The Doe’s Latest Stories

Father’s Day has long been a triggering day for me. Some moments irrevocably change how you see the world and, at 15 years old, I had one of those moments. While my whole family was on a road trip, I lost my dad in a car accident. I once read that losing a parent is like losing your spine—you will eventually learn to walk again, but it will never be the same. After the accident, I understood what that meant.

I felt a crushing wave of grief wash over me.

Learning to Hide From My Grief

I had been a daddy’s girl all my life. It became a running joke; everyone in the family would call me his carbon copy because I looked, behaved and thought just like him. Even his mother, my grandmother, would tell me how I was a spitting image of him. Losing him broke me in every way. More than a decade later, I still have not quite processed the accident, but I’m trying.After losing my dad, Father’s Day was just another rude, in-your-face reminder of his resounding absence and all that I had lost. Being the oldest child, I quickly took over as the “head” of the family and started looking after my baby sister. My mom was completely shattered, and my immediate survival response to the grief was to barricade my emotions. We couldn’t afford to both be broken down. She later told me that if I had gotten weak then, she wouldn’t have known what to do.As a result of detaching from my emotions, I developed a strong aversive response to anything that reminded me of my dad. I would not look at his photos. Important dates like his birthday, anniversary and, of course, Father’s Day, were particularly hard. On those days, I’d either overwork myself to avoid thinking about what the day signified, or I’d get some help from weed or tranquilizers to numb my brain.For the longest time, I would go to great lengths to avoid any celebrations of Father’s Day since I was afraid of confronting the overwhelming sense of loss and despair. I went so far as to pretend like that tragedy had never happened in front of my classmates. After the school’s management found out about the accident, they called me out of the class individually to give their condolences. My classmates soon figured out why and, while I respected their kind gestures, I hated their curiosity and sympathy.

I have found vestiges of fatherhood—which I thought I had lost forever—in the living people around me.

Finding Traces of Fatherhood in My Family

A few years later, my college hosted an event where everyone had to present what fatherhood meant to them. I dreaded presenting from the get-go and tried my hardest to get out of it but to no avail.Begrudgingly, I set out to brainstorm on my presentation, which made me reflect on all the father figures in my life. We were supposed to come up with a list of characteristics and adjectives that describe a father. Writing them initially, I felt a crushing wave of grief wash over me.Soon, however, an epiphany hit. There were still people in my life—alive, no less—who shared the characteristics I attributed to a father figure. Since the accident, both my paternal and maternal uncles have made sure they make an effort to fill part of that irreplaceable void in my family’s life.My paternal uncle used to live with his family in Singapore; I remember the time my sister and I went there on vacation. He had gotten his own daughters beautiful gold pendants for their belated birthdays, but he got my sister and I the exact same pendants. That gesture really moved me. It was his way of silently telling us that, in his eyes, we were equal to his biological children.For me, a father was a pillar of strength, the one you turned to when you felt threatened or weak. My pillar was 6 feet, 3 inches tall, often making him intimidating to neighborhood kids. When we would step outside of our apartment building, I had my strong dad to hide behind. After losing him, I remember walking outside for the first time and noticing some neighborhood boys leering at me. Without the presence of my dad, I felt exposed and unshielded for the first time in my life. That was when the reality of his permanent absence really hit me.In a way, small things like that were a rite of passage. At some point, I had to learn to stand up for myself, but it was still a rude awakening for a 15-year-old. After that first wave of shock wore off and I continued to go out, I realized I wasn’t actually alone. I had my cousins and uncles, who really banded together to make my family feel secure.Looking back on the memories of my family’s kindness and support fills me with gratitude. I have found vestiges of fatherhood—which I thought I had lost forever—in the living people around me.Father’s Day is still bittersweet for me, but I don’t try to run away from it. Now I make a conscious effort to reminisce on all the wonderful memories I have with my father and to be grateful for still having people in my life who try to fill that void.

In the South, unions are often a touchy topic—not much is known about them, and what is known is often shrouded by anti-workers’-rights propaganda. My personal journey with unions started when I was a cast member at Walt Disney World. Unions had already been established for many years, but “The Mouse,” as co-workers not so nicely called it, was trying to push them out.Being a union member there saved my job against a management team that didn’t want me, and that's when I realized just how underrepresented workers without unions are. When I was wrongfully accused of intentional misconduct and disregard for safety, my union rep had my back and made sure I had all the information, protection and community I needed. Knowing that I could have easily lost my job—and that there were people in the workforce who face much worse because they don't have support or assurance of their employment like that—ignited something in me.Amongst the other megacorporations, Starbucks is one of the best employers. As a shift supervisor, the benefits and pay are better than most chains, and if you're queer like me, then oftentimes, it's a safe haven—a home away from home. Being a barista introduced me to a community and a family that I may not have met otherwise. However, more recently, Starbucks baristas have found themselves in a chokehold. The company’s benefits are just good enough not to leave (because no other place can match them), but the working conditions are falling faster than a landslide. For a time, it looked as if Starbucks was going to be ahead of the curve, especially when the COVID-19 pandemic began. Then, things like hazard pay, food and drink markouts, and other benefits were pulled out from beneath us. This is where the push for a more forward moment in labor rights really began at Starbucks.

Once news broke that some Buffalo-based Starbucks franchises had filed for unionization, the game changed.

Once Buffalo Stores Began Unionizing, the Game Changed

Talk of unionizing had occurred at my location since I transferred there in July of 2020. At the time, there were only a handful of people who were fed up—not only with how our district manager overlooked our store and its hazardous working conditions but with Starbucks’ corporate leadership, as well. The concerns ranged from the store’s mold to its cracked flooring to its increasingly volatile customer interactions. Funnily enough, our store manager at the time supported our hope to unionize. I even sent an email to the local AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) during the summer of 2021, but I never got a response. Once news broke that some Buffalo-based Starbucks franchises had filed for unionization, the game changed. At this point, my location had brought in new management. We went from a store that had an almost all-queer staff to one with an uneducated store manager with several transphobic shift supervisors. There was a lot of tension between partners (what the company calls its employees) being misgendered, being singled out for being transgender and being scared to come out to other partners. When the first Buffalo store won their election to unionize, we knew we needed to act.Our hours had been cut, so partners were doing more work for the same amount of pay, and customers had become frustrated with our inability to move as quickly as we once did. We felt the same frustration. This also affected our drink and food quality, something both we (as partners) and Starbucks corporate cared very much about. It felt like we were using a bucket to scoop water out of a boat with a major leak. Eventually, you're going to sink. Things had to change.

We Formed a Committee and Signed Union Cards Quietly

In December, I was able to get a hold of the lead organizer, Richard Bensinger. We came up with a plan that has now become the mold for organizing at Starbucks: Get a committee made entirely of Starbucks partners to discuss how much support our store has to organize a union. Forming the committee itself was a relatively easy task—I picked peers who our co-workers and I could trust and who could keep information between themselves. Our committee was ultimately formed: three are shift supervisors, two are barista trainers and one is a barista. Having partners on the committee who weren’t only knowledgeable about unions but were also able to communicate and reassure others was key for us. Once we formed the committee, Workers United got us union cards. We knew that there were certain partners we couldn't talk to until after our filing went public. We knew that we'd have many partners who would be eager to sign. We also knew that we'd face some adversity from partners who were anti-union. Since the committee formed, we'd been slyly feeling partners out by asking if they'd heard about what was happening in Buffalo and what they thought about it. After realizing we had a store majority, we got to work and signed union cards. There are rules when it comes to signing cards, such as, "It cannot be done when a partner is on the clock," or, "It can take place in the back of the house, so long as it does not disrupt business needs." The committee members at my location put in a lot of work and time to get our cards signed quickly and as quietly as possible. We were transparent with our partners who signed that management absolutely could not know. Personally, I met with partners on my (unpaid) lunch break—I'd have them meet me in the parking lot, since my store manager would often be sitting in the cafe doing administrative work. We asked partners who had questions to arrive early or stay a bit later after work if they were comfortable. One partner was even out with COVID-19 at the time, so I dropped the card off at their house and then retrieved it after they had signed it. With all the work our committee put in, we had our store majority sign cards within 72 hours and filed the next day.

We've watched partners across the country get fired for organizing, and we are putting plans into place in case we see the same actions against our store.

We're Looking Forward to Paving the Way for Other Franchises

The hardest parts came next. Upper management began a series of captive audience meetings—filled with anti-union propaganda, misinformation and emotional manipulation—designed to persuade partners from unionizing. Soon, tension developed between management and baristas—even customers left notes of support on our community board, only to have them torn down hours later. Our location, however, got lucky. Management didn't know how to approach the situation because most of its members didn’t know (and still don't know) anything about unions aside from what corporate fed them. In a new wave of union-busting from Starbucks, we've watched partners across the country get fired for organizing, and we are putting plans into place in case we see the same actions against our store. As of right now, we have an election date and are in the process of submitting ballots. We cannot wait to join our peers across the nation to have a unionized Starbucks. There were—and are—so many moving parts that went and will continue to go into the effort for workers’ rights. None of it can be done by just one person, and none of this would have been possible without the courage and determination of our Buffalo partners, who made the brave decision to become union organizers. We can only hope to follow in their footsteps as this movement grows.

I remember the evening well. I had come home from work feeling tired as usual and reluctantly set out to assemble a chicken and rice dish for my family. As we sat down to eat, my 10-year-old sister innocently stated, “This dinner has no love in it.”The comment shocked me. I was speechless and rather embarrassed in front of my giggling siblings, whose reactions seemed to betray their agreement. There was not a trace of malice in my sister’s statement, but the sheer honesty forced me to realize how right she was. There was no love in my food, and there never had been.

Cooking was regarded as one of the many chores that needed doing and one that never brought anyone much joy.

Food Never Played an Important Role in My College Life

I hated cooking and I always had. My philosophy was, if you wanted to live a full and busy life, cooking had to be your lowest priority. Any unnecessary time spent preparing a meal was a waste, I thought. There were so many other things I would rather be doing. During five and a half years at university, I took to cooking in the way that many take to exercise, hoping to get it over and done with as soon as possible. At the time, “cooking,” for me, entailed flinging a frozen fishcake in the oven and leaving some root vegetables to boil within an inch of their life while I jumped in the shower or ran upstairs to finish off an assignment. To call my meals half-hearted might be considered an overstatement. My minimal efforts led to rather dire creations, including soggy couscous served with tomato sauce straight from the jar and a dash of sliced raw pepper, if I was lucky. For many years, I didn’t seem to care what subpar meals I was preparing for myself. I seemed to endure it and save the real enjoyment for when I was eating out. But when I moved in with an old friend last spring, it suddenly dawned on me that you could enjoy delicious homemade food that was actually enjoyable and relaxing to make. Watching my friend throw together weekday curries, pasta dishes and sauces with ease and enthusiasm, I came to see cooking as something to enjoy and a way of expressing creativity rather than the chore that I dreaded. I spent many evenings watching my friend experiment with herbs and spices and dig out more adventurous recipes to try. Suddenly, it became clear to me that I had developed apathy toward cooking because of my upbringing.

I can’t wait to see what culinary adventures I have ahead.

