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I was job hunting post-university when I unknowingly applied for a pyramid scheme. It changed my life. I was 20 years old and naive; I thought I should start out in marketing. This pyramid scheme was similar to a multi-level marketing company, but involved door-to-door sales. It’s something I had never envisioned myself doing, but I was lied to for so long that I didn’t realize what I was doing until I felt trapped.

I applied for many jobs, but one company seemed particularly eager. It described itself as a “sales and marketing company” and had a competitive salary and room for growth. Almost immediately I had a Zoom interview with the manager. The interview wasn’t about the job, but about my personality, and I was so charmed that I didn’t question it. I was invited for another interview with the person that would be my team leader—my now-boyfriend, a cheerful Irishman. I was offered the job, but had no idea what I would be doing every day.

On my first day, people were introduced to me as “highrollers,” the ones who made the most money. The highrollers consisted of a 17-year-old boy who was constantly vaping, and two other guys in their twenties. They were pleasant, but they weren’t professional. They spoke in slang and made derogatory comments about women. I was surprised that these were the people I was told to look up to.

The office was bare, with nothing much more than a ping pong table. My training consisted of me standing at a whiteboard learning how to manipulate people. Two other girls and I were encouraged to make people feel guilty that others had signed up to monthly charity donations and they hadn’t. We were also told to “make people feel stupid” for not giving us their bank details.

Getting promoted made me realize all the lies I was told.

Later in the day we went out door-knocking. I gave people my pitches and got them to sign up to a reputable charity. It turned out that I was good at door-to-door sales, and the team I worked with embraced me. At this point I didn’t mind that nobody told me I was only being paid commission, because I was making hundreds weekly. My leader was on a business trip at the time, and when he came back we clicked. I thought things in my life were looking great: I had new friends and I was being told that what I was doing wasn’t just door-to-door sales, but building foundations to start a company of my own.

When I hit the criteria to get promoted, everything changed. I was now interviewing and training people. It made me realize all the lies I was told, because I was telling others that they would be wealthy business owners within months, and they’d be working in a professional setting. Yet I still convinced myself that I wasn’t doing anything wrong because it was for charity.

After my promotion, I got a better understanding of the business. The way it worked was that you would start off as a distributor making sales. The next level is leadership where you have to reach £500 in a week. When you’re a leader you train enough people that you can start your own company, and start the cycle again. The idea of financial freedom was why I was so adamant about sticking with this job, and whenever I complained about the weather or racist remarks I received from someone at their door, I was told by my colleagues and manager that I needed to stop being such a pussy. My manager would ask us why we wanted to have our own companies, and I told her it was to take care of my family. She would use that answer against me later, saying “Have your goals changed?” whenever I came to her with problems.

Things got worse when my boss found out about my romantic relationship with my leader. He was her right-hand man, and if he became a manager, she would be making more money. When people knew about our relationship I was treated differently. I was ignored and spoken about behind my back. I think people were jealous of his favoritism towards me. But I felt like he was the only person I could confide in. Our boss decided the best thing was to move him, and everyone else I worked with, to Belfast. She saw me as a distraction to my boyfriend, and started to see me as a threat when he booked a day off to go to my graduation. He was scolded for it, but we were so brainwashed and didn’t think our manager could be wrong. It was a group of people that all thought the same way, and if you strayed away from them, you were alienated.

My boyfriend was confident that we could make a long-distance relationship work, but our colleagues were not. People told me that I was holding him back. One of the last things my boss called me was a “selfish fucking prick,” due to my poor performance. I stayed in Liverpool to work under another manager in the business. Suddenly nobody wanted me around, and I felt like dead weight in my relationship. I stopped making money and was alone. I struggled to get out of bed every morning to face the 13-hour day I had ahead of me. I got an infection, then a call from my manager in Belfast berating me for leaving work early. The fact that I was so sick that I could barely walk didn’t make a difference: If I didn’t make money for myself, she wouldn’t get her share of my commission.

I realized it was time to go home. I was close with my family, and I wish I had turned to them sooner. My boss said that my family would be a distraction, and our families were lazy for working 9-to-5 jobs rather than hustling like us. My family told me they were worried about how much weight I’d lost. This is the first time I’m admitting that I didn’t eat because I didn’t care enough about myself, or my life, to eat.

My family hated my job, but I needed something bigger to change my perspective. Soon, that something bigger came. When my boyfriend and I went to Ireland so I could meet his family, I discovered I was pregnant. We knew our priority was being good parents, and we had to drop everything we were working towards. I’m glad we did, because we ended up having twins.

I was at this job for just six months. I always thought being a young mom would ruin my life, but it saved my life. I don’t know where I would be now if it weren’t for that positive pregnancy test, because I wouldn’t have left the job for anybody or anything else. It took a lot for me to accept that I was doing something wrong, and that I was enabling other people to do these things in a vicious cycle. This is why young people are targeted in this business: We don’t have as much life experience and can be easier to manipulate. I will never again compromise my morals just because somebody validates me. 

"Wouldn't an IUD be a bit more suitable?" The doctor across the desk looks at me with kind concern. "A lot of young women do change their minds, you see, when they get older."

A different doctor, a different room: "Really the pill is probably the best option for you at this stage of your life." The same condescending smile. 

Another year later: "Condoms do also protect against STIs, you see?" Encouraging nodding is aimed at me from across the nurse’s desk.

Now five years later: "It's very unlikely that we would allow such a permanent procedure at your age." The nurse smiles at me like I am seven years old and have just asked for a pet scorpion, not knowing the harm it will cause me. 

Except I am not seven, and I am not asking for a pet scorpion. I am 33. I have been taking hormonal contraceptives since I was 14 years old, I have been pregnant once, and I have had one abortion. I have never wanted children. I have had nine conversations with various NHS doctors about getting permanently sterilized.

As of today, I have been trying to get medically sterilized for more than 10 years. The NHS will not allow it. Despite my medical records showing that I have not changed my mind for a decade, I am still told by strangers in the health care sector that other forms of contraception would be more appropriate for me and that many women think they don't want children and then change their minds afterwards. 

I do not want children. I do not want to be pregnant. I do not want to adopt. I do not want to be a parent.

Many women also buy lottery tickets and get Botox and enjoy modern art. Am I now, too, obliged to do the same because I am a woman?

I do not want children. I do not want to be pregnant. I do not want to adopt. I do not want to be a parent. This has never changed for me. 

For all of our progress it is still the case that, even in 2024, the idea that a woman doesn't want children is seen as deviant. There is overt gender-essentialist misogyny at work here. It’s the belief that motherhood lies at the center of womanhood: Any woman who rejects motherhood must be sick or insane and cannot be allowed to act on her feelings and preferences.

You might also want to consider my desire for permanent sterilization in the context that there is no constitutional right to abortion in the UK. Not a lot of people know this. In England, abortions can be granted up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, but only if two different doctors agree that continuing the pregnancy would pose a greater risk to the physical or mental health of the pregnant person than the termination. Abortions after 24 weeks are only permitted in very limited and “exceptional” circumstances—things like if the pregnancy poses a risk to the life of the pregnant person. 

In the eyes of the law, I cannot decide on my own that I want an abortion. Two separate doctors—two strangers who do not know me or my life—have to agree between themselves that carrying the pregnancy would have to cause me more harm than having the termination. 

Lately, UK courts have been much more aggressive in prosecuting abortion. Last year, a 44-year-old woman in England was sent to prison for an abortion prescribed to her by the NHS that went horribly wrong. She was prescribed abortion pills over the phone during COVID when face-to-face appointments weren’t possible, but it turned out that she was much further along in her pregnancy than she had told ​​the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. The judge sentenced her to 28 months, but made sure to say that the maximum sentence was life imprisonment. Life. In prison. For an act of desperation that, according to a court of appeals judge who shortened the woman’s sentence, called for “compassion, not punishment.”

Northern Ireland, historically famed for its Catholic oppression of pregnancy health care rights, now has better, stronger laws in place to ensure someone's right to choose than England. Since 2019, abortion is now unconditionally legal up to 12 weeks in Northern Ireland.

England’s refusal to allow permanent contraception and unconditional abortion access exposes a deep-seated misogyny and authoritarian control over women's bodies. I will keep demanding to be sterilized, and pray that I don’t fall pregnant in the meantime and risk facing jail if my abortion goes wrong.

A warning to our readers: This piece deals with serious and disturbing discussions of self-harm. We encourage you to read this story as an act of empathy-building, and please be gentle with yourself.

In November 2018, I lay in bed, sobbing with my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t scare my family, as I Googled “painless suicide methods.”

I felt despair, fear, shame, but also bewilderment and shock that my mental illness had gotten this bad. Three years before, I had been a healthy college graduate with mild anxiety. I had assumed it would be treatable. After all, I thought, I had good healthcare. My dad had been in the army for more than 25 years. As his dependent, I was entitled to receive military health insurance, known as TriCare, until I turned 26. But for many, this benefit comes at a heavy price. It did for me. 

The way the military healthcare system works is strange and confusing. Wait times are interminable and the infrastructure is out-of-date. There’s also an inadequate number of providers. If you want to go to a civilian provider instead, going “on the outside,” as they call it, you have to pay a hefty copay, which rules this out as an option for most people affiliated with the military, including me.

Thus, when I began to experience anxiety shortly after leaving college, I made an appointment at my local military medical center—a one-stop shop where service members and their descendants can see general practitioners and their specialists all under the same roof (not great for privacy, incidentally; I once ran into my boss there).

The department I would be going to was called, tellingly, “Behavioral Health.” I couldn’t make an appointment over the phone, let alone online, so I went in person. They assigned me a psychiatrist, Dr. A. 

The medical center ignored my multiple written requests to switch psychiatrists.

From the start, my experience with her was concerning. She only ever had appointments available at 6 am. I had come in complaining of anxiety. She told me that since I looked tired, moved slowly, and looked at the floor a lot, I must be severely depressed. It did not occur to her that this could be because of the time of the appointment.

She prescribed me a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), Zoloft. I later learned that this was one of the worst things she could have done. SSRIs are antidepressants, but they can sometimes make anxiety worse if given alone. 

She never did give me anything for the anxiety. She never asked about it at all, in fact. When I finally had the presence of mind to bring it up, she insisted there were no drugs available to treat Generalized Anxiety Disorder (aside from benzodiazepines, a class of drugs including Ativan and Xanax, which are dangerous and largely being phased out). In fact, there is an entire non-benzo class of depression medications currently in use, called serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, or SNRIs.

Not surprisingly, my mental health immediately took a nosedive. The racing thoughts that had been at the edges of my brain began to consume me. I couldn’t sleep or eat. I was constantly nauseous. As a result of this, I quickly became depressed, as well. Anxiety leading to depression is a common occurrence. 

I thought that the reason the meds weren’t working was that there must be something wrong with my brain. Maybe I just had bad genes. I figured the doctor knew what she was doing. 

But I kept trying, ignoring her insensitivity and rudeness, until one day, a particularly outrageous and hurtful comment she made finally pushed me over the edge. Crying in the elevator on the way down to the first floor, I knew I could never see her again. 

So, I stopped making appointments, and the Zoloft stopped, too. My anxiety eased a little. But the depression began to spiral out of control. Soon, it had consumed me. I went months without experiencing happiness or hope. The only emotions I could feel were fear, anger, shame, and regret.  

There are, unfortunately, Dr. As everywhere. Her presence, in itself, would not be a damning indictment of the military healthcare system in particular. The problem is how the medical center handled the situation. They ignored my multiple written requests to switch psychiatrists.

I continued to get worse. Finally one night I realized, with frightening clarity, that I could not go on living like this.

I called the counselor I was seeing at the time, the best one I’ve ever had (who, not surprisingly, was from “the outside”—I’d been paying the $60 weekly appointment entirely on my own, even though it was a financial burden). I told her how I’d begun to think frequently and specifically about killing myself. She told me to go to the ER. I took the extra 15 minutes to drive to the one at the military medical center, so I wouldn’t get charged extra.

I said “I’m at risk of suicide” to the receptionist on duty, as quietly as possible, and burst into tears. 

The hospital saw me relatively quickly, although they didn’t exactly drop everything.

It was one of the worst nights of my life. I was terrified they wouldn’t be able to help me. I had exhausted every other possible option. The worst part was that I had to lay it all out on paper. I had to do the thing people are often penalized for in the hiring process — this incident is still on my medical record, after all. But nothing less than telling them there was an immediate risk of me killing myself would make them take action. 

