fight, moaning, excuses… the usual. He looked at me with flat eyes, his hood up, shoulders slumped, and said, ‘Why do we have to do this?’ The next day, my wife sent me this picture.”
‘I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve him. Anyone could do this better. I harbored fantasies about escape, vanishing, and death.’
“The light switch on how to be a mom would never flip. I felt like a fraud. Someone should do this instead of me. There IS NO light switch.”
‘You’re really lucky you came in today, because something is definitely wrong.’: Woman strives to overcome unexpected Hodgkin’s Lymphoma diagnosis
“The day was Friday the 13th and I STILL had this annoying, itchy, dry cough. ‘They want me to go to the hospital. They don’t want me to drive there, and they want me to go now,’ I nervously explained to my husband. All I can think is WHAT IS GOING ON? About 30 minutes later a doctor and a nurse come in. ‘We think it’s cancer,’ they said. After that, I blacked out.”
‘My husband looked at me with tears in his eyes. ‘You have no idea what it’s like watching you slowly die and there’s nothing I can do about it.’ To the outside world, no one knew what was happening to us.’
“After all the years he fought for our country and for his wife, he deserved more than being stuck with a sick wife in a drug coma stuck on the couch. Never in a million years would I have anticipated what would come next.”
‘I see a news report about a child who was abandoned in a parking lot after a woman fled on foot. I immediately recognized the photo of ‘Baby Jenkins.’ It was Tyler.’
“My cousin had actually given Tyler away to this other woman, because she could not handle taking care of a newborn. I was shocked and obviously did not understand the gravity of the situation. I called 911.”
‘There’s a picture of you with a shawl around your head. Why are you wearing that?’ I was scared to tell her.’: Daughter converts to Islam, keeps decision from her mom because she ‘didn’t want to hurt her feelings’
“I had sent in my application and a few weeks later, my mom called me to tell me there was an envelope in the mail for me. Not knowing what it was, I told her to go ahead and open it. I was no longer living a secret life. I could be free with my mom now, or so I thought… When others started learning about my conversion, they’d put bad thoughts into my mom’s head.”
‘While waiting to board our plane, my daughter was being her inquisitive self, meeting and saying ‘Hi’ to everyone she could, until she walked up on this man.’
“This wasn’t a short, little exchange.”
‘He went pale, stuttered and said, ‘Ma’am, one of your baby’s is in your birth canal, feet first.’ People started flying in. I begged him to give them more time.’: Mom’s son diagnosed with cerebral palsy is her ‘fighter’
“By the time the helicopter arrived, conditions were too dangerous. I assumed we would be rushed, lights blazing and sirens blasting to the next hospital. I kept asking when a doctor would get around to me. A resident finally came in. His face immediately gave him away.”