My Friend Helped Me Realize Cooking Is an Art, Not Just a Necessity

I lived in a house with two parents who worked full-time. Cooking was regarded as one of the many chores that needed doing and one that never brought anyone much joy. It also was never considered a hobby, and no one ever really expressed a desire to try a new recipe or whip up “something special.” But over the past year, all thanks to my friend, I have come to see cooking as an art form rather than a necessity.I felt so inspired that this Christmas, I decided to make the Christmas dinner all by myself for the first time in my life. So when Christmas Eve came around, I threw on the Michael Bublé album, grabbed a glass of Pinot and got cooking. And surprisingly enough, it became one of the best Christmas Eve memories I can remember. COVID-19 had prevented our usual Christmas plans, so I thought it appropriate to serve something a little different. We had a starter of salmon en croute, a main course including duck breast, a nut roast and sweet potato casserole, all the usual trimmings and a dessert of chocolate and Baileys bread and butter pudding, served with brandy cream followed by a rather delectable cheese board. The love invested in the preparation only enhanced the atmosphere of love shared around the table during the feast. At that special Christmas Day dinner, the very same sister who exposed my contempt for cooking all those years ago was the same sister who described the food as “surprisingly delicious.”“You’ve made a mistake, though,” she laughed. “It looks like you’ll be on Christmas dinner duty from now on.”I’ll admit, I’ll always be partial to eating at a restaurant, but I’m delighted to have turned a page in my cooking life, and I can’t wait to see what culinary adventures I have ahead. I’ve learned an important lesson and realized columnist Harriet Van Horne was right all along. As she once wisely said, “Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.”

"If it weren't for you and your sister, I would have left your mom a long time ago."My dad said this to me when I was 12 years old. I was venting to him about whatever problem I had with my mother at the time, and he took it as a chance to do the same. But instead of an insignificant grievance like I had, he unloaded every problem he'd had with her for the last 20 years. I was completely caught off-guard and instantly felt guilty. Were my sister and I really the reason he decided to stay in a marriage that made him resentful?

My Dad Would Be Lost Without My Mom

My mom has never had a full-time job. She wasn't able to go to college, so she didn't have a clear career path and didn’t know what skills she possessed to find a full-time position. I understand my dad's frustration taking on the responsibility as the sole breadwinner when your wife is perfectly capable of finding a suitable career. My parents always made sure we had everything we needed, but my dad wanted more, and when he realized he couldn't make that happen on his own, he started lashing out.But while my dad takes care of our family financially, he’s lost track of how much my mom does for our family in other ways. She cooks and goes grocery shopping each week. When my sister and I were in school, she would drive us to the bus stop every morning so we didn't have to walk in the dark. The list is endless, yet he never fails to nitpick her efforts.He complains that she forgot something at the store or that dinner that night wasn't that good, yet he's never stepped up to take on either of those chores. He was born in the 1950s, raised during a time period when gender roles were highly practiced: The husband goes to work, and the wife does everything else (because that's how it should be, right?). His job was finished once he clocked out and walked through the front door.The truth is, my dad would be lost without my mom. He's had chronic pain for the past 10 years, and she makes his doctor's appointments, tends to him at home and cleans him when he can't make it to the bathroom in time.

Belittling your wife isn't funny or amusing.

The Attraction and Love Between Them Is Gone

I've seen loving moments between my parents, but coincidentally, they all fall on the same days each year. Every birthday, Mother's Day and Valentine's Day, my dad gets emotional when he talks about my mom. He praises her and writes her heartfelt cards (ones my sister and I grabbed because he forgot) that bring them both to tears.I know he means what he writes and says, but it's heartbreaking knowing he doesn't express his gratitude the other 362 days of the year. His short temper and high self-esteem skew his opinion on just how hard my mother works. He can't see how he takes her for granted. I think these holidays force him to praise my mother, or at least give him an excuse to voice his appreciation for everything she does. I can't imagine how difficult it is, waiting to hear from your husband how much you mean to him three times a year.It's difficult to believe in marriage when you watch two people who have been married for 30 years slowly fall out of love with each other. I'll be honest—that's pure speculation, but besides the above-mentioned holidays, I never see or feel any love between them. They don't show affection or express their appreciation and gratitude for each other's efforts. It makes me wonder if my father's "sacrifice" was worth the toxic relationship his kids grew up around. I have so many memories of my sister and me listening to our parents fight in the kitchen from the end of the hall. It happened so much, I eventually learned to drown out the sound. It's no secret my dad is not attracted to my mom (I say that because he has made it apparent on several occasions he isn't). He openly makes fun of her weight and has made comments to my sister and me about his dislike for "fat people." He treats it as a joke, but belittling your wife isn't funny or amusing. There's a thin line between gentle teasing and outright disrespect, but your wife's weight should never be the subject of either. My father is your average 62-year-old dad with a belly and no hair. Maybe his insults are a form of projection, but you should never speak that way about your wife. I rarely hear my mom complain about the way he treats her. She complains as much as any other wife but not about his character. There have only been a handful of times when she confided in me about how she feels. "I think Daddy takes advantage of me. He isn't really nice to me, and it hurts my feelings," she said to me a few months ago.Her heart was broken, and I didn't know how to pick up the pieces. I sat and listened and validated her feelings, but we both knew talking to my dad was useless. No matter how gently you approach him, he gets defensive and hotheaded and the conversation is over. His word always overpowers yours. He's big, you're little—that's how it is.

I’ll Never Forget When My Dad Turned Violent

In 2009, my parents got into an argument that quickly went from bad to worse.My sister and I were arguing about something insignificant (so much so, I can't even remember what it was), and eventually, our parents stepped in. My mom and I share a closer bond than she and my sister, so naturally, she took my side; my father did the same with my sister. I don't remember how exactly it transpired, but the argument reached a point where my mom was yelling at my sister. Almost instantly, my dad had his hand wrapped around my mother's throat and pinned her against a wall. “Don’t you talk to her like that!” he screamed. “Don’t you ever talk to her that way!”I have no idea what happened next because I ran to my room sobbing. I closed the door and buried myself as far into my bed as I could, waiting for it to swallow me whole. The house went quiet, until I heard my dad stomping his way to my room. He pushed my door open so hard, I thought it would shatter into a million pieces.He didn't say anything. He just looked at me and stomped away, but the look he gave me is one I'll remember forever. It scared me. It was his way of saying, "You better not tell anyone about this."And I didn't—not for a long time. There was an eeriness to the house for a few days, but no one ever talked about what happened. I don't know if my mom ever told anyone about that night. When I finally opened up to someone about it years later, that vision of my mom backed against the wall came flooding back. I still see the fear on her face and I'm transported back to that night, just as scared as I was the day it happened.My friend listened as I cried, trying to rationalize what made my father act that way. I didn't want them to think he was toxic or abusive, but why? He didn't care about what he did to his wife or the emotional damage he created for his kids.

The look he gave me is one I'll remember forever.

My Father Will Never Consider the Damage He’s Created

The irony of this situation isn't lost on me. Whenever I spoke back to my mom or raised my voice, my dad was there, grabbing me by my collar, forcing me to apologize. That's one of my dad's special talents: hypocrisy. I doubt my dad apologized after the incident. Apologies aren't really his thing (you can thank his inflated ego and headstrong attitude for that). He's more of a sweep-things-under-the-rug kind of guy. He sweeps and sweeps until you forget there was any dust at all.Now my parents are in their early 60s, and I just don't think my dad has enough energy for that much anger anymore. Still, he has the energy to scold my mom for closing the refrigerator door too hard or to interrupt her when she's excited about something or to make side comments about something dumb she did or when he thinks she is being too loud.If you asked my dad if he remembers that comment he made to me almost 16 years ago, I bet he wouldn't even remember saying it, but that's nothing new. He makes off-handed, hurtful comments and goes about his day, not realizing the damage he's done. He may have brushed it off the moment he said it, but I'll never forget it.

Following in someone’s footsteps can be a blessing or a curse. For the most part, following in my father's footsteps has been a blessing. People call me his twin—our looks, personalities and professions are very similar. Some traits he passed down are good, like his generosity, hardworking attitude and positive perspective. Some are not-so-good, like his impatience and stubbornness. But I like to think we’ve both used this stubbornness to our advantage. My father and I were never the best at our sports. We didn’t have talent like some others, but we did have a competitive spirit (the stubbornness) that pushed us. We may have not won the individual accolades, but we both gained an even bigger sense of fulfillment by reaching our potential. In our own respective ways, we were able to prove people wrong and show them what we always knew and believed: that we deserved to make it on the world’s largest stage, the Olympic Games.

We both gained enough respect to become captains our junior and senior years and led our teams to national championships.

My Dad and I Both Had to Prove Ourselves in College

Our roads were extremely different. My father grew up in a tiny town. He didn’t even have a proper training facility but still managed to become an outstanding swimmer. He gained enough recognition to be offered a scholarship to college, his way out. On the other hand, I had all the resources and ingredients for success, but I wanted to pursue two sports—water polo and surfing, nowadays a suicide mission due to the high demands and rigorous training schedules. This was the beginning of people questioning my commitment and writing me off. Because my dad was a two-time Olympic swimmer, he started me in the pool at a young age. But there was something missing. I was never excited to race against times and stare at a black line—especially not for the next 25 years of my athletic career. What was missing was being a part of a team. What was missing I found in water polo. To this day, I believe working toward a goal with passionate people is one of the most fulfilling parts of the journey. Surfing, however, came very naturally into my life. No one in my family surfed, but I grew up blocks from the beach. As a competitive tomboy, I wanted to compete with my friend group. The latest hobby at that time was surfing, so I fell in love, and the hobby grew into a passion that soon led to a career.Even while I surfed, I managed to gain enough recognition in water polo to be recruited by the University of Southern California, my dream school, where my father attended. However, being a two-sport athlete hindered my scholarship opportunity. I used it as motivation to prove the coach and everyone else wrong—just as my father proved that a small-town kid could keep up with those in his collegiate program. We both gained enough respect to become captains our junior and senior years and led our teams to national championships some 45 years apart.

My Dad Shared Stories and Wisdom While Visiting Me

My father came to campus a lot during those four years, partially to relive his glory days and partially to watch his daughter enjoy hers. I remember many times walking around campus and listening to his stories. You could see how proud he was that I was able to embrace the same culture, school spirit and competition that he did. If only my younger self would have realized how fast those days would go and how truly special they were. My father gave me subtle reminders to give it my all, to leave everything in the pool, reminding me that it goes by in a blink. I’ve saved some of those text messages to this day. Fortunately, both of our careers didn’t stop after college. We worked our way to the Olympics not once but twice. It’s a feat that we don’t talk about often but both recognize it as one of the most special shared experiences. I still remember the day. My college coach organized individual meetings to tell us if we would make the Olympic team or if our dreams were shattered. You could feel the tension in the air as you walked on deck. Four years for this one moment—but by that point, you have a pretty good idea of who is going to make the team or not. I was pretty confident with my position, but it’s still a scary place to be until it’s official. After being told I was an Olympian and tears were shared, my coach said, “Your phone call with your dad will be a special moment.” He was right. I gave my dad a ring from my car and, like many of our conversations, we didn’t speak much. Instead, there was just a mutual feeling. “I’m in,” I told him, and you could hear his voice crack and sense him holding back his tears as he congratulated me and told me how proud he was of me.

I told him, and you could hear his voice crack and sense him holding back his tears as he congratulated me and told me how proud he was of me.

I Never Felt Pressure From My Dad to Achieve What He Did

Throughout the chaos of celebrating my biggest wins—an NCAA championship and Olympic gold medal—my father locked eyes with me from the stands seconds after the pool buzzer sounded. It didn’t matter what was happening around us, we were going to find each other and lock in. That eye contact, even for a split second, said it all. It was the acknowledgment of the journey that we’ve shared together. The acknowledgment of all the good and bad that comes with reaching the top and sharing it with your family.The overwhelming feeling of reaching your lifelong dream is indescribable. I remember raw emotion taking over my body and tears rushing down my face. Mostly tears of joy but also of exhaustion and relief. After winning, the team jumps into the pool to celebrate, you wave to your family in the stands, you’re rushed to change into your podium gear, the award ceremony happens, the gold medals are placed on your neck as the national anthem plays. As soon as that’s over, you run to the stands and finally get to hug and cry with your family, and then, you’re rushed away again for drug testing while reading a million texts on your phone. It all felt surreal. Did this really happen? Did we just win a gold medal at the Olympics? Did we achieve our lifelong dream? Six years have passed and I sometimes still ask those same questions. Being the daughter of a two-time Olympian may seem like pressure, but I am so thankful for the way my dad mentored me throughout my journey. It was never forced nor planned. He gave me the space to create my own road and for that, I’m forever grateful. I just so happened to make similar choices, which ultimately put us in similar places. Being able to compete for the same university and on the world stage makes our father-daughter relationship unique and special beyond words. Thank you, Dad, for being a role model, paving the way and loving me through it all. Happy Father’s Day.