Luckily, an informed, compassionate nurse and doctor said the things I needed to hear that night. They assured me that there was nothing wrong with me, the way I’d been treated was wrong, and my depression and anxiety were absolutely treatable. I was assigned to a new psychiatrist within an hour.

I was staggered. It had been that simple! But it hadn’t been easy. Why had it taken this? 

I also learned that night that I was not the first patient who had wound up in the ER complaining about Dr. A. She had a reputation. As far as I know, though, she’s still working there. She certainly never faced any consequences for what she did to me.

The psychiatrist, who was competent, saw me the next day. I wondered why this had taken so long if the other psychiatrists had openings in their books the whole time. She adjusted my medication and I stabilized. I still didn’t feel great, but I wasn’t suicidal anymore.

Shortly afterward, I aged out of TriCare. Dealing with the civilian healthcare system felt like a vacation. Nobody should have to pay hundreds of dollars a month for health insurance, but it was still a better experience overall than what I’d been dealing with before.

I got to pick my own psychiatrist this time. The difference in quality of care was shocking. I felt like he actually cared about me as a human being, an experience I hadn’t had with any provider in the military system, except the two in the ER. After just a couple of appointments, he diagnosed me with ADHD, which should have been glaringly obvious from the start (he said I was the worst case he’d ever seen). Being put on Ritalin immediately began to ease the racing thoughts that had been torturing me throughout this whole ordeal.

At our second appointment, I mentioned the anxiety to him. It was then that he asked the million-dollar question, the question Dr. A had never asked: “Which is bothering you more — the depression or the anxiety?” 

The anxiety, I told him.

If Dr. A had asked me that from the start, none of this would ever have happened. 

My new psychiatrist put me on an SNRI and within a week I began to feel like myself again. With the anxiety clearing up, my depression swiftly went into remission, too. I’ve been on the mend ever since. I wasn’t depressed because there was something wrong with me. I was depressed because the people I trusted to help me, the entire system, failed me. I am haunted by the thought of how many people could easily have saved me from a disease that nearly killed me at the age of 25, and just didn’t bother. I hold the military healthcare system directly responsible for the fact that I nearly died.

I keep thinking about something my dad said to me a few times. "Si tu n'existais pas il faudrait t'inventer" translates in English to "If you didn't exist, you would have to be invented." My dad used to say that after I made him laugh, always with a tenderness in his voice. I’ve kept this precious memory for decades, but only understood its underlying meaning recently. It was my dad—with his history, education, and fear of being vulnerable—trying to tell his child three terrifying words: I love you.

As far back as I can remember, my parents never told me they loved me. I always thought that life would have been easier for me if, from a young age, I had been told that I was loved by the most important people, like a song you’ve heard so many times that you know it by heart and make it your own. I think this little melody would make it easier to love myself. 

I’ve been trying to understand why some parents can't tell their children they love them. My mom and dad clearly feel unconditional love for their children. Why are they incapable of verbalizing it?

When asking people around me, I realized that I wasn't alone. Some of my friends also haven't been told they were loved in their childhood or even adult lives. While I can't find clear behavioral patterns between them, I can’t help but think that it might be more of a cultural habit; in France, where I come from, people have a reputation of being extremely reserved when it comes to expressing their feelings. I’m happy that all of them are now aware of the importance of expressing verbal affection to a child and sometimes still hope to hear those words—probably to reassure the child they once were who was searching for validation.

My mom and dad clearly feel unconditional love for their children. Why are they incapable of verbalizing it?

There is no doubt that my friends and I have been loved. I consider myself lucky to have had a happy childhood, where everything material was provided for me to grow in the best conditions. But just because you know something doesn’t mean you don’t need to hear it. 

And when I didn’t hear it, I went searching for a reason. Because I saw my parents as my whole world, I was incapable of criticizing them. So naturally I blamed myself instead. I believed that I hadn't been good enough or that I’d done something wrong to deserve this treatment. Or even worse, that I was unworthy of love.

I can confirm that my parents’ failure to say “I love you” had an impact on who I am today. I've never been the most self-assured person; I tend to doubt myself easily and I developed insecurities that sometimes push me to seek validation from others. Like my parents, I have difficulty talking about my feelings. Saying “I love you” feels unnatural and I'm struggling with this feeling of vulnerability that, for too long, I confused with weakness. I’m not alone: Many studies show that children who have been told they were loved by their parents are more likely to turn into confident adults, while the ones who haven't are more prone to anxiety and confidence issues.

Thankfully, it seems like the new generation is willing to take the leap and break the cycle of generational unspoken love. Each time I go home to see my family, I witness my sister telling my nieces she loves them. It hasn't been easy for my sister, but she probably knew how important it is to hear it, to be comfortable with your own vulnerability and for my nieces to learn that we shouldn't be afraid to express our feelings nor to tell our family we love them. 

And now, little girls who are only seven and two years old are showing their whole family how to do it. Even if the delivery is a bit shy and hesitant, I’ve noticed that my parents are happy to tell my nieces they love them back. It almost sounds like liberation for them. The relief of doing the thing you always wanted to do. They’re not initiating, just following. And catching up on all the words they’ve never said.

But saying “I love you” to a child is easier than saying it to an adult who will see the vulnerability in the declaration. In an ideal world, I'd be the one breaking the cycle by saying “I love you,” but I feel incapable of doing so. The weight of the family tradition made me like my elders: mute. It makes me wonder how many times my parents, grandparents, or siblings have contemplated trying before they abdicate.

So here I am: Lost, full of questions, wondering why these lovely families I see on TV shows are nothing like mine. The ones that can talk about the more intimate things, discuss their feelings without feeling awkward, and fix any issue with the power of love.

As creatures of habit, it's difficult for us to break cycles and go against what we learned but it's also hard to learn something that we never witnessed. How uncomfortable and unnatural must that feel to jump into the pool of vulnerability, the one that none of my parents or grandparents dared to swim before? How do we learn how to say I love you? How do we unlearn everything we know? When do we stop acting like our parents? Those questions—or rather the absence of them— created generations of mute parents and children waiting for a miracle.

As an adult, the constant search for a parent's verbal love is emotionally exhausting. It brings me back to the insecure child I was and thought I said goodbye to long ago. So instead of waiting for something that might never happen, the best thing I can do is accept and forgive. Accept that I might never hear my mom tell me she loves me. And forgive that my dad's childhood made it too hard for him to say it. They're not only my parents, they're also imperfect humans. 

As consolation, I've learned to pay attention to the ways they are telling me they love me, not with words but with actions. I notice that my mom asks me to text her to make sure that I’ve arrived home safely, even if it's the middle of the night. It makes me smile when my dad remembers my favorite cereals and buys them every time I come to visit, even though I’m 33 now. I witness my mom getting emotional when the holidays are over and it’s time to say goodbye. Because I learned how to read them, I know that when she leaves the room it is to hide her tears. And of course, I’ll always remember that my dad thinks that if I didn't exist I should be invented. 

Verbal love may be rare, but acts of love are everywhere. Even if the delivery might be tricky, parents always find a way. Their own imperfect way.

“Here, child, take this,” said my grandmother as she handed me 1,000,000 LEI. “Buy yourself some juice.”

I was eight years old, growing up in Romania. One of those blue papers could easily buy 50 bottles of juice. In terms of pocket money, I had plenty. In fact, I had to learn not to take much money to school, because some classmates stole from me on a couple of occasions. Others played the friend card and got me to buy things for them they could not afford themselves. 

When we went out with my family, I had no chance to pay for myself, even when I was buying myself clothes. “But I have money,” I’d insist many times as my dad was paying for the clothes I’d spent an hour choosing. “That’s ok, keep it,” he’d say as he’d pay and also leave a tip for the salesperson. I was confused and embarrassed. “Why does he keep doing that?” I asked my elders in annoyance. “Are you nuts? Just say thank you and let him pay,” my aunt would advise me. 

I was also in a pickle about my grandma’s habit of handing me cash. “But why does she do that?” I asked my mother. “Why is she giving me money? ” “Sometimes the person who receives is more generous than the one who gives,” my mom replied. I decided to just take it, as no one advised me to the contrary. The discomfort was still there, but I had to concur with my logical mind: It didn’t hurt to have money. And since I had little occasion to spend it, I put it all aside and by the time I was 18, I had some 6000€ in savings, money with no destination, no purpose, but consistently there. 

My classmates would get summer jobs at bars and hotels around town, and I yearned for one, but I wouldn’t dream of being seen doing a “lower-class” job by anyone who knew my family, whose members held high-class positions in the legal system and were fairly well known around town. I was the golden child, the chosen one who would inherit these positions, carry on the family name and tradition, and boy, wasn’t I lucky to have my future laid out for me and be set in terms of job and finances for the rest of my life? 

I didn’t need more money. I needed to learn to make my own money, I needed freedom to make mistakes, I needed to explore how other people functioned.

It’s safe to say I didn’t feel lucky: That scenario for me felt worse than death. The idea that I had to walk a beaten path, that it was all decided for me, felt like shackles on my feet. All I wanted was to have friends, and instead all I had was money—money that put a distance between me and my peers who were nowhere near as lucky as I was, money that set standards for me but taught me nothing about how I could keep those standards in adulthood.  

When I was 18, I advertised for translation gigs online and I got some clients. I was working for pennies, translating for $1 a page and I made $100 that way. It wasn’t much, but I felt so happy to have made that money myself. It was my first job, and my family never knew about it. I reckon I would’ve gotten a concerned, “Do you need money? Why didn’t you say so? Here, take this money, how much money do you need?”

I didn’t need more money. I needed to learn to make my own money, I needed freedom to make mistakes, I needed to explore how other people functioned, how they related to work and to money, I needed everyone to just get off my back with their expectations. I needed to learn the joy in earning my own living.

As soon as I finished high school, I went far, far away. I spent 12 years exploring life as a regular citizen, studying, earning scholarships, working and paying taxes, looking forward to the holidays. I had a go at life as a student with little money, as an intern with her scholarship received in advance, as an English teacher calculating her income and expenses every month, as a pilgrim living on charity, as a girlfriend supported by her partner who earned more than her. All the while with the €6000 in my savings account, money I wouldn’t dream of touching if it wasn’t to invest in something that would make it grow. I had a tremendous sense of responsibility over it and I would not simply waste it on a whim. 

In my early thirties, I decided to move back to my hometown. I moved here without a job or a plan of finding one, but knowing I’d have a roof over my head and food on my table and time to regroup and reorganize—even if that meant giving up a sense of independence I got from earning a salary and my pride along with it. I dove deep into that Pandora’s box to find the perks and limitations of unconditional financial support while lacking friends, emotional support, physical affection, a community, the satisfaction of meaningful work—pretty much reliving my childhood, but in an adult body. When it got to be too much, I’d take off for a couple months at a time—going on an Erasmus-funded training course, pairing it with visiting a friend in Europe or finding refuge with some family on the volunteer platform Workaway, joining a community for a few weeks or going to a Rainbow Gathering. Slowly but surely, the €6000 I had saved was drifting away. 

Despite my family’s financial support, giving me a place to stay, paying my bills, handing me cash from time to time, I’ve still been spending more than what has come in, and I’ve had this fact hanging as a sword over my head. I dreaded and feared the moment I’d be without a dime. Funnily enough, this fear has also stopped me from taking action. I didn’t want to look desperate for money, or get stuck in a job that wouldn’t let me take off whenever I wanted. Meanwhile, I blamed my family for not giving me enough and blamed myself for getting myself in this situation. 

I’ve been through a long journey of finding space between myself and money, separating my identity from how much I had or didn’t, and also separating it from work—discovering the value of work for the sake of work, and money for the sake of money.

Money has been my ally, my safety net that allowed me the courage to set off into the world to find the love, attention, and affection I needed. Yet for a long time I turned against it, seeing it as a consolation prize for the love it tried and failed to replace—and I wished I’d never had it, hoping the lack of it would bring me love instead.

I’ve come to a point where that wish has come true: My €6000 I saved has gone down to 200€, with no prospective income. It comes with the freedom to act, and with the acute responsibility that I am my own person and responsible for my wellbeing, which includes financial wellbeing. It allows me to shamelessly ask for money I’m owed, or ask to be paid fairly for services I’m providing, like teaching and hosting heart sharing circles, and even donate to causes I care about or sell old things I’m not using. And along with the money itself—which is very welcome—doing these things brings along something much more valuable: financial independence.