My mom’s birthday was May 9, which often landed on Mother’s Day or at least within days of the fanatical day we set aside to honor the womb, the life-giver, the Yin, the fecund meatloaf-maker. I, her daughter, would give her two presents, one for her birthday and one to thank her for giving birth to me. She would give me the same argument: “One present is plenty.” She was embarrassed. And nothing ever fixed this, even the year I put two presents in one box or the year I spent two times the money on one present. My mom was really smart. So the lack of magical Mother’s Day moments between myself and my daughter seemed inevitable. Let’s face facts: The expectations of thanking anyone for giving you life are off the charts impossible. Flowers do not get it. And I love flowers.Until the day my daughter gave me a Father’s Day card.

The expectations of thanking anyone for giving you life are off the charts impossible. Flowers do not get it. And I love flowers.

Getting the Card From My Daughter Made Me Look at Parenting Differently

I have a vagina. I gave birth. Well, I had a C-section. I am a mom. But am I? I mean, really? I am the breadwinner. I bought the house. I drive the nicest car. I pay the tuition. The pure joy that card brought me, tears streaming down my single-mom face, made me look at the whole role of motherhood in a unique and individual way. The card, given to me by my daughter, wasn't a joke. It was a statement. She was thanking me for being all things to her. A mom. A dad. A warrior.Disclaimer: Yes, I have, on many occasions, married men because I love men. I even love marriage, until I don’t. I was the one who asked for every divorce, and I was also the one who paid the price for freedom. I mention this because the moniker “single mother” holds a tremendous amount of baggage, most of which I have never felt. When she was little, we harmonized on the song “Side by Side” as I pushed her on the swing, and 12 years later, we rocked “Sweet Child O’ Mine” at karaoke at Kip’s in Berkeley when she was a freshman in college.Every human has mother moments; gender, sharing DNA and baking pies have nothing to do with it. OK, I’m wrong about the pies. Especially apple, peach, cherry. I digress.My dad was just as much a mother to me as my mother was. My dad took me fishing all the time. We scaled fences that read, “Keep Out.” He built a boat and let me drive it. When I asked him, he taught me how to shoot a gun. We dressed up as monsters and tried to scare each other. He made breakfast for everyone. Always bacon. Sometimes pancakes. Sometimes homemade biscuits. Since he was such an early riser, he packed my lunch for school. I’ve gotta hand it to him, I never had the usual peanut butter and jelly or bologna sandwich. My sandwiches were legendary!He deserved a Mother's Day card because he was a whole human, not a stereotypical human. Oh, how I wish I had given my father a Mother’s Day card!

When my offspring handed me the Father’s Day card, I felt forgiven, accepted, seen, heard, loved and respected.

No One Can Be a Perfect Mom—and That’s OK

I am certain my unique brand of mothering was close to right for my daughter, who totally craved the strong masculine energy of a ride-or-die parent. I was happy to be allowed the freedom to be both nurturing and challenging for her. I am not superhuman. Quite the opposite. There were unquestionably times when she craved Mommy and got Evel Knievel, like the day I told her soccer coach his balls had never dropped. Parents love to pretend these unfortunate pitfalls teach a lesson that needs to be learned. Yep. The lesson is that not even Mother Teresa is a perfect mom. No one is.Somehow, when my offspring handed me the Father’s Day card, I felt forgiven, accepted, seen, heard, loved and respected. Why? Why now? Oh, it was a rush of wonderful feelings, for sure. All those feel-good feelings led to a burning question. One I didn’t much want to visit. Are fathers cooler than moms? I won’t torture you. The answer is a resounding no!Here’s the deal. Be a happy mother this Mother’s Day knowing that your spine is your cock. There is no need for any penis envy. You go, mama! Stand straight, shoot straight and if you can’t bake a pie, find a good bakery nearby. I am not advocating that we blur the lines between moms and dads. I’m proposing a strong argument that every single individual who is charmed by the birth of a human has an inalienable right to bring their own personality and A-game to the role of parenting. This line is crystal clear, never to be blurred by the Hallmark card version of moms and dads.I’d like to say happy Mother’s Day to all human beings who have unselfishly cared for another human, invited strangers to a Sunday dinner, taken every word a 5-year-old says seriously, broken the law and upheld the law (both as teaching moments), dared to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, allowed their child to speak at a town hall meeting, insisted their child accompany them into the voting booth, taken the time to see what is special about your children, their friends and most of all, yourselves.

As a happy-go-lucky guy with a devil-may-care attitude, the very first time I experimented with another guy was something I didn’t quite dwell on. It was me being the impulsive me I usually am. It was freeing, liberating, exciting, exhilarating. The possibility of introducing another dimension to my life was much more than I could bear, and before I knew it, I was swiping right on both girls and guys. It didn’t feel wrong. In fact, it felt quite intriguing. With these new insights, I decided to give dating another try. The “not looking for anything serious but open to anything” kind of dating. Up until that point, my love life had been very simple: the boring, single phase, a six-month relationship with a girl and the only-looking-for-fun, single phase. While not very experienced in the domains of love, in all my years of singlehood, I was still something akin to an advice columnist to my friends having relationship glitches. All those soaps and dramas I used to watch with my mom as a kid came in handy after all. My number one advice for those in search of love was to never actively seek it. Second, to never get yourself into a relationship if you’re not already at your 100 percent. Expecting another person to “complete” you is already a false start. And third, putting yourself out there is as much effort as you need to make, and that’s it. And so I took my own advice. I put myself out there once again.

Being Bisexual Comes With a Lot of Complications

It was at this point that I started noticing that being bi wasn’t exactly as freeing as I thought it’d be. Finding myself and coming out was a relatively easy and really exciting process for me, mostly because I was lucky enough to have a solid support system. It had taken me quite a while to understand the whole “pride” thing, but when I did, I owned it and became all the more confident. Today, I can say that I am a proud bi guy. It doesn’t define me, sure, but it’s one of the many things about me that makes me who I am. And so, in a way, it also does. It wasn’t all smooth sailing. That same confidence and pride were tested when I started dating. Being bi, I've come to learn, comes with a lot of strings attached. Not everyone digs the “live and let live” attitude. I think it's because, growing up, we’re forced to label things. Things are either normal or not normal. And “normal”? Some people go through their entire lives without questioning what it is and where the concept came from. Because at the end of the day, what the hell is “normal” after all? I imagine it is something that has been arbitrarily agreed upon by the majority, or by someone with privilege; perhaps a rich, white man, as it were. Being white, cisgender and straight earns you more points in society, more so if you’re male. Being anything but that? Good friggin’ luck. But I’m not about to get into that. Especially because I check two of those three criteria. What I am going to get into, however, are the concepts of biphobia or, more commonly, bisexual erasure, which are subtypes of homophobia. I’m no expert when it comes to these things, so keep in mind I’m just talking about my experience.

My label was synonymous with promiscuity, insecurity, indecisiveness and whatever else the trend of the day suggested.

Admitting My Bisexuality to Dates Came With Lots of Judgment

Over the course of a year, I had dated quite a bit. Usually, it’d be a one-time thing, so my sexuality would never really come up. Girls would assume I was straight and guys would assume I was gay, which I was fine with. These would be people I’d probably never see again, so why would that ever be an issue? But when it came to something more than that? Oof. Time and time again, I’d be dating someone with whom I’d have a lot in common. Someone with whom I wouldn’t mind taking a step forward. So, of course, always wanting to be transparent, I’d come out to them. You know, no biggie. Well, biggie! Among other things, I was told that “it’s just a transition phase,” or that I’m “just a homophobic homosexual,” or that I’d “definitely be unfaithful,” or that I “must be riddled with all kinds of sexually transmitted illnesses.” I kind of heard it all. My label was synonymous with promiscuity, insecurity, indecisiveness and whatever else the trend of the day suggested. I may be assertive and confident, but I’m not going to lie, some of those words did get to me. You see, growing up I always thought that someday I’d be the Prince Charming to a damsel in distress (how sexist, right?), and we’d be this picture-perfect couple. We’d fall in love at first sight, and she’d be the one. I’d propose with a really big romantic gesture, perhaps training white doves to fly in formation and spell the words “will you marry me?” as soon as they're set loose from their cage. Maybe something even more complex. We’d slow dance in the middle of a large hall at our wedding, everyone jealous of our love and looks. We'd buy a house and get used to being married. Then, one day, I’d be eating my morning cereal and I’d almost choke on something. It’s a positive pregnancy test! Ah, what a life! Me, my wife and our perfect baby girl. Maybe we’d have a boy or adopt some time in the future, but first, we’d settle down and make a home of our house and that white picket fence and proceed to live happily ever after. How perfectly idyllic, huh?

I Had Outgrown the Perfect Love Story I Dreamed for Myself

Well, this dream broke into pieces over time. First, it was the picket fence. Like hell I’d be stuck in a boring old house in a boring place. My perfect wife and I would never settle down anywhere. We’d be chasing one adventure after the other, always on the go. Then, it was the kids. In wanting to become an extraordinary surgeon, kids would only get in the way of that. I’m too ambitious to have kids, and if I did end up having kids, I’d most probably end up choosing them over work and that would mean I’d end up eventually resenting them. Why put kids through that? So anyway, no kids.It would be just my wife and me, working and traveling, and that would be the best life. Then, I found out I was bi, so it could have just as well been a husband that would be my partner in crime. It wasn’t too difficult to accept this either. But now? Now it seemed like I couldn’t even hold a relationship for more than a month, let alone long enough to get married! Ah, to get married, something I hadn’t even thought about in years. So conservative, so archaic! Yet there I stood, realizing it would probably never even be an option in the first place. It was kind of devastating. To give up on love at first sight, to give up on finding the one, to give up on a happily ever after. The worst part was that I wasn't looking for any of it, yet the minute I realized I couldn't have it, I started to crave it. And then, it somehow clicked. The idea of this perfect love story I had had in mind ever since I was a kid was something I had outgrown ages before. If I were to have that life, all I'd feel would be oppressed and suffocated. But people change, as do priorities. And maybe one day, that boring old house surrounded by that boring white picket fence might just be what I'll be looking for. Maybe one day, I'll want to settle down, get married and have kids. All I know is that if there’s ever going to be a right person, be it boy, girl or anything in between, they won’t give a crap about who I’m attracted to.

There’s a B in LGBTQ+ for a reason. Take note if you haven’t already!

I Still Struggle With the Labels of Bisexuality

Broken dreams apart, there was also the fact that I had never really questioned my sexuality ever since I had come out. What by now should (hopefully) be a cliche—that sexuality is fluid—made it really easy for me to get on board immediately. There’s a spectrum between heterosexuality and homosexuality, and I stand somewhere in between—simple. On some days, I might feel more attracted to a girl; on others, more attracted to a guy, but attracted to both overall—simple. Does the “some days” part not fit the label though? Should I refer to myself as an occasional homosexual, someone who is usually straight but has random, sudden outbursts of homosexual impulses? Or do I owe it to the LGBTQ+ community to label myself as a homosexual who sometimes experiments with members of the opposite sex? I don’t mean to trivialize the subject, I really don’t. After all, that’s the whole point of pride—to spread awareness. And to that end, as our ally from Grey’s Anatomy, Callie, aptly puts it, there’s a B in LGBTQ+ for a reason. Take note if you haven’t already!Hopefully, we’ll live to see a time when we don’t always feel the need to complicate life so damn much. No labels, no judgment, no persecution. Imagine a future where people would just fall in love. Period. With whomever. No questions asked. A future where people live and let live. It shouldn’t be a dream. It should be the goal.

It was March of 2020. I just learned that I had to leave campus and complete my coursework remotely for the indefinite future. Before this point in my life, I was on the go. Whether spending time with friends, attending events or class, I always had something on the agenda. What was I supposed to do with all this newfound free time? At the time, I formed a “schedule” that consisted of sleep, Zoom meetings and binge-watching TV every day. But I needed to make the best of my time at home. I needed to make changes toward becoming my best self. I needed to be “that girl.”Depending on your TikTok algorithm, it’s likely that you’ve heard of the “that girl” trend. “That girl” is a boss bitch—she wakes up at 5 a.m. every morning to go to the gym. She then returns to her pristine, aesthetically pleasing living space to make herself a green smoothie and an açaí bowl for breakfast. Her meals are healthy, and ordering takeout is a sin in her book.“That girl” has a capsule wardrobe full of sustainably crafted pieces that are somehow still trendy and fit her toned body like a glove. She’s the best employee at her cushy tech job, she’s organized and even makes time for journaling and skincare at the end of each day. She’s in touch with her mental health and maintains healthy relationships. Through the lens of social media, “that girl’s” life is perfect. The lifestyle attracted me, so I committed to making the necessary changes toward self-improvement.

I needed to be “that girl.”

I Tried Being “That Girl”

I was at one of my lowest points in mid-2021. As mentioned earlier, I spent most of my time in bed ruminating on past mistakes. But then, I saw TikTok videos about “that girl.” They inspired me, and I became hellbent on making the lifestyle change. However, that change probably didn’t last more than a week. Being “that girl” is about taking small steps toward a larger goal, beginning to form small habits that eventually lead to a big lifestyle shift. With that philosophy in mind, I started getting up at 8 a.m. each morning to make myself a reasonably healthy breakfast, most likely eggs and toast. I got back into yoga, started going to therapy and listened to motivational podcasts in my free time. I stopped taking midday naps, read more books and made an effort to spend more time with my family. Having a nice living space is a huge aspect of the “that girl” aesthetic, so I even began redoing my room, spending way too much money on Wayfair. To many people, these changes may seem frivolous, but they were some significant changes for me. Before the pandemic, my time spent at home was strictly for rest and relaxation. I wasn’t used to stimulating my mind and body within the confines of my four walls. While my experience helped me get more active, creative and become more of an intellectual, I’m sure there are more life improvements that I could’ve made, but I was in a transitional period in my life at the time. I just moved to rural Georgia a few months before the pandemic began, so I was dealing with a bit of culture shock. Compared to the Midwest, where I’m from, the change of pace and the increased emphasis on God, guns and patriotism was off-putting to me.My mindset just wasn’t in the right place. Whenever I went out, I was hyperaware of my surroundings, preoccupied with what people thought about me. That anxiety, that behavior, wasn’t becoming of me, someone who was on a self-improvement journey. “That girl” has healthy relationships with herself and the people in her life. So clearly, I had a lot more work to do in the mental health department. Out of the changes I made successfully, did any of them stick? Well, yes and no. I still go to therapy and listen to podcasts religiously. I’m a lot closer with my family than I was pre-pandemic (as I’m sure many people are now). I’m a lot more self-aware of what I eat and how it affects my body. But now that I’m back attending school, I’m limited in how much time, energy and money I can invest into living a healthy lifestyle. That experience taught me that I am and will always be "that girl"; as long as I’m doing the best I can and striving for better, all is well. I believe the trend has peaked, but every time I see a “that girl”-style post on TikTok or Pinterest, I’m reminded of the gripes I have with the trend.

This is an impossible standard to meet.

There Are a Lot of Problems With the “That Girl” Lifestyle

“That girl” overly promotes wellness and stresses the fact that women need to have their shit together. This is an impossible standard to meet. The trend is reminiscent of the hustle culture we’ve been seeing more and more of these days. We all know that it’s good to be productive, but overproductivity leads to burnout and mental health issues. Hustle culture preaches that if you work hard enough, you’ll be successful. This school of thought distracts from class disparities or other socioeconomic factors that may prevent one from succeeding. “That girl” content is aspirational capitalism repackaged for Zoomers.The “that girl” trend is rooted in privilege. Sure, influencers preach that anyone can be “that girl,” but the content they produce suggests otherwise. If I were to search for the term on TikTok, I’d see nothing but thin, white, conventionally attractive, young women. No matter how far I scroll, I wouldn’t see myself represented. The trend also feels very upper-middle class. It’s all about women having the resources to work flexible hours, make healthy meals and have the ability to do a skincare routine with quality products. All of this stuff within itself is a privilege. It also comes across as materialistic. “That girl” is yet another wellness trend that encourages women to buy stuff and work. I believe that this trend is on its way out because people get tired of seeing the same types of content on their feeds. Also, women who pursue this lifestyle realize how unsustainable it is not only for their wallets but for their mental health. I think that this trend will come back around in another 10 years or so, under another catchy name. Because we’ve seen this happen before with other trends.

Being young and not having lost many people close to me, my father’s passing earlier this year was one of the most difficult experiences of my life. Buddy, as my dad liked to be called, was a great man and a great father—someone I hope to emulate in the raising of my own children. Not only that, he was my closest advisor and a wonderful friend who was always there in a crisis. My life and who I am today were probably shaped more by him than almost anybody else on Earth. You never know what it’s like until it happens to you. Many friends or distant relatives have lost their fathers, and many times, I’ve put on a sad face and said something like, “Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss.” But had I known the incredible pain that comes with losing one of the most important people in your life, I would have been far more sympathetic. Today, my heart grieves for any and all who recently lost a father or another close loved one in a way that it could never have grieved before. Making matters more difficult still, I am firmly convinced that we lost my dad much too soon. As a Christian, I believe that God himself numbers our days and that His plan is perfect. But I believe my beloved dad would still be here today had he not taken that damned injection. I begged him not to take it, but his doctor told him he had to. Less than 48 hours after taking it, his heart stopped completely. Pfizer documents released under court order show the company—and the FDA—knew cardiac failure and acute cardiac failure were among the more than 1,200 adverse events reported after administration of the shot. And yet they kept peddling it anyway, without warning the public, knowing they were immune from liability. Countless others have gone through similar experiences over the last year, as a brief online search reveals.If Dad had not been revived with those paddles, we would have lost him right then. Instead, even though he suffered many “minor” heart attacks between that one and the one that finally took him, God gave us another year with my dad—a year that I will cherish as long as I live.

You never know what it’s like until it happens to you.

I Learned the Gravity of Losing My Dad at the Hospital

Writing his obituary and eulogy were among the most difficult tasks I’ve ever had to deal with. Even though I’m a professional writer and write almost all day, every day, it took me over a week to finish the obituary and a month to get the eulogy done. What could I say? How could I make it perfect? What would honor his legacy? What did people need to hear? It was tough. But in the end, I believe my words would have made my dad proud. For years, as I grew in my faith, I had been trying to reach my dad with the gospel of salvation, the message that Jesus Christ died to pay the penalty for our sins so that we, as sinners, could be reconciled to God the father and live with Him in eternity. But even though my dad would have claimed to be Christian, I could tell he did not really, truly believe. And yet, something miraculous happened about a month before Dad passed into eternity. One day, in mid-January, he started feeling short of breath and had intense chest pains. My brother called the paramedics. They quickly determined that something was very wrong and that Dad needed to go to the emergency room. There, he tested positive for COVID-19, and the doctors said he also had symptoms of having suffered another heart attack. When they tried to put him on the antiviral drug Remdesivir for COVID, we all panicked, thinking that would be the end.As my dad was trapped in the hospital, with no visitors allowed, we talked on the phone almost constantly as my brother and I plotted how to sneak in Ivermectin prescribed by his Harvard-educated MD friend and how to get him out as soon as possible. But Dad was scared—really scared. And for the first time in his life, he admitted to me that he was actually scared of dying. We prayed and cried together. I also shared the gospel with him, and he believed! I will cherish that moment for the rest of my days, too.

I Leaned on the Bible to Write My Dad’s Eulogy

After sneaking some Ivermectin and other meds and vitamins in a Bible to my dad with an orderly, he improved almost immediately. We were able to get him out within two days, and he was so happy to go home. It was a joyous time for all of us, and he could spend time with his family in his home for another month before that final heart attack took him. All of that experience made me realize something: You never know when you will never have another chance to share the gospel with people you love. With all that in mind, I decided to make Dad’s eulogy a presentation of the gospel, as well as a talk honoring him. And one of the key topics I focused on was fatherhood. See, the Bible uses the father-child relationship more than any other to explain the nature of the relationship between God and those who are reconciled to him. It hit me like a ton of bricks. For those raised by good, loving fathers, it’s easy to get a picture of that divine relationship. But for those who were raised without a father in the home—or for those who had an abusive father—it’s much harder. And so I decided to focus on that. My dad was loving, kind, protective and more. While he was not perfect by any means—none of us come close—he had so many good qualities. And so when the Bible talks about God loving us as a father loves his children, that made perfect sense to me. No matter how rotten and horrible my brother and I were, Dad was always there. He never gave up on us. He bailed us out of jail. He busted me out of a mental institution. He never let us down. Even though my brother and I both went off the deep end with drugs, my dad never stopped trying to help. I still believe my dad’s love and perseverance with my brother is the reason we still have my brother around today.

His leadership of our family made all the difference in the world.

My Dad’s Leadership Made a Huge Difference in Our Family

Dad’s death also made me reflect on what it means to be a good father, a subject that had been on my mind for a while—and not just because I have my own children now. Interestingly, just a few months before my dad passed away, I was asked to contribute a brief essay, for a book, on what it means to be a devoted father. All I had to do was think back to my childhood to have a good answer. A good father loves and cares for his children. He provides for them and protects them. He disciplines when they need it. He teaches them good morals, work ethic, honesty and virtue. He teaches them how to love their future partners and children, too. Being a good father is one of the most important jobs in the world. And somehow, even though his own dad was a drunk who left him at age 10, my dad somehow knew how to be a wonderful father. His leadership of our family made all the difference in the world, and I’ll be forever grateful to him and to God for putting me in my dad’s family. As I reflect on all this ahead of Father’s Day, it brings me intense emotions, ranging from joy to unbearable pain. I only hope that I can learn lessons from my dad and be half the dad he was to me and my brother. With five sons who are quickly growing up, almost nothing is more important than applying those lessons in my own life and being a good dad to my little ones. Long live dads!

Last summer, I realized my lower stomach region was hard. Like there’s-something-behind-there hard. Being 20 at the time, I thought that serious health issues only happened to other people, so I didn’t bother going for a check-up. I had slight symptoms, like occasional painful sex and frequent peeing, but I chalked it up to not being aroused enough and being extremely hydrated. One night, while having a shower, I noticed that even as I squeezed my stomach in, a large bump still protruded. It got me worried that I might be pregnant (something I wasn’t trying to be), so the next day, I booked an appointment to see the doctor. “I fear you might be pregnant,” said my general practitioner, confirming my concern in his usually comforting Irish accent. We did the pregnancy test that very same day, and it revealed that I was not, in fact, pregnant. So over the next couple of months, I had an ultrasound (did you know that ultrasounds go inside as well? I did not!), an MRI and blood work done. The results were clear: I had a (most likely) noncancerous lump growing outside my uterus, and it would need taking out. No biggie, right? Perhaps. Except the lump was 13 by 11 by 8.5 centimeters large. It had been growing in there for probably years and yet somehow it hadn’t ruptured or twisted, and I was still alive. Albeit, with a hard abdomen.

Why should this be the way we find out about reproductive issues as common as these?