I met her at the beginning of summer. She was a catalogue of contradiction — rebellious and strait-laced, fearless as well as frightened, a woman who seemed to be riding the back of the world, holding on with one hand, and to her, I was a small cup, held beneath Niagara.

She told me she would give me the world. She pointed out the holes in my patchwork skirt and the rips in my dungarees, she took me to clothes shops, took away my bracelets, dressed me in sensible jeans and plain white tops, and bought me two of each while I laughed at the thought of a “girlfriend uniform.” 

As autumn crept in, I found myself alone with no friends, family, or job. I was an ocean whirling down a drain, abruptly thrust into a life of parties and bushfire friendships, people whose names were forgotten the next morning, with only the lip gloss reminder on the rim of their glass that I scrubbed clean in a kitchen that wasn’t even my own.

Then winter came, the ground froze, the wind rattled the flags of old leaves between the bones of the skeleton trees, and I found myself as a reflection, in the blue-gray window of a house that wasn’t my home, looking out at a world I no longer recognized.

Over the next few months, I noticed I was losing weight and my hair was falling out. I would stand in the shower, with the tightness of my breath in my chest and I would hear her voice in my head. Every single day she would tell me that I should always put her first, that she should always be top of my list. 

Above my friends. Above my family. Above my children. 

She took me to Bingo once. We sat at sticky-topped tables and she drank pints of warm beer while I sipped flat cider slowly through my teeth, a trick I had learned to slow down her attempts to get me drunk.  

People don’t want to believe that abuse happens between two women. Women are supposed to be nurturing and gentle.

I won 150 pounds that night. But when I claimed the prize money, she held out her hand, and I gave it to her. 

It was then, in that hesitation, at that moment surrounded by the noise of the bar and the sideways glances of other people's eyes who silently asked, Are you ok?… that I realized this wasn’t love. 

It was abuse, and I hadn’t noticed until that moment. 

I’d been gaslit to the point where I had no reality or independent thoughts of my own. I had become a rag heap for other people to pick over. I had nothing of myself. And all the while I held onto the old cliche, that somehow, at some point, things might just get better.

She used to leave me to-do lists every day.

One: Give both fridges a good clean and throw out old food. 

Two: Locate and put all electronics on charge.

Three: Change and wash the bedding on all beds.

Four: Clean and tidy the whole house - hoover, dust, polish, sweep, bleach etc. 

Five: Wash and hang out clothes. Make sure they’re dry before I come home.

Six: Walk dogs and pick up all dog shit in garden.

Seven: Make sure dinner is cooked by the time I get home. 

Eight: Tidy up all the kids' mess and ensure the whole house and garden are spotless. 

There were other humiliations, too. The kind you say with averted eyes when the police ask you to repeat yourself. Or the kind you say with a nervous laugh that covers the memory of violence and pain because nobody believes you when you say it was another woman who raped you so many times.

I couldn’t say no. But I never said yes.

Just like my son didn’t say yes when she asked him if he wanted to go out on the paddleboard on the day of that spring picnic, because she told him he “would be a baby” if he didn’t. 

She took him out into the sea, and then, “just for fun,” she tipped him in. My little boy, who couldn’t swim. I went in after him. I could feel the board bumping against the top of my head. And I was screaming his name underwater and grabbing at handfuls of seaweed and nothing.

And it seemed too long.  

But finally, I felt something—a fist…a hand…and I had handfuls of him, and I was pushing him up above me, through the surface of the water, out towards the sky and the splintered sunlight. And he was crying. And he was ok.

And he was alive.

I called the police after that. I told them how she’d crushed sedatives into my food. How she’d only let me wear the clothes and shoes she bought for me, and how she had completely destroyed me from the inside out. 

I remembered the inconsistencies in her stories. I remembered she would tilt her phone away from me when I came near, and how she spun me lie after lie, and I, like a fly, was caught in her web of such carefully and meticulously spun deceit.

And I know what she’ll do. She’ll tell everyone the same stories she told me. She’ll tell them all how I reacted. But she will never tell them what she did to me to cause that reaction. She won't tell them how she screwed herself into me, bit by bit. Burrowing under my skin and into my flesh, into every vein and muscle and bone, until I was bewitched by this woman who would pick me up like a puppet when she wanted me, and kick me to the ground the next, telling me I was disgusting and ugly, and talentless. And the awful thing is, when I ripped her out of me, there was this void left behind, this gaping, aching wound with rotting edges that I had to fix.

As soon as she was gone, I felt the cold air rush in to fill the space where she had been. Suddenly I was full of everything, feeling everything and noticing everything. I had been a ghost in my own life.

I don’t talk about it much, because there’s this unspoken belief that abuse between two women is unfathomable, impossible even. People don’t want to believe that abuse happens between two women. Women are supposed to be nurturing and gentle. Even when I told my story to the police I could feel their disbelief: How could a woman abuse another woman? How was it possible that a woman could rape another woman? 

The disbelief and having the experience minimized by friends, family, and the legal system just because she was a woman caused the most excruciating loneliness and exhausting hopelessness. It’s like a funny sort of embarrassment. We feel disbelieved, diminished, and confused, like maybe we’re making it up, or maybe our abuser was right, maybe we’re just overreacting. We want to be heard, but no one wants to listen.

In 2002, during a time when I had been a target of sexual assault at the hands of a family friend for two years, British parliament passed the Education Act. The law, among other things, gave teachers the legal responsibility of safeguarding their students. Teachers now had a legal and professional obligation to be vigilant for signs of abuse in their students, and to report these to the correct authorities when noticed.

I was seven years old. The abuse would continue for three more years, before my own disclosure brought it to an end.

During that time, this man, who meant so much to my parents and was so trusted by all my adult family, took my virginity, my fertility (thanks to internal scarring), and a series of images that I will never know the location of. My parents put me in therapy, and in my teenage years I came up with other ways to cope, through a group of other deeply damaged teenagers and incredibly risky sexual behavior. These two elements of my life came together for two years, in a relationship with my high school boyfriend. He fell comfortably within the definition of “deeply damaged,” and his coping mechanisms were largely violence, rape, and badly played guitar—all aimed at me.

I moved away; life went on. I went to university, met a good partner, started to travel, and within a few years of graduation, I found myself studying again, this time for a PGCE (the standard British teaching qualification). Before we were allowed to actually have contact with students and work in a classroom, we had to undergo safeguarding training, otherwise known as child protection training.

I don’t remember exactly which PowerPoint slide made me leave the room, but I do remember a slowly approaching march of dread and nausea, as we covered all the subtle signs of a child being abused. I remember running out the room and vomiting onto the curb. I remember explaining to my very confused lecturer that I had been a victim of CSE (child sexual exploitation, the government language for what happened to me). He was as comforting as a middle-aged, middle-class, British man could be. He reassured me that all I had to do was tell people; I would be able to undergo the training in a setting that made me feel safer.

I’m a teacher now. I know they knew, because teachers always know what the students are saying.

I couldn’t be exempted, however, and that made every part of my brain shout. Were my teachers taught the same things? Did they have the same responsibilities? Should they have known?

The short answer is yes. The document had a different name, and it has been added to and tweaked since, but the answer is yes. It is, as always, more complicated than that. In primary school, I was younger, and while I am sure I must have shown signs of abuse, I was also a very strange child. I was autistic with sensory issues, a hatred for socializing, and what appeared to be a deep love for screaming until I vomited. I imagine my teachers attributed any odd behaviors I had to that.

However, did they not notice the bruising when I got changed for P.E.? The way I went limp when people touched me? It was clear I didn’t like the touching, but I also put up no resistance. Someone, anyone, of the dozen or so teachers and teaching assistants that were responsible for me over that time period should have had enough of an inkling to make even a cautious report. A report that could have saved me years of anguish and pain. I have sympathy for those teachers. I don’t find their neglect reasonable, but I can understand.

High school, less so. In fact, not at all. I will never forgive them. Everyone knew what my boyfriend was doing to me—everyone. I was openly bruised across my arms and face and neck, visible in my uniform. He attacked me on school grounds more than once. On one occasion, he broke a rib on school property. We were both in our uniform and he drove his polished black lace-up shoe into my chest until I thought I was going to die. Teachers knew. They heard the whispers; there is no way they didn’t. All the students knew he had raped me. I saw it flit around every classroom I went into. 

I’m a teacher now. I know they knew, because teachers always know what the students are saying, especially the things they think they are keeping the most quiet.

Those teachers made no report. They didn’t call my parents, let alone his. Instead, a group of four teachers—around a month before exams started, a week or so after I had finally ended things, and a few days after he had cut my name into his flesh as some sort of statement of love— sat me down and told me to get back with him. Start dating him again. Because exams are coming up. Because the breakup will distract him. Because it’s his future. Because you’ll do well either way, but he really needs it.

I guess if you asked them, they would claim they didn’t know, that they just wanted the best for everyone, but they didn’t.

As a teacher, I cannot forgive the negligence of my primary school teachers, or the willful ignorance and disregard of my high school teachers. Over my time at school, I can name more than 30 teachers who taught me directly. Those are only the teachers that I remember. That’s at least 30 trained professionals, with a legal expectation, who allowed me to suffer. There are very few ways someone with my story can feel they have received justice, and this is just another part of my story that will never be made right.

When you’re an escort, falling in love with a client is a rare occurrence. As professionals, we train ourselves to suppress our emotions, maintaining a clear line between personal feelings and our work. Over the past 15 years in this business, I’ve learned to navigate the complex landscape of human emotions, focusing on the good in men despite their flaws and lies. This perspective gradually softened my initial resentment toward men and allowed me to approach my work with more compassion while keeping a wall of mental protection around me.

But when feelings come into play, the lines can blur, especially with long-term clients. There have been a few occasions over the years where clients have come close to capturing my heart. Still, I have never fallen for anyone. There was always a game to play and each time their mask slipped, it confirmed I was better off alone. 

That was the reality of my life and it was one I was comfortable with—until I met a particular client who changed everything.

This client entered my life during a period of personal healing and transformation. Unlike others, he made me feel emotionally safe, and our chemistry was undeniable from the start. He is different from any man I have ever met. As a woman who has been intimate with many, I knew this was something unique. For the first time in my life, I had a man kiss me in a way that made me feel more than I can possibly describe. My intuition increased so powerfully that I could feel when he was about to call, and within minutes he would. This was all incredibly new for me. 

My walls came down with him so easily. I had been engaged twice before escorting and I did not trust either of those fiances with my feelings the way I trusted this man. Initially, our encounters were strictly professional, but I found myself thinking about him all the time. His presence felt like home, a comforting familiarity that I hadn’t ever experienced. 

Loving him unconditionally taught me profound lessons about myself and my desires.

I began to open up to him over texts that broke the boundaries of client/escort relationships. Once I started, I could not seem to stop. I knew it was abnormal and I wondered if I had finally gone crazy, yet at the same time, it felt so natural. It was so needed and so wanted. I was no longer performing to be liked; I was saying to someone “This is me, all the good, all the bad. This is my life and who I am, and right now I do not know how I feel about myself.” It was both terrifying and exhilarating. To be so raw with another person, so vulnerable. I now understand I was trying to connect with him on a far deeper level than I had ever done with anyone. This was the person I wanted to trust my soul with, not just give my body to.

As our connection deepened, complications arose when I discovered he was engaged. This revelation was a harsh reminder of the boundaries I had set for myself. Yet, my feelings for him didn’t wane. Instead, loving him unconditionally taught me profound lessons about myself and my desires. He never tried to control or manipulate me like others had.

Instead, I found he encouraged my growth and self-discovery by saying very little. He would allude to his feelings with comments such as “maybe in the next life,” and when directly asked whether he wanted more from me than sex, he said “yes.” But it always felt like he was giving me time to find myself during this strange time in my life. I needed time to figure out my thoughts and feelings on my own. My love for him gave a meaning to life I had never considered before.

Ultimately, love requires courage—something neither of us had enough of. I moved away, knowing he would not act on his interest in me. I would remain an escort to him and he would maintain the life he had, it was easier for him, and I had the impression trust was hard for him to give. Our lives are very different. His requires a certain image that a woman doing what I do would never fit in to. We never saw each other again after I moved. He did stay in touch over the phone once in a while and during that time he did admit he wanted more with me, but he went on to have a family and we agreed we were both unable to change our lives for each other.  