Ovarian Tumors Are Common, and I Wish We Talked More About Them

I couldn’t help but berate myself a little for not doing something about the fibroma earlier. Even though I consciously knew that I had not been exposed to information about common reproductive system tumors, I still felt helpless to my own actions. But is this really fair? According to Patient, “30 percent of females with regular menses and 50 percent of females with irregular menses” get benign ovarian tumors, so why don’t more people know about them? After my diagnosis, I spoke to a number of women who had, surprisingly, gone through the same thing. One day, I was on a train and the woman next to me and I had a brief exchange about something I can’t remember, which then turned into a full conversation. I mentioned my fibroma, expecting her to have no knowledge about what it was, only for her to casually remark that she had also had a cyst (another type of benign ovarian tumor) removed earlier in life. A classmate of mine told me about the cyst she had removed years ago too. The more women I spoke to, the more I realized that people did know about benign reproductive system tumors but only on the condition that they had experienced having one before. My male friends were also largely clueless about these tumors, and the one friend who did have an idea only did so because his girlfriend had dealt with something similar. Why should this be the way we find out about reproductive issues as common as these? Why wasn’t I taught about them in school? Could I have avoided what was to come with something as simple as knowledge? Because the day after my surgery, I was informed that the mass had, essentially, eaten my fallopian tube and ovary. It wasn’t a case of my ovary having to be removed out of an inability to separate the two; it just wasn’t there. This mass that I had spent months worrying about had swallowed two of my organs whole because I didn’t go to get my symptoms checked out. Because I didn’t think they were “bad enough.” Recovering from open surgery is a lot. You feel helpless and yet humbled by your body’s recovery as, while you can’t do much to speed it up, you get to appreciate how it works. My body went from torn muscles, skin and nerves to being almost completely the same as before, three months later. My other ovary now does my reproductive jobs, like producing my egg cells, where they are sent off down the fallopian tube to await fertilization. The only real downside to the surgery has been a loss of about a fifth of my fertility, which, I tell myself, could be worse. While I still worry about my other ovary in hopes that it won’t suffer a similar fate, I am grateful every day for being able to walk about without having to worry about ripping my stitched-up muscles or having to get stabbed with an anti-clotting needle in the stomach once a day.

The thing I am grateful for the most, however, is the body awareness I have gained.

I Now Have Greater Body Awareness

The thing I am grateful for the most, however, is the body awareness I have gained. Watching and feeling my body recover at its own unique pace showed me something we often forget, which is that we humans are no different from animals and the rest of nature in many ways. Sure, we are aware of the fact that we can think, but our bodies are still made of flesh and bone, and they work as nature intends, not us. This experience got me thinking about the concept of mind over matter. I have concluded that they work in complete tandem, but stories we and society tell ourselves can often come in the way of that crystal clear communication and cause a disconnect. Intuition is a prime example of this. I have recently been using a neat little practice in which I consciously notice how my body feels when I make a decision. You tell yourself a truth and then a lie, and after each, you notice how your body feels. I found the best way to put it in an article I read recently: Does it feel constricting (for the lie) or expansive (for the truth)? Here is an example of how I used this tool: I recently impulsively joined a theater production. It was a Shakespeare play, someone who I really struggle to understand, but I decided to join it because I knew it would take me out of my comfort zone and evoke some confidence in me. One day, however, I was really dreading going to the rehearsal, so I asked myself: Is this fear, or is it genuinely no longer in my interest to take part in this play? When I tuned in to how my body was reacting when I asked the question, “Do I want to take part in this play?” what I heard was no. It didn’t make sense to me at first, and I thought I might just be convincing myself of that answer and that I was actually just nervous because it was still an early rehearsal. But then, after thinking about it, I realized that I was already stepping out of my comfort zone in another thing I had recently picked up: sewing. My body knew this before I did. Had I only trusted my mind telling me, “It’ll boost your confidence, do it!” I would have been dishonoring the amount of energy I have to give to things. I would have been ignoring the fact that I only have a finite amount of energy to practice trying new things and the pushing past of fear that comes with that. And that’s OK because I am not superhuman, even if society tells me I can do anything.Society’s stories are also why I believe I didn’t give my symptoms the proper attention they deserved. It glamorizes and fetishizes youth as the life stage in which we are perfect, so it makes total sense as to why I thought my health could also be nothing but in perfect shape. And yet, now I’m an ovary down. So listen to your body, folks. It’s always talking to you: You just need to learn how to listen. Whether it’s to avoid surgery or just to decide what you want to spend your time doing, it’ll never do you any harm.

As an only child to an only parent, my mother was my best friend growing up. I’m thinking about her extra today because as I write, it’s beautiful outside for the first time in what feels like months. The dreary London weather, hundreds of miles from my sweet home of Chicago, never gets me down. The nice days, however, light me up. In honor of the occasion, I am dressed like a cowgirl in a purple-patched prairie skirt with the boots we bought when I first moved to Boston. I’m currently basking in the rays of St. James’s Park and listening to the country music that I grew up on. Albeit a bit unwillingly, it has become a welcome invitation of momentary nostalgia. As I lay in the grass, staring at the sun, I feel especially grateful that my mama has always called me her sunshine. I wonder how my simple existence could ever earn such a consistent compliment. The kind of comparison that encouraged my 6-year-old self to believe it when she told me how my keen ability to attract bees was merely due to the fact that they believed me to be a flower. The kind of love only a mother could have for a daughter. She let me be soft and took solace in how easily I took comfort in her presence. Sipping my tropical crush smoothie, the phantom warmth of my mother’s love seeps into my skin. Once again, I’m as content as I was as a small child, running through freezing sprinkler water, blades of grass between my toes and rainbow droplets misting the air. I remember riding bikes together through the cemetery and treating ourselves to raspberries doused in lemon curd in similarly summery scenes. The air is warm, and I miss her extra today. But being the one diagnosed with chronic depression—then with PTSD and severe anxiety soon after—as young as age 12 did not lead to a well-adjusted individual, let alone to a functional family. It was almost instantaneous how I stopped answering my mother’s well-intended inquisitions about my day. How those momentary refrains from mundane situations led to an entire shutout and shutdown. She screamed at me for years to come back, hoping to see a spark flicker. While an entirely misplaced plan of action, it was understandable nonetheless.

My mindset during lost years is entirely unimaginable to me now, but I have mourned for my younger self and now must mourn for my mama.

My Mother Watched Me Disappear, and I Blamed Her for It

These ponderings of the past have turned me to dreams of this upcoming summer and our plans for our shared maternal country, Italy. A tour along the Amalfi Coast presents a long-awaited return to the food she made me nightly in my youth and the wine she taught me to love (far before my recent 21st birthday). Dolce far niente, something we do better than anyone. These hopes for long-awaited travels, safe returns to our matriarchal lands, pain me ever so slightly. Like all of our interactions, it feels almost bittersweet. For now, every time we laugh over lunch until my cheeks hurt, I feel guilty for how easy it is to enjoy her presence and how I used to take our time together for granted. Guilty for the years in my adolescence when I shut out the world, which revolved entirely around our friendship in my earliest memories. To picture the only sun in your world going out, as my mother experienced when I was diagnosed, is haunting at best. Especially when you know it’s your fault. My mother had to watch her daughter disappear into a husk before her eyes, and then watch her blame her parenting, which must have felt nothing short of complete shit. She was right to be angry with me when I talked back with reckless abandon. After residing in between the divided homes of an alcoholic and a mother who was never there, being angry was all that she was taught to be when scared. Effective communication is something hard-won. All things considered, it was an act of kindness when I was banned from wearing long sleeves after a stint with self-harm in my early teens. She ignored what she couldn’t understand, which was much easier than engaging me. My mindset during lost years is entirely unimaginable to me now, but I have mourned for my younger self and now must mourn for my mama.

Sometimes, I can see her fear that I am falling apart again.

I’m Strengthening My Relationship With My Mom by Acknowledging Our Mistakes

Every good parent does what they can to see their child smile. For her to lose hers—the one who doctors said was impossible due to infertility—to severe swings of emotions that she had no framework with which to understand is worthy of the kind of empathy I strive to maintain and am embarrassed to have not had when she needed me to understand her most. There is no excuse for any of my behavior that ensued. With easy access to the trouble associated with a Chicago adolescence—getting drunk on the lakefront, running from the cops for trespassing on rooftops, skipping national-level swim practices—I attempted to force my mother’s hand, to do what I thought was inevitable, to get her to leave, just like every other person had. I thought that if I acted out enough for such a thing to occur, then I could blame the actions instead of myself, as I had for so long. It made me angry that she cared so much, albeit in her own way, because if she cared, then it meant that my father should have, too. It’s frankly embarrassing to detail the way I thought—to realize the utmost denial I was in while maintaining perfect grades at the city’s top school. Not to mention all of my shenanigans, which I now look back on and wonder how I managed at all. I own those narratives because there should be nothing embarrassing about dealing with your situation with the tools that you are given. My mom reacted in anger as she was taught, and I sunk deeper into sadness as I thought I deserved. By acknowledging the narratives that we are given in this life, we can address how we wish to be better and strengthen our most meaningful relationships through understanding—both for our younger selves and for others. Things are better now after many years of working through my issues, but sometimes, I can see her fear that I am falling apart again. Sometimes, she still reacts as though it’s the middle of my worst years. But every day, she calls me sunshine. And every time she can see the blue in my once cloudy eyes, she declares to the world how happy her baby is and the winds sigh a gust of relief.

“That’s my brain?” I ask. Somewhere in a vivid memory, 1990s Rachael Leigh Cook holds up an egg. Back in 2019, in the wake of the posed question, I am in a hospital bed staring at what looks like a black and white Polaroid of a cauliflower with a blotch of mold growing on it. “Yes,” says the man in the white lab coat. “And that’s a tumor.” Rachael Leigh Cook then smashes the egg and destroys the surrounding kitchen set with a frying pan, proclaiming, “This is what your family goes through, and your friends, and your self-respect, and your future…”The gritty details of my diagnosis resembled an episode of a medical drama, but it was my understanding that if I committed to being an A-plus cancer patient, my odds of survival were high. Just stay the course, do what the doctors say, pay no attention to statistics and don’t ask a question if you expect a good answer. When I asked what to expect, my neuro-oncologist told me that most of her patients' suffering was psychological. Now, three years in, I finally understand what she meant. I’m a 34-year-old woman with brain cancer, treatable but incurable, and to survive, I’ve had to do a lot of drugs. However, the one that has truly saved me is a Schedule I illicit drug, possession of which could send me to jail.

The one that has truly saved me is a Schedule I illicit drug, possession of which could send me to jail.

I Used to Be Anti-Drug, but Trying THC Helped My Anxiety

I grew up in the era of MTV and Teen Vogue. In elementary school, I had a three-ring binder holding a prized collection of “Got Milk?” and Absolut Vodka ads. It is no wonder my first underage adult beverage was a white Russian. In fifth grade, like most kids across the U.S., I crossed the cafetorium as a D.A.R.E program graduate. My pure mind had been imprinted with graphic imagery showcasing that doing illicit drugs of any kind meant you would end up a toothless vagrant living on a dirty mattress.The scare tactics worked. I triple-checked that the black markers said “Mr. Sketch scented” before inhaling their licorice aroma. If marijuana was the gateway drug, I wouldn’t let so much as a Sharpie cause me to lose control of my mind and future. Just drink your milk and say no to drugs! Into adulthood, I maintained a pretty rigid anti-drug mentality, but once the bad reputation changed, I got my medical marijuana card on the diagnosis of anxiety and crossed through the gateway. I felt a certain level of shame that I used weed to help me sleep and relax, but adulting is hard. Sure enough, using marijuana didn’t inspire me to move on to meth like I was taught in fifth grade. I was just one of the millions of Americans, many of whom are still being judged thanks to archaic legislation, who benefitted from the natural brain balm of THC.In the three years since diagnosis, I have been prescribed the following drugs: Keppra, Ativan, Ozurdex, Gonal-F, Menopur, Cetrotide, Lupron, Senokot, Zofran, fentanyl, Norco, Temodar, Tibsovo, Imitrex and Enskyce. If most of this looks like Martian to you, that checks out. These are mostly the brand names—they’re not being advertised to us. Temodar showed up at my home in a hazmat package with instructions to flush twice if I vomited it up. It looked so dangerous in its yellow bag that I shoved it all into an empty Lucky Charms box. Packaging changes everything.