When I moved, I tried leaving escorting. I rented a room and lived a “normal” life. It removed all my independence that I was used to and made me miserable. I struggled financially and emotionally. There is a comfort level that comes with the income I earn as an escort, which is hard to give up. I tried in the hope I would one day be able to have a healthy relationship, but I soon realized if it was not with him then I did not want it with anyone, so I went back to what works best for me (although I am in training for a new career that can give me some of the security and independence escorting offers). Meeting him made me want that for myself. However, meeting him also confirmed I would never be able to depend on a man. 

This experience has been one of the most transformative periods of my life. It taught me that love can touch anyone, regardless of their circumstances or profession. It wasn’t just about falling in love with someone else; it was about learning to love myself and realizing what I truly desire from life and who I want to show up as in the world. He is a mirror of everything I genuinely feel about myself, and not all of it is pretty. I accept myself for who I am and the road I chose to walk. In taking this road, I have seen the gray areas of life that many people do not want to look at, and I see there is beauty in it all.  

In placing conditions on love, I was keeping it out. I was pushing people away. But by being caught off-guard, by allowing someone in, I was finally able to experience what life has to offer and experience some magic along the way. Falling in love brought me home to my family from whom I had moved away. It opened me up to community and friends. It allowed me to love myself enough to say “I can do better for others than offering my body.” I am still figuring it all out, but life is not as lonely as it once was. I will always be grateful, even if it is not the ending we all are taught to want.

This story is based on an interview with the editors of The Doe.

I was contacted by a recruiter three years ago about a sales job. It was a new industry for me, and at first I really liked this job. I still enjoy it for certain reasons—it’s definitely the most relaxed office environment I've ever been in. There were a few people here that I initially realized were ones I had to watch out for. People who were very openly partying all night, having to get picked up from jail, struggling to get to work in any timely fashion, things like that. But those people tended to not last very long.

This company was a smaller business when I got hired and then they got purchased by a larger, more corporate company. So I thought that it would get better, that the more problematic elements would kind of fall by the wayside. We merged with another office in the area and moved into their building. You hear about mergers and you're like, “Oh, gosh, everyone's going to get fired.” But they kept most people and most of the upper management stayed and it went very well. Still, the new culture of the office had a very “bro” vibe. The version of the company I got hired with initially was less male-dominated. You see a lot more men coming in during the hiring process.

It’s the kind of office where the men all get together and go play golf or go to sporting events. The office has made a half-assed attempt to do a similar thing for the girls, but it’ll be like paying $50 for a Paint Your Own Door Frame party. As women, we don't get the same sense of community out of our jobs, whereas the men are constantly planning things with each other outside of work. They won’t even pretend to invite us, not even slightly. Sometimes I feel like we’re their moms, asking them, “Did you guys have a good time?”

It really started to go downhill here for me when I wanted to make an HR complaint against my manager. He used a joke about rape to motivate someone in a sales capacity. He was encouraging a male employee to keep reaching out to someone he wasn't having success with. He said to him, “You're telling me if you're having sex with your girlfriend and she says to stop, you're just going to stop?” It was just completely inappropriate, and it shouldn't have been said. I don't know if he knew that I was within earshot or if he thought that nobody could hear him, or if he just didn't care. But it was really shocking. 

I was hearing a lot of things that made me feel unsafe to be in the office.

That was probably six or eight months ago. Ultimately, I didn't feel like I could say anything because it would be putting a mark on my back. There's no anonymous way to go to HR with things like that. I ended up not really doing anything except just keeping my distance. My manager and I rarely talk now. I prefer it, honestly, after those comments.

There was another instance where the men in the office were talking about doing illegal things and getting away with it. In the wildness of everyone chiming in and bragging, one of the guys mentioned knocking someone out. And then they all started to discuss the degree to which you can beat someone up and it be okay. One of our higher-ups was sitting in the room for this whole conversation and even participating. It was disheartening because it was not like the leadership said, “Hey guys, pipe down.”

It was all very aggressive, and I was immediately on guard after this conversation started. I was hearing a lot of things that made me feel unsafe to be in the office.

We've had a lot of big social media moments of talking about white men and their place in the world. I had recently been seeing the question, “If you could come across a bear or a strange man in the woods, which would you choose?” I saw what women were saying about it and thought, “Yeah, you know what? That’s valid.” I don’t know how I would have answered if it weren’t for these moments in my office. 

When incidents like those happen, it does get your fight-or-flight response going, where you're like, “I got to get out of here.” I have been thinking about looking for another job. I could do that. I could look for a more buttoned up corporate experience that isn't going to allow that kind of talk, but it's still going to be there under the surface, just kind of marinating. With this job, it’s kind of “the devil you know” scenario. And maybe at another place the sexism wouldn’t be so open in the office. But I don't think that hiding it and being more subtle about is fixing the problem. I’m also currently the only income earner for our household because my husband's in school, so I'm staying here until he can get a job post-graduation. I am staying for the security.

With sales, I think men might be drawn to the attitude of, “I'm going to do anything it takes to make this money because I need that commission.” Personally, I never wanted to be in sales in the first place. In the longterm, I’ve been trying to think of some industries that would have less of this culture, try to find something that’s culturally more of a good fit for me. It pisses me off, though, because what if I did like sales? What if a woman wanted to grow in this position—would there be even room for her?

Since before I was born, I was given the mantle of cycle-breaker. My parents, grandparents, and all before them were raised in impoverished townships in South Africa. I was part of the first generation to belong to the “whitehood”—my terminology for being raised in white institutions. My parents wanted to make sure I assimilated into this new post-apartheid society well, so I grew up speaking English and not much of my native tongue, Xhosa.

You would think this would be a good thing, that it would help. It didn’t. I was seen as an alien by white people, and an imposter by Black people.

From preschool to grade seven, I was the only Black child in all my classes. The school I was enrolled in had the enormity of a public school but the affluence of a private school. It wasn’t just that it was a majority-white school; it was an all-white school with Black kids peppered throughout other classes. Over the years, most of those Black kids transferred out. The difference between us was that they told their parents what they suffered. I didn’t.

I was never a shy kid. I was extroverted, energetic, and eager to make friends. I just never understood why my enthusiasm was never reciprocated. I was shunned by the white kids in my class. All the tables were organized into groups of eight, and I had the misfortune of occupying one of the seats in the center. Each individual table has examination boards: You slide it out from between the desks, turn it over and place it on the surface. It acts as a barrier so no one can copy from each other’s test papers. Throughout class, whether there was a test or not, the other kids would barricade me with the boards, front, flanks and the gaps in between.

You would think the teacher would rebuke this kind of treatment. Instead, every Friday, she would make a tally of who was good and who was bad. The good kids, all white, received a gift from the class goody box. For a whole year, I never received a gift from that teacher because somehow, for every week of the year, I misbehaved (even though I had no one to talk to, so it was impossible for me to cause a disruption). Yet I, the only Black child, along with three other mixed-race kids, were branded as delinquents.

I was seen as an alien by white people, and an imposter by Black people.

I had to accept that I was alone. Treated as a pariah, I savored my solitude when I was made to spend break-time by myself. Eventually, even that was robbed from me when the bullying began, in the form of harassment from the soccer boys, who were older and used me for their morbid amusement. It started with name-calling and escalated to emptying my lunchbox on the ground, pushing, and shoving, to the point of bruises. Even then, I never told anyone.

When I advanced to older grades, torment took a different form. There were new shades to racism that I was learning. When I wore braids, people would ask if it was horsetail hair, or if I got it from dead people. A white mother told me once, “You’re so pretty for a Black girl.” Instances like these dented my fortitude and warped my self-image as my upbringing was influenced by Westernized ideals of beauty. I never felt pretty enough and when I had crushes on white boys, I knew what they desired was long hair, light skin, and a thin body. Everything I was not.

I sought relief at home, but all I found was ridicule. Close relatives would judge me on the way I dressed, acted, and spoke, all examples of my “whitehood.” The relatives who lived in the townships believed me to be an aloof snob who thought herself superior, because I attended an all-white school and lived in a mostly white neighborhood. They thought of me as a coconut: brown on the outside, white on the inside.

Meanwhile, white people never quite accepted me. I behaved and sounded like them, but I would never be them. In college, I was partnered with two Afrikaans girls on a marketing project. One girl warned me that her father was a prison warden who hated Black people. I was hesitant to work with her, but she reassured me that her father would like me because I was “the right kind of Black.” I felt the silent but visceral distinction when I hung out with my white friends and their family, especially on occasions when I went away on holiday with them. I was among them, but I would never be a part of them.

I am now 24 years old, and I still deal with the consequences of my “whitehood” every day. When I go to any mall or store, most of the cash registers are operated by Black workers. After dealing with a queue of white patrons, they instantly speak Xhosa or Zulu to me and are shocked when I reply in English. Their astonishment turns into animosity very quickly. As a child, I was scorned for my broken Xhosa when I tried to speak. Now I am condemned for not speaking it at all. In high school, a boy once remarked, “You don’t speak like other Black people.”

The cultural clash between my heritage and my upbringing is the source of my ceaseless internal strife. I feel more connected and at ease with white people, instead of my own “kind.” All of my friends are white; I have only two Black friends. And every time I’m in a new public setting, I gravitate towards white people. They are all I know and whom I’m most comfortable with. 

Every time I’m around Black people at family reunions or family friends’ functions, I’m jeered at because of the way I talk. I can’t relate to them in any sense or topic, even music. And neither can they with me. A distant pain. I haven’t even bothered trying to become fluent in my home language or reconcile with my heritage. I’ve adopted so many white conventions, I feel there’s no room for anything else. And from how my own have treated me, I don’t want to accommodate anything else. I shouldn’t have to. In the liminal space between two worlds, I’ve discovered the freedom of belonging to neither.

I can’t change what others think of me, but I can control how I respond. Despite my white-inclined preferences, I’ve learned to see the beauty in both groups of people, observing white and Black households and being surprised to see similar overlaps. Even amidst the contradictions. Discrimination, culture, and custom have taught us that we are too different, but in the garden of humanity, each of us is rooted in the same soil.

In the spring of 2017, I packed my suitcase from Nicaragua to study abroad for a semester in West Palm Beach. As I boarded the plane, I began having intrusive thoughts: What if I am not good enough? What if the U.S. education system is harder? I landed in Orlando early in the morning, and my uncle who had migrated to the U.S. in his teenage years greeted me with encouragement and admiration. Still, I felt insecure.

The next morning, my uncle drove four hours to the college. He helped carry my luggage to the reception, where the Resident Assistant would hand me the key to my dorm. A not-so-tall, blonde guy with a weird smirk handed me a waiver and some documents to sign. I thought, “He must be having an awful day.” For an RA, he was rude and not very welcoming. Once settled in my room, I rushed to see my roommates, who were also from the same program exchange in Nicaragua.

On my first night on campus, I attended a basketball game. Our university was playing against some rookie team. We sat on the bleachers, and I quickly spotted him: the not-so-tall guy was part of the team. A few weeks into the semester, one of my roommates befriended him—I’ll call him John. My roommates and I began hanging out often with him, whether it was watching movies, learning how to dance salsa, or going out for drinks. We became inseparable.

During all that time spent together, I learned about his personality, what made him sad, and what he did for his family. He was the sweetest and most caring guy I had ever met. John wasn’t much of a talker but a great listener. He found so much joy in giving, whether that was time, gifts, or acts of service. Soon, I began seeing him with new eyes. I wanted to be the lucky girl to kiss him goodnight, hold his hand, and share conversations about the future. Our mutual attraction had been simmering through a series of encounters until we could not fake it in front of our friends anymore. After a night out celebrating the end of midterms, we began officially dating.

We were so focused on being together at whatever cost that we forgot about our goals and dreams.

The end of the semester came by too quickly. Our love grew more robust with each week, date, and conversation. But the distance posed a concern for both of us—would our love be strong enough? I was convinced and devoted to making it work. Deep in my heart, I wanted to believe the distance would end.

We were committed to FaceTime dates every Friday and texting daily despite our time zone difference. In the beginning, we agreed to see each other in person every three months. The months leading up to our visits felt like an eternity. I only felt alive when I was with him; the other months, I just existed and endured to see him next time.

The last time I saw him was May 2019. I visited the same city that reunited us to watch him graduate. It was the first time I met his parents. They had flown to Florida to honor him on his special day. On the night of his graduation, he told me he needed my help to pack his dorm. He had decorated the room and had a bottle of cold Brut on the night table beside two tumblers. I laughed nervously as he reached for his pocket, pulled out a promise ring, and asked me to be his one and only. I quickly rushed to hug him and say, “Yes.” After many trips to the U.S., my home country, and even the Dominican Republic, we set a date for when I would visit John’s home country, Australia, and move for good: March 24, 2020.

As you can imagine, I never got to use that one-way ticket to Brisbane. Three days before my flight, El Salvador shut down because of the worsening pandemic, and Australia had extreme quarantine regulations that did not allow foreigners in the country. I watched the news every day, hoping they would let me in. I even wrote a letter to Qantas Airlines and the Australian prime minister; that’s how much I loved John.

I sobbed for weeks, knowing in my heart that we wouldn’t make it. The pandemic marked the end of John’s promise. I don’t blame him, though. Life made us grow apart; somehow, over four years, we were so focused on being together at whatever cost that we forgot about our goals and dreams. He wanted to open a basketball coaching center while I tried to find a job, travel to New York, and later, when I had gathered enough experience, pursue a master’s degree in Europe.

It took me two painful years, a new job in a remote jungle somewhere in Central America, and a trip to New York City to heal. Ironically, the city that never sleeps brought back my sleep, love for the arts, and writing. Being in a town where no one pitied me felt so good. In a city with strangers that did not judge me for my failed love story, no one asked me about John.

I roamed the cheerful and vibrant streets across Dumbo and the West Village to rediscover a version of me that seemed lost—one who loved to walk but had forgotten to do it because being on the phone and with good wifi was always the priority. My trip to New York also marked the first trip I had done in four years that was not because I had to see John, but because I wanted to visit a city regardless of his company.

Some memories of John have faded away with time; I have forgotten his smell and some of his mannerisms. While in New York City, he reacted to one of my Instagram stories. In all, he was happy for me, as I was for him: He had begun dating a younger girl who was into basketball. She lived in the same city and seemed to be a good girl. Although he seems so different now, the way he looks and dresses doesn’t remind me of the muscular college student I met in the spring. The memory of who he used to be lives in my heart. 

In losing John, I found a better, stronger, and more precious version of myself—one that is more than enough in every aspect of life. So here’s to you, John, for giving me the best of myself.

After quarantining myself in the bedroom with my fiancée working in the living room, my phone pinged with another notification. Someone was sending me messages on Reddit. They were asking me to share pictures and describe my turn-ons. Perhaps later they would send pictures of their genitalia. Only, it wasn’t exactly “me” they were messaging. Earlier that day, I had created a fake Reddit account pretending to be a 25-year-old woman (when, really, I am a man in my mid-thirties) to elicit messages from strangers. 

It wasn’t the first time I had done this. I am a serial catfisher.

I’m young enough to have grown up knowing what catfishing was: the act of pretending you’re someone you’re not online.  But I never thought I’d actually be someone who engages in this duplicitous behaviour. My earliest memory of catfishing was 10 years ago on Facebook. I came across someone who was scamming people and I thought to myself, “Let me mess with her.” This prompted me to create another Facebook account under a new name by swiping an image of a guy from Google Images. I didn’t plan it out. But it worked: the Facebook scammer responded to my messages and I pretended to seek out her services, before I lambasted her for taking advantage of people. 

I didn’t feel bad in the moment, as I thought she deserved it. But looking back now, that moment set a dangerous precedent. It gave me a sense of comfort with not being myself on social media. In fact, I enjoyed it. "This was thrilling", I thought to myself. Shortly afterwards, I created another Facebook account, this time as a twenty-something woman. I joined several Facebook groups for singles, posted as this fake woman, and began to have sexually explicit conversations with the many men who messaged me.

This started an online addiction that has taken me from Facebook to dating apps to, now, Reddit. 

My catfishing often consumes entire days, taking me away from work, friends, and other responsibilities. I leave texts from friends and family unanswered, opting to work on my catfishing instead. Even when I started online dating (as myself) and met my then-significant other, the catfishing didn’t stop. Eventually, the addiction extended beyond Facebook to other platforms, as I found myself creating a fake account on OKCupid, the same dating app where I met my ex-partner. 

For me, catfishing produces a nasty combination of excitement, shame, enjoyment, and guilt.

While entering into a serious relationship with my ex-partner, I was simultaneously enthralled with the excitement of catfishing. This time, it felt different. In a way, I felt like I was becoming this new woman I was pretending to be. It wasn’t a fleeting moment of catfishing; I actually invested time and energy in crafting a persona around this fictitious woman. I created a Twitter account and even considered expanding my catfishing “enterprise” to Instagram.

This fake persona lasted a few months until my ex-partner found images of the girl on my phone. At first she thought I was cheating. I’m not sure which is worse. After having a tearful conversation where I opened up to her about this rare addiction, we agreed to break up but remain friends. 

After the break-up, the catfishing had finally ceased. It helped that I was still living with my ex in a “platonic-friends-supporting-each-other” kind of way. This was also the time I entered into therapy as a means to manage the addiction. When I first told my therapist about my catfishing tendencies, I wrote about it in a letter to her because I felt too much shame to say it out loud. I told my parents about seeking out a therapist, but I didn’t mention specifics; I didn’t want them to know they had given birth to a catfisher. After the news about therapy, my mom burst into tears and lamented that she felt like she had failed as a parent. Imagine how she would have felt if I told her the whole story. 

This catfishing-free life lasted a good couple of years. That is, until I inevitably moved out — because you can’t live with an ex-partner forever – and found my own apartment. This prompted me to resume my bad habits as I had begun using Reddit, first as myself as a way to combat the isolation of living alone. But soon, the addiction overtook me and I started creating fake accounts again.

It was around this time that I met my fiancée, which gave me more reason to try to curb this addiction. Some efforts proved successful as I had deleted Reddit from my phone and found replacement behaviors to distract myself. But, like any reliable addiction, it found a way to break through and I soon found myself installing Reddit all over again. 

Why do I do it? It gives me a sense of excitement and stress relief, not to mention validation and a means to cope with my depression and anxiety. But at the same time, I feel like blaming my mental health is a cop-out. After all, many people living with depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues don’t become catfishers.

For me, the compulsion produces a nasty combination of excitement, shame, enjoyment, and guilt. I get caught up in the act of catfishing, temporarily oblivious to the impact it has on my relationship, my life, and the people I lie to online. But once I come out of it, the guilt overwhelms me. I feel trapped in this perpetual temptation-shame cycle of feeling the urge to create a fake Reddit account, engage in the usual catfishing behaviors while hiding in the bedroom, and then feeling ashamed and deleting the account, before the temptation hits me all over again. 

My duplicity undoubtedly has an impact on those who were on the receiving end of my lies. In some cases, I am caught instantly when someone finds my fake photo on Google Images or Facebook. In other cases, the recipient will ask me to verify my identity — which, of course, I can’t do. And then sometimes the conversation will go deeper, until the person asks to get together if they’re local, and I will suddenly ghost them. They don’t know I’m deleting a fake account. To them, they made a connection with someone who suddenly disappears. 

To this day, I still question why I do it, what I get out of it, and why I can’t seem to stop. But one thing is for certain: I’ve stopped before, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to do so again.

I’ve been harboring a secret, one that is frankly embarrassing for a woman approaching her forties: I have developed an intense fixation with a deceased musician. Let me tell you, it’s absolutely all-consuming. And it hit me, seemingly, out of nowhere.

At the start of this fixation, I confided in a close friend and asked her when she thought this would cool down. She reassured me that it probably would, sooner or later. It’s been more than 18 months since that conversation. It hasn’t cooled down.

I had been aware of “Blaze” and his band for many years, even owning some of their music. I remember learning of his passing in 2010 and only recalling that collective sadness that we feel when a public figure passes—nothing more. My life went on. I appreciated their music just like any regular moderate fan. No insanity. 

Then he re-entered my life with no warning through a short snippet on social media: Blaze, a deep-voiced raven-haired Brooklynite, was talking about how he wishes to build his dream house in the woods for him and his “woman” so that she can be worshiped for the rest of his life. After that, he was forever ingrained in my mind. I devoured all of the music he and his previous bands had made. I picked up on poignant moments in tracks I had not discovered before. The sound of his voice went straight to my heart and turned it inside out and into mush. I couldn’t get enough of re-watching old live performances with my eyes fixed on the screen, utterly mesmerized. I was a woman possessed. 

I visited my teenage bedroom to collect all of my old music magazines with the most well-known band he fronted. There was a particular interview, which I recall reading back in 1999, where he candidly discusses the dismal state of his mental health (a rarity for men in 1990s rock journalism). As I have struggled with depression and deep insecurities for most of my life, this always stuck with me, even long before I could call myself a fan. I was always aware of him. Perhaps there was always a sense of familiarity I shared. 

I ask myself, “Why am I like this about a man that I never knew?”

I don’t want to focus too much on Blaze’s many physical attributes,  but it’s simply impossible for me to not mention how scrolling through endless photos and pining over him is a form of self-care for me. He makes me feel so unabashedly sensual — these are foreign feelings for someone with deep-rooted intimacy issues. (Thanks, pent-up trauma from my early twenties!)

I’ve remained extremely vanilla in my long-term relationship. My partner is somewhat aware of my “special interest.” We‘ve had a couple of awkward conversations. I’ll make a joke, in an attempt to minimize it. Sometimes, we’ll even joke about it together. I am hopeful that he will never know about the true intensity of this. But in reality, my Blaze fantasies hold no bounds. I remain thankful for the wild, no-holds-barred imagination I have, which keeps me up at night. This is no exaggeration.

As beautiful as he was, the way I relate to him on a human level is unparalleled. I share his deadpan, self-deprecating sense of humor. A beast of a man, he also had well-documented flaws and personal demons. He was authentic and raw and introspective and talented—a true force—which only perpetuates an intense longing, as I find myself so drawn to every aspect of him. Which is simply just pointless. 

While it may come as a surprise to the reader, I am grateful to not be delusional. I recognize that my behavior could be classified as slightly concerning. 

Online music forums are full of comments about the insanity of female fans. This one personally stings. In a fan scene with a reputation for women being a little unhinged and borderline psychotic, it’s difficult to not take this characterization to heart. However, I have forged supportive, female friendships in the least likely of places — uniting through an adoration of Blaze’s band. We cheer each other up on dark days by sharing videos and photos and finish off each other's quotes from band interviews. There is a strong female bond and solidarity. 

I’ve been trying to unpack this without professional help. First, I am a woman who’s just come off a medication that has been linked to a lower sex drive, and is having a personal crisis. I suspect I might have undiagnosed autism, which would explain many aspects of my personality. Ultimately, I am frustrated with many aspects of my personal and professional life, so I need a distraction and somewhere to channel my emotional energy. In an ideal world, I’d be using this frustration constructively to try and get a better-paid job and focus on writing. But alas, I’m creating folders on Pinterest, like a hormone-charged 14-year-old. 

Occasionally I have moments of extreme sadness, knowing I will never witness Blaze’s band play live (it hurts even more knowing that I had many missed opportunities). I will never get to thank him and tell him how much of an impact he has made on my life and helped me feel less alone in the world. These feelings come and go. I’ll pass an area where I know he was photographed. I’ll pass an area of town where I worked in the 2000s, while he was alive and possibly around in the same bars I frequented, if he was on tour. It’ll momentarily hurt. But then I’ll ask myself, “Why am I like this about a man that I never knew?”

I’ve learned that there are no easy answers, and there are myriad reasons why our brains form attachments like this. Perhaps one day I really will book that therapy appointment. In the meantime, you’ll find me going on long walks, listening to Blaze’s band at an incredibly high volume, and sharing band commentary videos with a group of girls.

I was 14 years old when the priest put his hands down my swim shorts and diddled my dick.

I was at the shallow end of a very large indoor swimming pool. The water reached slightly above my navel.

The pool was at a seminary, the place where young men go to study to be priests. Mine was a “minor seminary,” a combination high school and junior college, something not much seen these days but popular in the mid-20th century. It was far away from my home in Colorado, yet the place where I had decided to go live and study.

I wanted to be what he was, a priest. Today was my first day.

He waded up to me from the deeper water. When he was a few inches away, he slid both his hands down past my waistband. He placed his palms facing him so that he could pull my suit toward him and get in deep. Then, like someone twanging a tuning fork, the middle three fingers on his right hand did their business.