I had survived cancer only to find myself ready to give up on the life I should feel grateful to have.

Chemicals and Medication Rewired My Brain

Until I had chemotherapy of my very own, I didn’t know that chemo for brain cancer was taken orally and doesn’t make your hair fall out. For 14 months, I looked like myself but felt like a walking lab rat with the shameful feeling that my body had failed me.I had just enough deadly chemicals surging through my system to threaten the enemy and make me feel like I was dying. Whether or not these Lucky Charms did what they were supposed to do is unclear. The brain is so protected and mysterious, we simply have to wait and hope the bad guys never show up again. I rode on adrenaline for two-and-a-half years until a powerfully dark void crept into my psyche, eventually becoming the constant theme of my inner monologue. I succumbed to fear and uncertainty. Life’s fragility became so heavy that I frequently collapsed into the fetal position, unable to name the cause of my panic or provide any insight on what could help. There is no known cause for brain cancer. I did not want this life, and I had nothing to be angry at. I was in a purgatory of self-blame, wondering what I had done to deserve this fate, and of survivor's remorse, judging myself for failing to emerge with a greater sense of purpose. I had lost the self that I had come to know and love before the weight of my circumstances had a chokehold on my life. I didn’t want to make decisions based on fear anymore. I desperately wanted to feel carefree again. I never looked like the antidepressant ads, staring out at the rain in a blue-gray tinted world. I just felt exhausted. My mind was running through an endless corn maze of dead-end loops. Logically, I understood that I needed to reroute my thoughts and grab hold of the toxic ones, but I didn’t have the tools. The oncology psychiatrist advised an SSRI. I was hesitant. I had seen friends and family struggle with these drugs, experiencing side effects, dosing issues or finding them ineffective. I had also had enough drugs that came with a packet of warnings and an emergency hotline number. I had survived cancer only to find myself ready to give up on the life I should feel grateful to have. The word “should” was my biggest problem. Surviving now meant not only rewiring my thinking but reexamining everything else I believed. Being a survivor doesn’t look the same for everyone. Maybe doctors don’t always have the answers. Not all drugs are scary.

Microdosing Mushrooms Opened Up My Mind

Being a cancer patient has made me an amateur scientist, seeking out information and gathering my own resources. I had recently watched a documentary and studied research about using magic mushrooms for depression and anxiety. The documentary detailed a Johns Hopkins clinical trial that used guided trips for terminal cancer patients experiencing treatment-resistant depression. As these patients described their inner struggles before the trial, I felt less alone. Eighty percent of the patients in the trial reported improvement for six months after only one psilocybin treatment, with no side effects or dependency issues. “What about shrooms?” I suggested to the psychiatrist at our follow-up. I had always thought of magic mushrooms as a party drug with the reputation of making people stare at walls and jump out of windows. Not only are they illegal but they fall into the Schedule I class, along with meth and heroin. The DEA defines these as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. A drug is defined as a medicine or substance that has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced to the body. By this definition, sugar should be on the list. From my very first day of microdosing psilocybin, I felt the windows open in the attic of my mind. The breeze came through, and I noted the sun shining upon tiny specks of floating dust like glitter. Every sound and color was important. My thoughts were within my reach, and I could guide them safely across the deep waters of my psyche to dry shore. I was not high; I was just here. And simply being here is enough to make me happy. This is my brain on drugs.

Advertising Has Infiltrated the Way We Think About Illicit Drugs and Their Benefits

We are being advertised to all the time. In my mildly psychedelic state, I am now keenly aware of the influence this has on the way I see the world and myself. The PSAs released by Partnership for a Drug-Free America (now Partnership to End Addiction) were created by ad men in the 1980s who admittedly knew nothing about the drugs they were “unselling” or the young minds who they were targeting. They were just getting paid. Partnership to End Addiction continues to receive donations from big pharmaceutical companies. Just like marijuana, psilocybin can be found in nature and easily cultivated. There is no financial motivation to campaign for its medical use or legalization, but progress is being made to debunk the reputation of psilocybin and other psychedelics with therapeutic purposes, like MDMA, ketamine and LSD. It makes me wonder what kind of advertising would be necessary to change the narrative. Who would be the face of the campaign? Would they be wearing a lab coat or an American flag pin? A recent study, using historical insurance records of glioblastoma patients, showed that those who happened to be on Prozac outlived the patients that were not. Prozac is now being researched for brain cancer treatment. Though all of the medical professionals on my team support it, my chart lists my 0.2-gram dose of psilocybe cubensis as “herbal drugs,” so in the future, when I have died, should a medical pioneer choose to study historical brain cancer cases in search of a cure, they would be lacking a vital piece of information. I am extremely lucky to be here and exercise the use of my most important organ to its utmost capacity but even more lucky to have been forced to face and examine the source of my fears. Every thought that travels through the neural pathways and into a synapse is malleable. Perhaps if I can literally change my own mind, then the organ in control of it can also change. Or perhaps that’s just a little magical (mushroom) thinking.

This pandemic changed us all. Many of our capacities for socializing changed. We bear some scars from a shared trauma. For me, and many others, the pandemic helped us redefine our gender identity. Rather, it made me realize I don’t need a definition. You can’t nail down fluidity. This time locked in boxes, whether that’s my bedroom/home office or a Zoom square, made me think about how unreal many definitions within our society are. Nearly every meeting I go to, people say, “Time doesn’t feel real anymore.” It feels like time has flown by, but at the same time, it still seems like it’s 2020. I bet you also don’t know what day of the month it is. We interrogated what work itself means to us—we asked why we spend so much of our short and sacred lives working. Without working in person, people stopped having to present themselves in a certain way, which gave people like me the privacy and freedom to explore my gender expression.

It’s also unnecessary to assign an arbitrary word so people can understand who you are and how you love.

During Lockdown, I Realized I Am a Nonbinary Lesbian

I lobbed off my once-signature bob for a mostly shaved head in early 2021. Looking in the video chat screen at myself, waiting for the other person to join the call, I’d run my fingers over the buzzed sides. It felt freeing to think that people might not be able to guess my gender immediately because of this ambiguous hairstyle. I saw more and more people I followed on social media, mainly fellow cat-loving lesbians, shaving off all their hair, too, as the days stuck at home wore on. I also noticed more and more of these queer people shifting to she/they or they/them pronouns. Dates, words, gender, sexuality, time—they’re all constructs created to organize people within a society categorically. They create molds we’re expected to squeeze into that indicate how one person or day is different from another. We all have identities and labels that come with those. But language is constantly evolving (and, again, made up) to adapt to human understandings, much like the evolution of people’s understanding of gender. Two of my labels—nonbinary and lesbian—don’t fit together if you fixate on the historical definitions of these terms. Lesbians have long been defined as women who are attracted to other women. Common explanations say nonbinary people’s gender identity does not conform to male or female gender binaries. If a nonbinary person isn’t a woman, how can they possibly be a lesbian? Gender-nonconforming people have long been stitched into the fabric of lesbian culture, and there isn’t a need to draw a line between the two identities. The lesbian pride flag alone already accounts for gender-nonconforming lesbians (I learned this from one of my favorite cute lesbian TikTok couples, Col and Ari, who have many helpful videos about being nonbinary and lesbian). The dark orange stripe at the top of the flag represents gender nonconformity. Lesbians had adopted traditionally masculine aesthetics long before this idea of nonbinary people and gender nonconformity came into mainstream conversations. The chunky boots, big jackets, short hair and obscured chests that we see on transmasc or genderfluid people today existed on butch lesbians who were at some of the first Pride parades and even before. We still see those looks on people who identify as cisgender lesbians, too. You know what happens when you assume. It’s important to note here that gender and sexuality are different. Gender is innate but exhibited publicly based on how we dress, do our hair, what we shave, if we wear makeup, among other expressions. Sexuality is expressed by who we’re attracted to or not attracted to, in the case of asexual and aromantic people. It’s not just romantic love, either, but also who you seek out for pleasure or who fulfills you. A few words couldn’t possibly capture all the beautiful ways queer love can be shown. Like it’s not necessary to fit within a gender binary, as Judith Butler wrote, it’s also unnecessary to assign an arbitrary word so people can understand who you are and how you love.

It feels unsettling to float in this gooey, obscure space without clear definitions.

I’m Learning More About My Own Identity as My Partner Transitions

It feels unsettling to float in this gooey, obscure space without clear definitions. It’s rocked me more than the free fall of loving someone new—but that happened, and my partner is a life raft helping me explore my gender. My partner and I are both nonbinary lesbians. I’m closer to the femme side of the spectrum; I have very short hair, and I don’t shave or wear makeup, but I love dresses that show off my curves. My partner, though, started hormone replacement therapy about three months ago. Their voice cracks, and their lips are curtained with a faint mustache, much like many preteens coping with puberty. They wear chest binders and plan to get top surgery just after the new year. Building a relationship with my partner helped me further understand how to separate gender identity from sexual orientation. It taught me to differentiate between my attraction to bodies versus minds and learn how many different forms queer partnerships can take. When my partner first told me they wanted to change their name, take testosterone and undergo top surgery, I worried that my attraction to them would wane because I clung to my identity as a lesbian, a woman who is attracted to or romantic with other women. But being with my partner taught me how expansive the terms lesbian and nonbinary are and how they can’t limit my love for them. In fact, learning with them showed me I’m not a cisgender, woman-loving woman after all—but I am still a lesbian.Recently, as I’ve considered my lesbian identity but tried to reconcile that with being in a relationship with a transmasculine person, I concluded I just don’t want to be intimate with someone who has a penis. I didn’t find pleasure in forms of sex that involve a penis. But at its core, this conclusion is transphobic. I can be physical and romantic with a transfeminine person with a penis but not want to have certain types of sex with them. I can love my nonbinary, transmasc partner while still not feeling attracted to hypermasculine people or cisgender men. I can be in a lesbian relationship with my partner, even if their chest is flat and their voice low.It might be difficult for some people to understand my relationship as a nonbinary lesbian with someone with the same labels. I implore those people to read more articles like this and educate yourselves. Don’t make the queer people in your life explain themselves to you. We’re quite tired of that.

Everywhere I go, I see ghosts. But instead of spirits and ghouls haunting my footsteps, faces that I’ve seen a million times barely register as familiar. Places I go to every single day feel alien to me; my mind runs on complete autopilot; and I look into the mirror and half the time, the face I see looking back at me doesn’t feel like my own. As I said, I see ghosts.For most of my life, I didn’t have the words to describe these feelings. I’d always use metaphors: “I feel like I’m watching a show and my eyes are the screen.” “It feels like the world around me is artificial and made of plastic.” It wasn’t until I was in my early 20s that I really found the words for it and a description of it: dissociation and depersonalization.

I am who I am today because I was able to disconnect from some of the most horrible times in my life, and now they barely register above the surface.

Dissociation Is a Survival Tactic

The DSM-5 defines a depersonalization diagnosis as someone who experiences “unreality, detachment or being an outside observer concerning one's thoughts, feelings, sensations, body or actions,” and diagnoses dissociation as someone who experiences “disruption, interruption and/or discontinuity of the normal, subjective integration of behavior, memory, identity, consciousness, emotion, perception, body representation and motor control.” Think of disassociation as an umbrella term from which many other disorders and experiences can stem. Sitting in my therapist's office after telling him about my discovery, he brought up an idea that he likes to do with clients. “Can you get pictures from throughout your life, from childhood until about now?” he asked.It took a few weeks. As much as I moved around as a kid, pictures of my childhood were few and far between, but eventually, we had the session where we went through them.“Through the years, you can slowly see the light leaving your eyes,” he said. “You can see when you started building up those walls.”Later in the same session, he began digging into different mental disorders and their roots.“Everyone experiences anxiety every once in a while, depression too. In a similar vein, most people disassociate at some point in their lives,” he said. “Those things are defense mechanisms that trigger on and off throughout your life. But if they’re triggered too often, they become hard to turn off. You had to survive so much, and in order to save yourself, you sank in.”I was always a good kid in school, got good grades and even helped out with a few clubs. I worked throughout high school and had a few decent relationships. To the uninitiated, I was doing pretty well; not exceptional but above average and decently put together. At home, my dad was an alcoholic. I put up with his abuse nearly every night until he kicked me out over what amounted to a can of beans ending up in the trash, calling me a “scumbag” among much more colorful language along the way.For the next two years, I lived with my mom. That was bookended by my stepdad calling me and asking where the car was. I was sitting at my bus stop on the day of my AP U.S. History exam, already stressed enough, and I got a call right before the bus came.“Do you know where your mom and the car are?” my stepdad asked.As it turns out, the car was stolen by the fine gentleman who sold my mom flakka.The funny thing, though, I look back at those moments as if I’m watching someone else's life through a lens. I don’t connect with those moments and beyond the occasional episode, rarely feel directly impacted by them. I am who I am today because I was able to disconnect from some of the most horrible times in my life, and now they barely register above the surface. I have to remind myself of the times I found my mom near overdosing and of the times my dad stormed into my room smelling like a distillery. If those were present in my head, I’d have probably ended up like them.

I may have survived, but at what cost?

All of My Emotions Feel Washed in Gray

However, as my therapist said, if the dissociation and depersonalization are triggered too often, they become hard to turn off. And just like me not connecting with the most traumatic moments in my life, I also don’t connect with the most magical. When I got my most recent tattoo, it was something I was incredibly excited about. I left the appointment with a tattoo that meant a lot to me and had a great conversation with my artist and just felt nothing. I’m always surprised by my tattoos because they don’t feel familiar to me and, yet again, I can barely recognize my face in the mirror. I remember clearly that I climbed a small mountain in Georgia. I felt alive, connected, and just good. By the time I was back at the mountain base, those feelings were gone, replaced by the gray.Everything ends up in the back of the memory bank, completely awash with gray. And because I can’t really connect with my own surroundings, I can’t make genuine connections. My friendships are slim, and the few ones I did and do have are mostly surface-level. Everything in my life is artificial, and I don’t feel like I’m the one in charge of my own fingers.Coming to today: The therapist who I was working so much with passed away two years ago, and by the time he did, I was doing fine, coming to terms with myself and what I was experiencing, even lifting my numbness a little. But it didn’t stay like that.Over the next year, I dealt with the pandemic like anyone else: with a lot of alcohol and isolation. I let a friend stay with me, and they abused me. My relationship of six years ended. And at the end of the year, I was back at square one. Now here I am.I’ve been too cold even to begin to deal with the trauma of my abuse, and I’m just barely even touching the pieces of my relationship ending. All of that is happening, and I can barely register the music I have blaring in my car now. I would rather feel the worst pain there is than whatever the fuck this is. It may have helped me survive when I was younger, but now I feel like a robot piloting this skin suit, and nothing feels real around it.I may have survived, but at what cost?

Whenever rumors circulate about Pete Davidson’s dating life, two things happen: Firstly, men across social media complain about the fact that they “don’t see the appeal.” Secondly, thanks to Ariana Grande’s comment that it's “like 10 inches,” the topic of his penis and “big dick energy” arises. And often, the latter explains to men why a skinny, pale, goofy guy like Pete ends up dating the most attractive celebs—as if the only reason women would have for being attracted to a man like him is due to the size of his member. The idea that a large dick means sexual satisfaction is a long-running and widely believed misconception, reinforced by porn’s obsession with casting adult entertainers with bigger than average penis sizes and their focus on filming scenes of penetration over clitoral stimulation. In reality, most women get the most sexual pleasure from acts that focus on the clitoris and the whole vulva.

I fear returning to penetration.

Sex for Me Has Always Been Painful

When I first became sexually active, I asked my friend, “When does it stop hurting?” I naively thought that as the vagina muscle stretches, I would become accustomed to penetrative sex and stop wincing whenever someone thrusts their penis inside me. The pain still hasn’t gone away.Now that I’m in my late 20s, I understand why I experience so much discomfort and often pain from penetrative sex. I have vaginismus, a condition in which the vaginal muscles tighten in reaction to penetration. This means I’ve always experienced penetrative sex as something I will have to endure rather than look forward to. Throughout my entire life as a single woman, I’ve had to gear myself up for pain, warn sexual partners and only very occasionally am relaxed enough to enjoy the experience. But since a pandemic-induced dry spell, I fear returning to penetration.According to medical sites, the best way to treat the condition is through talking therapy, pelvic exercises and relaxation techniques. While much of this is helpful—and therapy has definitely helped me to understand the bad sexual experiences and trust issues surrounding my condition—it seems to put the onus entirely on me. Why do I have to work to keep sex from being painful, while men aren’t expected to educate themselves on how to pleasure us?I often wonder if diagnosing someone with vaginismus is helpful or not. It suggests that some vulva owners experience pain or discomfort during penetration while others do not. While not all women would claim to have vaginismus, I know very few who have not experienced some level of pain or discomfort during sex. Instead of diagnosing the vagina as not easily withstanding penetration, wouldn’t we create better sexual attitudes and experiences if we prioritized women’s comfort and pleasure?

A Big Dick Isn’t Necessarily a Good Thing

In fact, many men have seen my discomfort as evidence of their sexual prowess. They compliment my “tight pussy.” It makes them feel big, when really all my tightness means that they haven’t tried very hard to lubricate me before shoving themselves in. They haven’t worked at making me feel comfortable before getting what they wanted. Instead of groaning about how tight my vagina feels against their dick, men need to take this as a sign to reconsider, take a step back and ask the vagina owner what they can do rather than assume tightness is always a complimentary attribute. Recently, I decided to take a new tack before consenting to penetrative sex. When I hooked up with an old flame not long ago, I stopped them to explain that I didn’t get much satisfaction from our last encounter due to my discomfort. Before we did this again, I told him I wanted to make sure that my comfort would be a priority—a stipulation that should be a given but is sadly often not. When he responded, “It’s because of my big dick,” he took the possibility of sex off the table completely. His comment left me rolling my eyes as I explained through gritted teeth that discomfort and pain can be caused by anyone, no matter size or what they’re using to penetrate. It infuriated me to have to spell out that causing someone pain is not a badge of honor or a compliment on your large member. I did not end up fucking him.“Big dick energy” means someone who has the confidence of a well-endowed man but isn’t cocky about it. Few straight men I come across exude big dick energy, even when they are, in fact, packing one. In fact, most men with big dicks aren’t that great in bed; they have never had to be. They often rely on their size to make them good at sex, assuming that they never have to put any work in, as if we will quiver at the mere sight of it. Their size also means they have come to expect the women they are fucking to be in discomfort, rather than learning some basic anatomy about the vagina. It is a muscle capable of stretching to fit a baby. If you treat us right, we can definitely handle your penis.

The presumptuous, well-endowed man will just assume he is good in bed, whether he actually is or not.

I’ll Take Big Dick Energy Over a Big Dick

When Pete Davidson’s latest girlfriend was revealed, another celebrity renowned for her beauty, most men online assumed she was yet another woman willing to overlook his skinny frame and goofy mannerisms due to his dick size. It’s such a phallocentric assumption that would only be made by the sort of men who wrongly presume size equals pleasure.I don’t care for big dicks. The presumptuous, well-endowed man will just assume he is good in bed, whether he actually is or not. He is overtly cocky and, because of his self-assured attitude, will not change his behavior to respond to his sexual partner. He pulls out the same tricks and plods ahead with arrogance, not reading the body language of the person he is with. He assumes pain during sex is inevitable and something the receiver can endure alone.The sexiest behavior I’ve experienced is when a partner recognizes I am in pain and switches to oral to help me relax my body. I now know when it will stop hurting or at least the pain will be eased. I pick the people who will aim for us both to experience sexual satisfaction from the act rather than assuming my condition renders me incapable.I do think big dick energy is a term that we need, if for no other reason than its absolute rarity. I know now that the real big dick energy is someone who goes into every sexual scenario hoping to please their partner. They are conscious of explicit and nonverbal consent and can change their behavior to reflect their partner's needs and desires. It has nothing to do with the size of their dick—or if they even have one.

For a long time, I’ve suspected that my father has had a number of mistresses over the last few decades. Recently, I was shown evidence that proved it. I was both surprised and not at all surprised. Culturally, my father’s infidelity was to be expected. My family’s ethnic background is Vietnamese. We were boat people, fleeing Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, refugees from the war. I grew up near Los Angeles, which at the time boasted the largest population of Vietnamese people living outside of Vietnam. (That distinction has since been usurped by Silicon Valley.)

My Parents Were Always Joking About My Father's Supposed Infidelity

A few really interesting things happened as a result of the Vietnamese diaspora that started in the mid-’70s. The generation that left Vietnam clung to tradition, including the importance of patriarchy and appearances. While Vietnam moved on, rebuilt and modernized, theirs was a generation frozen in time and fear. In these patriarchal communities, the prospect of a man’s extramarital affairs was a given, while a woman’s was not spoken of. It’s so common that there is a term for the mistress: little wife. Even as a young child, I remember my parents joking about my dad’s girlfriend, years before he actually started cheating. The suggestion was hidden in the jokes and innuendos. When he put his arm around my mom’s best friend at the theme park, he said it was for the photo. When he grabbed his friend’s wife’s hand in the car, he said he thought it was my mother’s hand.After having established themselves abroad, many Vietnamese refugees made the return trip to visit relatives and friends who stayed behind. Those who returned were often admired, for surely they were now wealthy after years in the Western world—and they were, relatively, but most fell short of the high expectations. However, if a man traveled without his wife or children, he could easily find himself a little wife. The exploits of this newly unencumbered man form the basis for much of the humor in comedy routines on Paris by Night, a long-running direct-to-video variety show series created in 1983 by Vietnamese refugee Tô Văn Lai to entertain the new and growing Vietnamese diaspora. Like the bulk of its audience, the show emigrated not long after its inception from Paris to Orange County, where it became a cultural touchstone. In one Paris by Night skit, a father and son return from a trip to Vietnam and have to dodge suggestions by their wife and girlfriend about the beautiful scenery they enjoyed. Of course, by “beautiful scenery,” they meant the young women in Vietnam.

My parents’ relationship has always been tumultuous and should have ended decades ago. I’m not surprised my father cheated.

My Father's Alleged Extramarital Affairs Were Consistently Brought Up During Arguments

Before my father’s first trip back to Vietnam, my mother jokingly told him not to bring a young mistress home, to leave her in the village. He answered that of course he would—his little wife would stay in Vietnam so there wouldn’t be arguments. She hit his arm and called him a devil. They laughed, and she said she didn’t care. “Good luck to the woman who could stand you,” she teased him. “Oh, she’ll be more compliant than you,” he answered. “You have been in America too long, with your ideas and your backtalk. She will look up to me like a god.” “Ha! Good riddance,” she replied, then told him to get a move on or he’d miss his plane and make his little wife worry. My parents’ relationship has always been tumultuous and should have ended decades ago. I’m not surprised my father cheated.During arguments, my mother would casually refer to his mistress and accuse him of stealing her jewelry to send to her. She would tell me about others who had returned to Vietnam, taken a little wife and had children. Her best friend refused to divorce her husband so that he could legally marry his little wife and bring her to the States. Her uncle managed to sponsor his little wife and their child’s residency and supported them for years while living with his “big” family. But it was hard for me to believe my mother about my father’s infidelity for several reasons. She has a long history of emotional manipulation and fabricating alternative facts. I have watched my mother fictionalize situations to make herself seem the victim in order to gain sympathy. Although I could see the contempt grow between them, they rigidly held on to tradition and appearance and refused to divorce for the shame that it would bring.