I remember everything: the water was warm; the air, humid; it was summer; the other boys gamboled all over the rest of the pool and its deck; the wall-high windows to the west had been rolled open; the noise stopped.

I remember that he wore black swim shorts, same color as mine; he was a big man and, I thought at the time, a lot older than I. Right in front of my face was his left nipple and I remember, as if it were a minute ago, staring at the many teeny bumps rounding his crimson aureole.

He chatted me up the whole time, asking me where I was from, how I had traveled there, what the train ride was like. I gabbed back, but I didn’t look up at his face; I just locked on that nipple.

I remember seeing words, but inside the back of my head, as if a news ticker were scrolling around a building: “This is a first. Strange, not sure how."

But it must be okay; he’s a priest.

The Priest Treated Me Like a Sexual Object

“But it must be okay; he’s a priest.”

At that time in my young life, and in the Catholic culture in which I lived, priests had an exalted dignity, enough, it now appears, to have bent my judgment or to have robbed me of my good sense.

How much of either, really, can a 14-year-old boy exercise when in such thrall?

Another time, five years later, summer again, the end of the last day of my seminary time. The priest took me to the train depot from which I was going to depart to return to Denver. It was very early morning, quite dark; the air was sticky.

I sat down on the left end of one of those pew-like wooden benches that train stations have, the kind with tall backs and ends like an armchair’s. The priest sat down next to me and rammed himself up against my right side, pinning me, then turned a bit and stuffed his right hand down into my pants and crotch.

He fondled my two 19-year-old balls, rolling them around in his palm, his fingers a sea anemone.

His breath was dank with alcohol as he leaned into my right ear and he asked me, “Do you want to go to Confession?”

For the first time in five years, I pulled his hand away from my body. I said, “No.”

The train came, just, and it was over.

In between those two days, the bookends of my time there, the priest touched me many times. Tousles of my hair; a palm on my shoulder; fingers on the rear of my neck. I thought that they were gestures of affection.

During those five years, I remember three times, three nights, when he asked me into his small room. He pulled me to him, the two of us falling onto his twin bed. He slobbered me with awkward kisses, his lips whiskeyed wet.

At least once a month, I went into that same room to seek counsel from him—he was what was called my “spiritual director”—and I would sit opposite him, his desk our DMZ. While we talked, he often would keep both his hands below, masturbating it looked like.

We boys slept in large dormitories, 70 beds in rows, with low nightstands separating each.

One night, when I was 16, I awoke, on my back. My blanket and cover sheet had been pulled down; so, too, had my pajama bottoms.

The priest was standing looming over me. My bed was near the exit lights and he and his black cassock eclipsed them so that the silhouette was starless.

He had jackson pollocked all over me; I was splotched with ejaculate.

He fondled my two 19-year-old balls.

Why I Choose Not To Say My Abuser’s Name

The priest died in 2008. He had a name, of course; I simply do not say it. Saying a man’s name gives him presence; it may give him power. In my time, I have had enough of both of the priest’s.

Also, I do not say his name because to do so would identify not only him but also him as a member of a group of priests, what is called, in the Roman church, an “order” or “congregation” of priests. Such, for example, are the Jesuits, or the Franciscans, though neither of these was his.

The great number of the priests with whom I went to school, and of whose congregation I had wished to become a member, were—and are—good men, doing good work. They are not he.

However, whenever I see a Roman collar, my stomach seizes up and my breathing tightens. Likely, the man whom I see wearing the collar thinks me no harm, means me no harm. It is neither fair nor just to partner one priest with all priests. True, many priests have sinned, yet, like all of us in our sinning, each has sinned of his own accord.

Today is close to 50 years to the day when the priest took me to the train depot. For the past half-century, I have heard but one response—only one, or its synonyms—by anyone, anywhere, in any medium, to any story of sexual abuse by a person in power over another person: “That is awful.”

But, in what lies the awfulness? What is so awful about the touching?

The Psychological Effects of Sexual Abuse Are Nearly Impossible to Live With

Many men and women say that, in their lives, the long-term mental health effects or results of physical abuse are what’s awful. They point out their depression or anxiety, their drug abuse, or how they suffer from PTSD or sexual dysfunction, or, even, how they themselves may have gone on to abuse others.

As for me, during the years since the priest took me to the train depot, I’ve undertaken to kill myself three times (1984, noose; 1996, fire; 2011, car meets wall). I drank gallons of alcohol; blew many an eight-ball of cocaine; been through three rehabs. I’ve been foreclosed on, gone bankrupt, lost work, made many a mistake, fallen many a time.

Yet my life these past 50 years doesn’t collapse into merely these bleaknesses, that pain.

During that same time, I’ve also written—pretty well, I’ve heard—close to 5,000 pieces for magazines and newspapers; taught thousands of people in hundreds of classes and seminars, at schools of my own devising and at prestigious universities; for it all, I’ve received awards, plaques and kudos.

I was 28 years in a marriage with the best person ever to have happened to me; we’ve raised a fine young man. I also became honest with who I am, as a male, opened the closet door, and forged a life of my own.

I’ve done many kindnesses to many people, given, shared, helped, cared; I’ve been a good man.

After thinking a lot about these 50 years, I’ve come to believe that both these sets of a life—the detestable as well as the admirable—have warred with each other to define me. The war was over whether I felt that I was a person or not.

Saying a man’s name gives him presence.

Sexual Abuse Victims May Not Recover Their Mental Health, But They Can Recover Their Lives

We call our early years “the formative years.” I spent five of those years at the seminary, in the presence of the priest, his power and his touching me.

Because I respected the idea of who and what a priest was, how he treated me mattered to how I felt about myself. Because he treated me—and hence defined me—as an object, something to be manipulated or used, that is how I felt about myself, as a thing. I was a mere thing.

I do not know how things feel (an odd set of words) but over the years I—this guy—felt, in turns, low, dirty, like a pile of shit, worthless, “just there,” damaged goods, anything but forward-looking, or glad to be around for the next minute, or pleased with accomplishment.

On the other hand, when I knew and know myself, inside myself, in my heart, to be not-a-thing, but in fact a person, I told and tell myself that I can do what I choose to do, what I want to do, what I might consider to be good, what might move me or others forward in life, what might enrich my life or others’ lives, what might help me and other people to feel that they are persons too.

There is no one triumph to my life, not even mere living itself. Two selves cohabit in me: the injured one who doubts, and the sound one who knows its goodness.

I accept both, one that was made for me, one that I make for myself. They make me me.

Love is something that gets hardwired into our bodies when we are preverbal. The nature of our mother’s attunement and relationship to us is our first and primary imprint of what love is. Our father and other caretakers secondarily imprint what love “feels” like into our bodies.I am talking about a vibrational energy that dwells within the body, not in the conscious mind. This energy acts like a blueprint for our future experiences, because our bodies will choose familiarity over value.I am a marriage and family therapist: In case this sounds like psychobabble to you, I’ll offer an illustration from my own life. My very charismatic alcoholic father was rarely around when I was young. He left my mother when I was four years old, and after that he was supposed to visit his three daughters every Sunday. Most Sundays he didn’t show up, and when he did, he was usually extremely late. My sisters and I had to sit and wait by the door in our dress clothes complete with coats and gloves. We protested our physical discomfort, but our mother made us stay and wait for hours sometimes. We’d watch her anxiety grow with every minute of his tardiness. She was an anxious wreck, and we’d feel her disappointment each time he didn’t show—our little bodies were imprinted with the vibrational energy of abandonment.

My alcoholic father was rarely around when I was young.

My Family Taught Me Hard Lessons

Soon my father moved across the country. He might reach out with a phone call on a birthday, but sometimes he had the day wrong. Some years he didn’t call at all. The disappointment was palpable. We’d see him about once a year. He always had us meet in a restaurant with a bar filled with fellow drinkers who would tell us that we were the most important people in his life. I recall feeling really confused by that since we really didn’t know him—and he didn’t know us.This mixed message, lack of attunement and abandonment was written in my body as the blueprint for what the love of a man feels like. So, what kind of partners do you imagine I picked in my life? Steady men who showed up, were present and wanted to commit to a loving relationship? Or charismatic alcoholics who were unreliable and unavailable emotionally? I, of course, chose the latter—over and over—because that’s what had been hardwired into me. This was the kind of man who activated my love receptors. I could feel this kind of man across a crowded room, and without a single word between us, I would know that he was the one for me. When I met warm and loving men who were interested in me, I never felt any chemistry. I’m wired to choose familiarity over value.Does any of this ring a bell for you? Have you chosen partners who are reflective of what love felt like from either your mother, father or a primary caretaker?

When I met warm and loving men who were interested in me, I never felt any chemistry with them.

We Often Attempt to Duplicate Parental Love With Our Mates

I never understood that I was duplicating the imprint of my father’s love in my relationships. I thought my lovers were letting me down and hurting me because one or both of us were doing something wrong. I was blind to the unconscious choosing I had done to duplicate a love that felt familiar to my childhood.Often, I see clients who are not aware that they train their partners to treat them in a way that will fulfill the experience of love they had as a child. I had a client whose mother criticized her terribly when she was young, and that criticism was coupled with her mother’s love. This client would unconsciously antagonize her husband—a typically affable and easy-going guy—until he would lash out at her in ways that felt criticizing.He loathed treating her that way. She didn’t like it either. But this was “love” for her; this was the familiar, and she was training her husband to perpetuate it for her. She had a history of being able to tolerate feeling criticized even though it upset her. Her body chose familiarity over value.So, how do we break this pattern?

You don’t need love, you are love.

You Can Change

First and foremost, we need to take responsibility for the “one person themes” we bring to a relationship. I knew I was repeatedly choosing men who would disappoint me. But until I understood that I was duplicating the imprint of my original “love,” I couldn’t change. Believe me, I had tried. The aforementioned client thought her husband was doing something wrong—he was too critical. But she was the one unconsciously antagonizing him until she could get him to be critical. She needed to see her part in re-creating her original “love” imprint in order to be able to transform their relationship.Another important step in transforming this pattern is to stop looking at love as something that comes from the outside, and start accepting the truth that it comes from the inside. Then we can begin to cultivate an internal feeling of constancy and wellbeing.If you look to others in order to feel loved, you are vulnerable to their human inconsistencies. They are likely to be perpetuating the patterns of their original “love” imprint. Your wellbeing will ride the rollercoaster of the love that inevitably comes from others simply being human. It is far more reliable to find love inside you. You don’t need love, you are love.Lean into the idea that you are love. It doesn’t come from externals: It’s internal. Can you imagine how that could change your paradigm on relationships and life?Here is a little exercise that can support you in experiencing love as coming from within. Take at least five deep breaths inhaling and exhaling from your mouth—expanding your chest and ribs. Fill your lungs up as much as possible. Then put your hands on your heart.Imagine a time you felt a profound sense of love, perhaps with a pet, child, parent or lover. Then let the story go and just stay with the feeling of love. What are you feeling in your body? Calm, heat, expansion, openheartedness, joy? Can you feel a sensation of love inside you that exists just because you exist? You can generate it all by yourself just by taking a moment to go inside and feel it.An important step toward transformation is beginning to hardwire love into ourselves. That love can’t come from another person, it must come from within. We need to re-parent ourselves with an attuned reliable love.Imagine you are carrying your “baby-self,” in a baby carrier in front of you. Imagine you are carrying your very special “baby-self” right on your heart—every day you tend to him/her with all the depth of love you have in you. You talk to your baby-self and reassure him/her that he/she is loved, special, important, not alone.This is how you can re-parent yourself and imprint a positive “love” experience into your body. Make this imprint a “feeling” of love that is completely ingrained and a constant—integrate it so completely that when you choose familiarity, you are choosing value.

“Maybe, one day, you can use this experience to help other kids who are going through what you’re going through right now,” my older cousin, Beth, said. She was attempting to say something, anything, instead of the obvious nothing. This quote was offered to me, outside of the hospital. My mother had just passed away a couple of days before inside. Although they didn’t mean much to me at the time, Beth’s words carried meaning of their own. They came to stay with me during many hard times and will remain with me my entire life.

I lost my mother, Marianne, when I was 13, to a rare disease called multiple system atrophy (MSA). Her organs were failing and she got gradually worse in cognitive abilities. This aggressive disease came with no cure and a short prognosis. She once was able to walk fully fine on her own, but MSA took away that ability—first by her being too weak and needing a walker for support and then needing a wheelchair. At the age of 50, her organs had weakened to the point in which her heart had stopped beating.

My mother’s death was the first tragic thing I had experienced in my life. We were close and she was always amazing to me. She was an amazing woman, in general.

My father, who also had some health issues of his own—suffering from COPD—took care of my mother, his wife, through the entirety of her illness. He did everything for her, from diagnosis until the day she took her last breath. I truly believe that the love I witnessed my father show my mother is part of the reason I have a devoted husband and marriage today. If I hadn't seen what true love really looked like, how could I have ever known to look for it?

If I hadn't seen what true love really looked like, how could I have ever known to look for it?

After My Mom Died, I Got Depressed

The year after my mother’s death, I moved in with my Aunt Barb. My father was getting progressively more ill. Barb wasted no time in having me psychologically evaluated: The results confirmed my state of depression. I was prescribed medication and attended weekly therapy sessions through high school. The treatment did help me quite a bit. However, as a coping method, I started drinking heavily around the age of 14. I always felt as if nothing seemed to be enjoyable unless I was able to be drunk while doing it.

My father and I grew even closer as he got sicker, as I would do his shopping for him, his laundry, pick up his favorite fast food or just visit and talk with him. My father, although unable to take me on vacations or other outings while sick, never failed to make me feel anything less than loved unconditionally. “I waited 42 years to have you, toots!” he used to say.

At the age of 21, I found what I had always hoped for in a life partner: a man like my father, who I knew would love me unconditionally. Gary, who is 10 years my elder, came into my life at the moment I had stopped looking.

I always felt as if nothing seemed to be enjoyable unless I was able to be drunk while doing it.

Things Got Better When I Found the Love of My Life

At first, the age gap felt strange to me. Aunt Barb disagreed.

“You need an older guy,” she insisted when I told her all about this suspiciously perfect guy I met.

As time went on, the age gap seemed less relevant and the manner in which I was being treated became more relevant. We became best friends. Eventually, I realized, I had found the love of my life, and age had shortly become nothing more than a number.

At the age of 24, I announced my engagement. I was most anxious to break this joyous news to one person: my father. Rather than tell him over the phone, I had simply asked to come by. I flashed my ring upon arrival.

“Gary asked you to marry him? Congratulations!” my father proclaimed with genuine excitement glistening in his eye. “Do you think he'd mind me calling and congratulating him later? What time does he get out of work tonight?”

Although I'm aware this call was fully intended to be made, it never was able to be.

Only 11 short days after my engagement, my father passed away. It was due to cardiac arrest, a result of complications with his COPD.

I am still here.

The Rollercoaster Ride Continued Until I Got Sober

The passing of my father left my heart broken to its core. It led to a deeper, more destructive form of depression. I had no longer seemed to be able to find that inner warrior which I had carried with me for over a decade. My motivation hit zero.

“I feel like I want to just be with them,” I cried to my husband. “I know it's probably not what's meant to be, but it just feels as if it would be so peaceful. Why do I have to be down here without them both?”

Although I had quit drinking at the age of 22, I picked up another habit. I began to abuse Adderall. I had begun to use it occasionally, here and there. It was under control. Until it wasn't.

My usage increased into excessive territory and, finally, spiraled out of control. I had gone through months of binging and crashing. There even came a point where I wasn’t sleeping for multiple days straight. I experienced vivid visual hallucinations.

In time, I realized I had to stop. I owed it to my husband, family, both of my parents, and, also, myself to remain motivated.

“You can do this,” Gary would often encourage me. “I know addiction is tough, but look at all you've been through.” He would say, “You’re tough, baby girl.”

“What happened to the girl who wanted to get her psychology degree and help others based off of what she had gone through?" he asked.

“Nothing. She’s still here.”

I am still here.

After a long, tough fight, I regained my sense of self again. Now, talking through my grief in therapy, and having fought my way out of the firm clutches of a little orange pill, I have been able to plan for my return to school.

I have a full-time job as a behavior technician, providing services to children with autism. The goal is to help them achieve their highest potential quality of life, and I love every minute of it.

I am ready to share with the world all that I have to offer, and what unconditional love has helped me overcome.

This story is based on an interview with the editors of The Doe.

I have always loved working outside. I love the way it makes me feel to do labor jobs and work with my body. I had heard about the Forest Service's Wildland Fire program and I knew a couple people who did it. I was in my mid-twenties and doing outdoor seasonal work. I was looking around for my next move and I thought, Why not? I'll try it out. I put in an application, and the first call I got, I was offered a job in a rural area.

There were a couple of other women at this job. My supervisor assured me that he wanted to create an inclusive, welcoming module. So that was reassuring to me. But even so, I wanted to just be one of the guys. I was thinking, I have brothers. I know I can do this. Nothing is going to get to me. Before I got into fire, I had worked with so many women in the outdoor fields who were really badass and inspiring, and it was a big, empowering feminist community. So I don't even know where the “one of the guys” thing came from, other than it’s instinctual to want to fit in with a group.

The jokey comments started out small, like “You’re being a pussy,” or “Don’t be a little bitch,” or “Look at that woman over there, she’s so hot.” And I would laugh, because I didn’t want to be that girl who made an issue out of things. I would even make jokes at my own expense, like “I can’t pick up this rock—it must just be because I’m a woman!” I convinced myself that if I was making these jokes, it wouldn’t hurt when other people made them.

But what I came to learn is that when you talk about yourself that way, you’re giving other people permission to do it, too. When one small thing is okay, the next joke is going to be a little bit worse, until eventually you look up and you're like, “What the fuck is going on?” All of a sudden there are rape jokes, and jokes really sexualizing women, and jokes that are racist and homophobic. Stuff I would be truly embarrassed to be around in my personal life. One guy touched me inappropriately and I rationalized it like, “Oh, well, everybody was drinking. It wasn't serious.” Then a guy tried to kiss me, and again I was like, “It was just a joke. Everyone was drunk.”

I told myself the harassment wasn't a big deal. I fit in, and they liked me.

I told myself it wasn’t a big deal. I fit in, and they liked me. I didn’t report it because the fire world is small, and I didn’t want to hold myself back from getting other jobs. I wanted to just move on. But if it's really not a big deal, then why am I keeping all this to myself? Why am I not talking to my friends? I knew if I told them what was going on, they would have been like, Are you kidding? 

Slowly I realized that working with multiple women was not the norm. Eventually, I was the only woman on that module. One day—I don’t know why—I was no longer on the inside, and that was not a good feeling. I was on the outside, experiencing things that maybe those other women experienced when I was on the inside. I started to see why they didn't come back.

I didn't feel like I belonged anymore. I would walk up to a group, and they would walk away. It was so painful. Honestly, I wished they were making rape jokes, because at least they would be talking to me.

After that, I decided to switch to a different forest. More than 10 years later, I still have not experienced that same level of isolation and harassment. But I am still the only woman, and it’s weird. Even when the guys are very nice to me, I’m still not getting invited to get a beer after work. It sucks. I’m wondering, Are they talking about me? Do they secretly hate me? I don't know, because I don't have personal relationships with them.

The job of fighting wildland fires is hard for everyone, but it can be especially hard when you are the only woman on back-to-back, weeks-long assignments. At one point you realize, “Oh, cool. I haven't talked to another woman for three or four weeks because there's no other women on my crew.” Men, specifically white men, can’t wrap their minds around looking around and not seeing anybody like them. At home, it’s not so bad when you can go home at the end of the day and see your significant other or your friends outside of work. But you don’t get that when you’re out on an assignment—your job is your life. It’s all-encompassing when you’re in the field. 

During those assignments, it can sometimes feel like you are representing all women. On hard shifts, people sometimes go down. You can’t do it anymore, you’re tapped out. That will happen throughout the season, but I personally have never worked with a woman who’s tapped out. You just know you can't do that. You have to perform.  

But in another way, working on the fire line isn’t as isolating, because when you’re working 16-hour days then going straight to bed in a tent, you’re immersed and you’re just in it. There are other times when you’ll be sitting around in areas with high fire danger, and people will be playing cards or shooting the shit—that’s when there’s time to get into your own head. Physical training, or PT, can also be tough if you’re a woman. At a CrossFit gym, for instance, there's a recognition that men’s and women's bodies are different. But it’s not like that when you’re doing workouts with your crew. If you can't keep up, you’ll start thinking: I’m weak. I’m a liability. Why am I even here? Even though you know you can run a chainsaw, dig line, or hike just as well as everybody else, during PT you’ll say to yourself, “Oh, I'm shitty and I don't deserve to be here.” 

Thankfully, there’s a sisterhood network that exists under the radar. Maybe I don't work with any women directly, but if I ever encounter another woman on a fire, I’m going to talk to her. There’s an online community that connects us, too. It reminds you that what you’re experiencing is not unique, that other women understand. We’ll also warn each other, like “Oh, that guy? He harasses women.” Or, “That forest? They don’t hire women.” These women are the ones that have helped me stick it out all these years. They will encourage me to keep my head up or shake something off. When I was starting out, I would see a more senior woman and be like, “Wow, look at her. She has gone through all these years, and she's still here.” As I advance in my career, I feel an obligation to be that same model for other women starting out.

When The Doe approached me to write this story, the founder told me he had approached others who had been wrapped up in the California admissions scandal. They declined. I didn’t ask why, because I know. I know what they’re going through.We all wanted to get into great schools, we all felt the pressure to impress and we all live in the shadow of successful parents. I hope I do our stories justice.I don’t want this to be a pity party. The majority of what I get are comments like: “You piece of shit” and “So, do you cheat on everything or just the SATs?” But, I don’t want your pity. That’s not why I’m doing this. I’m writing this to offer my perspective and, hopefully, help change a broken system. So that this doesn’t happen again. Because, as long as it’s important to go to a prestigious university, parents will do whatever they can to “buy” their kids in.It wasn't supposed to happen this way.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way.

I Thought I Did It All on My Own

Until the hammer came down, things were going the way you would expect them to when you’re living in a state of ignorance. I didn’t realize my parents were pulling strings like a fucking puppet.You spend years working hard in high school, working your ass off to make the grades, studying for the SAT, taking the standardized tests, applying to the schools, and, finally, after all the hard work, you’re rewarded by getting into your first-choice school.I felt the excitement. All of my work had paid off. I earned this. I deserved this. Or so I thought.It’s not a feeling you get to feel often when you’re born into a world of wealth. Anything you do tends to be dismissed given your high-achieving parents. Nobody would believe you accomplished anything on your own. Why would they? Stories like the scandal make it almost impossible to believe a rich kid could have merit of his or her own.The exception to this tends to be college. Unless you’ve got your name on a building or you’re a legacy, you can’t buy your way in—not really anyhow. Or so we believed. So, when a year later, I found out I didn’t earn shit, I lost the one thing that was mine. The one thing that I believed I had actually worked hard for and earned. To make matters worse, my parents had gone around telling all of our friends and family how I did this on my own, how they didn’t get me a tutor, how they didn’t help with my applications: no SAT help, none of it.

I didn’t plan to cheat the system with my parents.

I Had No Idea

I didn’t know. I didn’t plan to cheat the system with my parents. I didn’t know. To this day, I still don’t know how much my parents knew or when they found out that they had been caught. I assume they figured it would blow over or they could buy their way out of it because they didn’t let me know what was happening. It would’ve meant admitting that they had been lying to me the entire time.Once the news broke, our first phone call went something like this: “Dad, what the fuck is happening? Is what they’re saying true?” His response was, “Let’s talk in person.” I can only assume it’s because he figured the phones were being tapped. So, when we got together, I was hoping for him to say it was all a misunderstanding and untrue. Not only was that obviously not true, but it was the day I realized my parents care more about themselves than me. And I won’t make you read to the end to tell you: My sentiments haven’t changed.Why do I say this? Well, for starters, when we sat down to talk about it, a lawyer was present and my parents wouldn’t speak. The lawyer was the only one talking. And, as I write this, my parents won’t give me details. They say that if I want to ask questions I have to talk to the lawyer again. I was assured my parents love me but I didn’t get an apology for the lying. I didn’t get an apology for cheating. And I sure as hell didn’t get an apology for all of the mental struggles I’ve gone through. They knew how much I cared about going through this process on my own, without their help. That’s what really hurts.The fallout mentally was worse than the fear of my parents going to prison, getting kicked out of school or the thought of never getting a job.It was like that little devil from the cartoons on your shoulder telling you, "You're exactly what everyone else said you were: the rich kid who never worked for anything in his life. You think any of your friends would ever trust you again? You think a girl would ever love a cheater?”Growing up in an affluent area isn’t like everyone thinks it is. Yes, we have the massive parties and the trips to the Bahamas (with the butler). But we have our own shit to navigate, too. There isn’t a healthy relationship for miles, the competition to be better than one another is cutthroat, your achievements aren’t respected because you had money behind them, and, worst of all, the rest of the world despises you for being rich. If you’re born into it, nothing you ever do will outshine your parents.I feared that my parents were going to prison. I had two remaining friends. And, with that, I returned to college after spring break knowing the storm would be waiting for me.

They laughed at me as I walked around campus.

Freshman Year Was Miserable

People spit on me. They laughed at me as I walked around campus. They slid unimaginable threats under my door and, even, drawings of my family being abused. I had professors tell me they’d rather I not take their class: “I won’t call on you. You’re not welcome to my office hours, and your assessments will need to be privately supervised by me.” I took a two-hour test with a professor sitting directly in front of me as we looked face-to-face at one another. The campus library rejected me when I applied for a job because others refused to work with me. I had classes where students wouldn't work with me on group projects.I dreamt of going to this school, and my parents knew that. They did what they could to help me reach my dreams—and while I’ll never forgive them for this—I, in part, understand why they did what they did. Those of us who go to college are quite lucky to be able to do so in the first place. But, we (and our parents) ended up doing senseless things to get into prestigious schools all for the purpose of a better—probably just wealthier—future.So what I ask, and I don’t know that I’m in a place to ask anything, is this: If you’re a parent, don’t put these unattainable expectations on your kid. You could end up ruining his or her life. If you’re an employer, stop looking for name-brand schools. Pick people for their abilities, whether that’s an actual skill, someone’s personality or a capacity to learn on the job. Finally, to the universities: Your damn process needs to change. I don’t know exactly what that means, but it might start with actually considering applicants based on their inherent values.

Watching the almost ubiquitous outpouring of grief, anger, resentment, sorrow and subsequent empowerment as the Black Lives Matter movement reached its peak in May last year was a strange experience for me. On the surface, I am what many observers would consider Black; my skin is a coffee complexion, my hair has grown into dreadlocks, but my features are indicative of my mixed heritage. My mother is Caucasian, my father is from Jamaica—there are myriad genetic variables from both sides of my family, including German, some Irish, perhaps some Indian, European and, of course, African. It was strange to watch because I’ve never seen the world through the same lens as those who’ve been on the sharp end of the brutal oppression that has existed in our world for centuries.

I’ve Never Had a Good Understanding of White Privilege

My dad was never around, so my entire upbringing was within a white working-class family. I wasn’t alone though. Three of my mother’s four sisters also had children with Black men, so the majority of my cousins were also mixed-race like me. The Black Lives Matter movement seeks to redress the imbalance that currently exists in the world when it comes to the treatment of Black people at the hands of a system built on white privilege. It’s both blatant and covert, highly visible (e.g., George Floyd’s murder) and totally invisible, from daily micro-aggressions and the insidious prevalence of unconscious bias dictating the path of Black people all over the world to the racial slurs and abuse encountered by millions every year. The explosion of anger and violence that occurred not long after Floyd’s death was totally understandable in the context of the historic, incessant abuse of Black people, especially in America. When the protests spread around the world and COVID-19 was finally eclipsed in the 24-hour news cycle, I initially felt the pangs of anger. One night, my partner was talking about dressing our baby daughter up as Elvis and I lost my temper, raging about this man who’d co-opted songs by Black artists and never paid them their dues, images of Floyd’s face squashed into the road with a policeman’s knee pressing down on his neck still imprinted onto my mind. I am an unflinching advocate for equality and the rights of everyone to live their life free from discrimination and abuse. I must admit, though, that I have found it incredibly challenging to be classed as a Black man in need of saving from the system, particularly as I have been placed into a pigeonhole that, ironically, undermines my individuality.

My dad was never around, so my entire upbringing was within a white working-class family.

My Mixed-Race Experience Has Been Atypical

My experience as a mixed-race man has been very different from what many people imagine. I grew up in a white household, with white values and saw the world through the eyes of someone raised in that kind of environment. I knew I was a different color, and even at four years old I asked my mom why I wasn’t gray if she was white and my dad was Black. But I didn’t have an upbringing that primed me for a life of oppression and discrimination, for a life that made me feel less than white people, for a life that was set up for me to fail. Something that I hear a lot from my Black peers is that they were always told that they would have to work (at least) twice as hard as their white counterparts. I never got that memo. I never got any memo. All I knew was that I was a different color from my mom, but life could be whatever I made of it, despite her being on the U.K. equivalent of welfare almost all my life. Call that white privilege, call that blinkered, call that lucky. Call it whatever you like. That was my experience. Since I hadn’t been schooled on the troubles I would face in the big wide world, I was perhaps less “alive to” or aware of the subtle differences in the way I was sometimes treated by others. Sure, I saw women grab hold of their handbags when I walked close to them; I got the usual jokes about the size of my manhood; and people always assumed that I was “cool” and that I was a good dancer. I lost count of the number of times I was asked for drugs in clubs or never gained entry because the bouncers saw my skin color as a danger sign.

Coming to Terms With My Mixed-Face Heritage

As I got older, I knew that there were things that would happen to me because I was dark-skinned, that probably wouldn’t happen to white people or at least not as often. But I never felt incensed and usually made jokes about my skin color to put people at ease. I believe in equality and I also believe that one of the most beautiful things about the human race is all our many differences. Humor is a healer, a tonic to our ills. I love to laugh at our differences, whether they’re cultural, physical or otherwise. Self-deprecation is a great way to break the ice and connect with people. Now people feel as though they have to tiptoe around me, not knowing what the “right” thing to say is, tripping over the word “Black,” even when they’re using it to describe an inanimate object. I define myself as “mixed-race” because I want to be an “every person,” a human, rather than a binary racial category. Mixed-race, for me, means anything and everything. To begin with, there was, admittedly, part of that self-identification that came from a rejection of my father and my Black side. But I met him a few years ago and made peace with all of that. I have embraced my Black heritage, and have become close to him and his family. I have siblings who are very close to me in age, but their childhood experiences, with a Black mother, were very different from mine. I can empathize with them, but my life was not like theirs. I’ve lived a difficult, though eventually, fruitful life, carving out a successful career, traveled the world and achieved my dream—a humble, comfortable existence. At no point did I ever feel held back by an invisible system. Would I be more successful if I were white? I can’t answer that question, but I’m very content with what I’ve achieved and never feel as though my skin color was an obstacle to getting what I wanted.

The fight for equality is a crucial one.

In Our Effort to Unite, We Can’t Forget About Individuality

The fight for equality is a crucial one—it’s for every demographic of our society that is being oppressed by a system that favors and protects a fraction of the global population and its privileged status. But activists must also remember that there is so much nuance in the experiences of those they’re fighting for. Being on the receiving end of racism can be subjective; friends and colleagues poking fun at each other might be harmful to one Black person, but harmless to another. That doesn’t make either person’s response less valid, it just means that we all experience the world through our individual histories. It’s been weird for me to have been confronted with my Blackness and to have been commissioned work because of it. Increased awareness of my complexion has led to a very busy year since George Floyd died and I am grateful for the work, especially in a time of such economic strife. But it’s also been bewildering. I am by no means color blind, but I also wear my skin color without much consideration of its apparent burden. I’ve navigated life with the mindset that I am equal to others and, more importantly, I always treat others as I want to be treated: with respect, as a human being, and as an equal. Whether I’m talking to a wealthy CEO or a homeless person, you get the same eye contact, the same warm smile, the same attentiveness and the same compassion for your life and complicated history. This is what drives me. It’s what I learned growing up in a household as the very first person in my family to have Caribbean DNA. I’m the oldest of my mixed-race siblings born during the 1980s, but I was never treated as above or below anyone else. This grounding, I believe, is essential to our race progressing. Acknowledging our differences, celebrating them, laughing at them and realizing we’re all together on this bumpy ride of life.

I work for a mining company. We mine sand. I've been there two years now, but I've been doing mechanic-type stuff for years. I live in a rural part of New Jersey. People are great out here, but if you're talking about ideologies, it's definitely more conservative.I have a kid on the way, and I’m really excited. I can’t wait, to be honest. I’m more ready than my wife is. I’m excited about the whole experience, I guess. Honestly, it’s something I never thought I'd go through until recently.I know that having a baby is pretty intense for the woman. So for me to be around to help my wife through that recovery period is a big deal. I need to be there to help. I think it's unfair just to have someone be like, “Alright, well, I'm going back to work.”

Being There for My Wife and Baby Is Important to Me

My wife and I will be raising our kid pretty much by ourselves. I’ve got family around, but we’re not super close. For the most part, it’s just my wife and me, and that’s probably how it’ll stay. So it’s extra important for me to be able to be here to help out and pick up some of the slack.But also, I just want to experience this to the fullest. This is my child—my first child—and I want to be there during this time. I'm having a daughter, and I want to be there for her. Obviously, I’ll be there for her in the dad role or whatever, but I also want to be there for every aspect. I don't want to just be like, “Yeah, I make money; you should be thankful you have running water,” and that's it. Being a good dad is pretty much the bottom line, and I think a lot of that is just being around for life as it happens and not just going out to make as much money as you can. Because it's never enough anyway, you know? So I’m taking the full 12 weeks of family leave that I’m entitled to through the federal Family and Medical Leave Act to be there for my wife and baby. I mean, that's what they give you. So I don't see a reason not to.I’ve gotten a lot of pushback for my decision to take time off. It’s actually kind of crazy. It really doesn't affect anyone else at all, but they all have a lot to say about it, for whatever reason.

I have a kid on the way, and I’m really excited.

My Family and Co-workers Treat Family Leave Like a Scam

At first, it was just at work. Not from my bosses, which is what I hear the most from other people. I have neighbors that say they got a lot of grief from their bosses, like, “Oh, what are we gonna do? We're gonna be shorthanded. It's really going to screw us over for you not to be here.” For me, it’s coming mostly from my co-workers, asking why I have to take all of the time I have coming, which doesn’t make any sense to me, since they have the same rights to time off.My parents have been even worse. My mom called me out of the blue to tell me she doesn’t approve of me taking family leave. “That’s not what a man does,” she said. “You’re supposed to be out there making money.” She went on like that for 30 minutes. It got so crazy, my wife recorded some of it. There are a lot of people who think that the man’s role is supposed to be the breadwinner, that his responsibility is to be making money for his family, not being there to spend time with them. A lot of guys like it that way. I’ve had men be like, “Well, don’t you want to be at work?” I was talking to a co-worker and asked him if he’d taken family leave, and he was like, “No, I was back at work the next day.” I asked him what his wife did, and he said he didn’t know. I didn’t say it to him, but I was like, “You don’t care? You just went back to work?” These other people aren’t the ones who are having the baby. They’re not the ones going through the physical pain or doing all of the exhausting work. I want to be there in whatever ways my wife and our baby need me for. I know for sure I'm going to be doing all the chores. She’s going to have her hands full. I just want to make sure she has everything she needs, that she doesn’t have to worry about laundry, doesn't have to worry about dishes or stupid stuff like that.

My mom called me out of the blue to tell me she doesn’t approve of me taking family leave.

I’m Standing Up for My Wife and Daughter

Plus, I want to spend time with my newborn too. I want to spend time with this new person. I've always wanted a daughter for some reason. People tell me I'd be a good girl dad. It’s not any one thing that’s exciting to me about it—it’s the whole thing. Just being there and watching somebody grow up and helping them through all this stuff and giving advice or whatever—just normal stuff.These other people can keep trying to push their ideas on me. I'm not letting any of that change my mind. I'm still taking all my leave. I just think it's bizarre that all these people think it's so wrong to do that. They all seem to think I'm taking advantage of a system or something, when I feel like I'm doing the opposite. Family leave is a government program, and I pay my taxes. It is what it is, you know? I'm not going to let anything get in the way of that. There's always another job. There’s maybe not always another family, you know, but you’ve got to do what you can with that. You can disagree and do what you think is right. And that’s what I'm doing.