I Eventually Accepted That My Father Was a Cheater

Many years ago, I asked my father, point-blank, if he had a mistress in Vietnam. I told him that I didn’t care, that I wouldn’t judge. I said I would be happy for him but that I wanted to know. He said no. Nervously, but firmly, no. I only half-believed him, but I didn’t push the matter. I genuinely didn’t care if he did. I wanted him to be happy and if, on his frequent trips to Vietnam, he could ease his loneliness in the arms of another woman, what was it to me? When I imagined my father’s little wife, I saw her as a woman a few years younger than my mother, matronly, ample waisted. Kinder than my mother. Someone he could feel like a man around. She spoke in softer tones than my mother. He was in love with her. He was bound by culture and honor not to divorce my mother, whom he no longer loved and who no longer loved him, but he had found true love, and who could fault him for that? Recently, during an argument between my father and me, my mother trash-talked him in a show of solidarity. She brought up the little wives, and for the first time, I asked her how she knew. She said she had been amassing evidence for years, from Facebook, his text messages, pictures on his phone. I asked her if he knew she had done this. She said he thinks she knows about 30 percent of his extramarital dealings, and she thinks she knows 80. She asked if I wanted to see the pictures. I said yes. The photos I saw on my mother’s phone could not be further from my fantasy. Instead of one woman, there were many. Instead of age-appropriate women, they were several years younger than me. I saw pictures of him, aged, sagging cheeks and loose gums, wispy gray hair and brown butcher-paper skin, with his arms around a woman half my age. Pictures of him and another woman nuzzled in a karaoke booth, both holding a golden microphone in one hand and touching each other with the other hand. There were pictures of yet another young woman in her underwear, sitting on her bed, eyelids lowered at the camera and her rump positioned in the air, higher than her head. My father is a creepy old man. I was disgusted. All these years, I had always pitied him. He styled himself as the protector and savior, the man who delivered us into the safe bosom of the United States and away from the treachery of the Communists. He espoused long lectures on integrity, respectability and keeping one’s word. He disassociated himself from friends who drank, gambled or cursed too much. It turns out it was for appearances. As long as no one knew what he did, or pretended not to, he could believe himself a good man.

He was likely lounging by the resort pool, enjoying a massage from his little wife.

I See My Father in a Different Light After Learning the Truth of His Affairs

His cheating illuminated some of his actions in retrospect. He made frequent solo trips to Vietnam. Once, he left without telling the family. My mother was also out of the country, and my brother and I were grown and living on our own. Only after I had tracked down the uncle who drove him to the airport did I know he had flown to Vietnam. When he didn’t answer the home phone, I imagined him dead and alone on the kitchen floor. Instead, he was likely lounging by the resort pool, enjoying a massage from his little wife. This past year, I bought him a new computer for Christmas and AirPods for his birthday. I was frustrated that he kept them pristine in their boxes because I wanted him to enjoy them. I had thought that he was afraid to use them. Now I understand that he was keeping them to regift to his latest little wife. Many asked me if I would confront him. I have not and have no plans to talk to him about his cheating. Since I have already asked him as directly as I know how, I don’t imagine his answer will change. My perception of him has definitely changed. I no longer feel sorry for him nor obligated to him for the sacrifices he purported to make. He was living his #bestlife all along. My relationship with my mother is very complicated. Although the revelation of my father’s infidelity made me understand some of her anger toward him, her general toxicity prevents me from moving any closer to her. I am more sympathetic to her situation. As a woman, she didn’t have much recourse. If she had left him, her community would have looked down on her. I see how it was easier for her to stay in the relationship. In many ways, it gave her the freedom to do what she wanted with impunity. In the end, what bothers me most is the lying, the posturing for an imaginary audience who does not care. It is frustrating to watch two unhappy people live out a version of a life they think they have to live, all the while everyone around them already knows the truth.

As a journalist, a major part of my work, in some way or another, focuses on how religious identity interacts with lived experiences—both individually but also with the greater society at large. I didn’t always look at religious practice and faith along these lines. In fact, when I was younger, I was of the opinion that observances of faith should stay private and separate from the rest of our political and social affiliations. But a few years ago, when I attended a faith and climate action workshop, I had a lightbulb moment. Suddenly, I questioned the very essence of what I’d known religion to be my whole life. Growing up in Pakistan, in a conservative Muslim family, my religious identity was as easy to me as breathing. I was always a Muslim, and as part of a demographic that was a majority in the society where I grew up, I never thought too much about what my identity really meant. Sure, I knew the basics—I prayed my namaz five times a day; I made sure I fasted during Ramadan; and I knew that charity was a good deed. I even started wearing hijab when I was 12 because I knew my mom and grandmother did it and it was a good thing to do. I’ve always been very proud of my religion and, growing up, I thought I was the kind of person who was making a genuine effort to understand it.

Most of all, I felt like a hypocrite.

A Faith Center Helped Me See Religion Outside the Mosque

But it wasn’t until I moved to the U.K. that I suddenly realized that my faith isn’t as easily categorized as I thought it was growing up. I had always stood out wearing my hijab at a young age, but I soon realized just how political my choice of clothing could be. Suddenly, I wasn’t only reminded of my religious identity when I heard the azan and rolled out my prayer mat or when, for one month of Ramadan, all of us at home would prioritize religious prayers until the month was over. No, wearing a hijab in a non-Islamic country meant I always held my religious identity with me, no matter where I went. The shift in my own perception of my identity, which suddenly began to loom larger than the pockets I had neatly contained them in, made me realize that I had so much more to learn. It was here that I began to explore avenues that would help me understand the role of my own faith identity in the public sphere, like the Faith Center at the London School Of Economics. When I became a part of its interfaith discussions program, the Faith Center became the push I needed to see religion outside of the mosque and home for the first time.The Faith and Climate Action program combined workshops and seminars to help participants understand how faith-based communities could inspire and lead climate action movements. It also showcased how faith-based dialogue was being used as a way to help communities who struggled to understand the language of science in climate change or felt excluded from secular movements connected to the climate movement. It even challenged issues of accessibility in the climate movement, where language barriers and education access have often meant that these movements are mainly led by a few elite leaders, and brought it down to the masses in a far more relatable approach.I could say I felt inspired and motivated by this approach—and I did. But most of all, I felt like a hypocrite. Despite always being so connected to faith and living in a society that seemed so focused on religion, I felt that we were taught about it far too selfishly to ever understand how this key part of our lives could help make a difference. Of course, one of the things we are taught as Muslims is the importance of charity, and for those who can afford it, giving a certain amount to charity is compulsory.

Many faith communities often find themselves excluded from more secular social justice movements because of the way the two are pitted against each other.

My Identity as a Muslim Filters Into Everything I Do

But what I learned during my time at the Faith Center is that for so long, I was interacting with religion on such a shallow level. Looking at the work that many faith-based organizations had achieved in mobilizing communities concerning climate action made me realize just how closely faith is—or, at least, should be—linked to social justice. Many faith communities often find themselves excluded from more secular social justice movements because of the way the two are pitted against each other. On the other hand, faith communities often find themselves bound together through their united religious beliefs, and so using that common factor can go a long way in mobilizing other causes. I also feel more and more that anyone on a journey to understand their faith or seek knowledge truly should not do so without understanding the responsibility of them embodying that knowledge. I felt that change within myself as well. I no longer felt able to keep my religion as a mere part of me that could be taken out or boxed back in when needed. As a feminist and a proponent of social change, I slowly began to understand how my identity as a Muslim interacted with all the other work I was learning to do. We simply cannot underestimate the power of faith, which dominates the lives and understanding of so much of the global population, in teaching people how to make the world a better place. I’ve realized that had I continued with the way I had boxed in my religious identity growing up, I would be doing a disservice both to my religious practice as well as to the causes I claim to stand for.

Let me just preface this by saying I dearly love my mother and my sisters. And my mother-in-law is pretty great, as well. Now, Mother’s Day means that as the only childfree woman in my family, I am more or less expected to be the default host for Mother’s Day celebrations. This expectation comes from both the family I was born into and my in-laws—though to a lesser extent with the latter. And it’s more of an unspoken and unwritten rule. Not once has any member of my family said, “You’re the only one who isn’t a mother here, so you need to host Mother’s Day.”

We just don’t talk about anything of importance in our family.

Hosting Just Isn’t My Thing

However, that unspoken expectation can become pretty passive-aggressive some years. Last year, I debated whether I should offer to host, but I really didn’t want to. To be fair, I never really want to host family gatherings of any sort. Primarily, it’s because I have to clean my house before everyone comes over and immediately afterward because the kiddos generally make such a mess. But I also hate hosting simply because I find it awkward. In short, I’m definitely not the hostess with the mostess. So last year, my oldest sister hosted Mother’s Day at her own house. That meant my husband and I went there, along with my parents. This was a relief to me at first because it meant I didn’t have to host everyone. And again, I love my family dearly, but my sister’s kids are noisy, messy and destructive. So I was relieved not to have them all over only to discover what her kids broke once they all went home. (It happens more often than you’d think.)And then, the passive-aggressive comments started from my mom. She’d sprinkle little observations around here and there about how my sister just works too hard all the time. Or she’d go on and on about how busy my sister is or how she never has a moment to herself. “Gee,” she’d say to my sister, “I sure hope you get to relax at some point today.” Since my sister made the meal and cleaned up afterward, I did feel a bit like a jerk for not hosting. But then, I got mad about that. Why should I have to have everyone over by default just because I chose not to become a mother? And, to a certain extent, my sister is “so busy” and “never gets to rest” because she chooses not to. She’s going a mile a minute, working full-time (at the time), shuttling her kids to their activities and spending hours upon hours volunteering with church and who knows what else.

My Busy Sister Deserves a Break, but That’s Not My Responsibility

Good for her! She truly is a wonderful person. Probably far better than I.But if she doesn’t rest, that’s her own fault. Sure, she has to work and take care of the kids. But she certainly could free up her time by cutting back on volunteering—if it was an issue for her. Yet, she just piles on more volunteer hours. Evidently, that works for her. And yes, my mom’s comments could have been totally innocent. However, after 30-some years of knowing my mother, they likely weren’t. Now, those comments could have been aimed at my sister’s husband, who doesn’t appear to help out much around the house or with the kids. Yet even so, her comments nicked me as she tried to shoot them toward my brother-in-law covertly. I didn’t say anything about the passive-aggression, because we just don’t talk about anything of importance in our family. But those comments stayed with me. And I became resentful, but I also feel really guilty for that. I’m resentful because, again, I don’t like hosting and feel I shouldn’t have to just because I happen to be the only non-mother of the female family members. And what about my sister’s husband? Why couldn’t he be more overtly pressured into taking over the hosting duties for this one day per year? Or my dad, for that matter (whom I also love dearly)?

I call total BS on Mother’s Day traditions.

I’m Over Mother’s Day

And the guilt! I simultaneously felt angry about the comments and silent expectations yet guilty for not hosting. I felt weird, too. Like I was standing in the middle of the room and had just insulted someone or said something incredibly stupid. I felt like the elephant in the room, really. It does feel less awkward with my in-laws, thankfully. I suppose it’s because my mother-in-law is not my mother and my sister-in-law is not my sister, I don’t feel pressured to host them for Mother’s Day. I refuse to take on that responsibility, actually, because I don’t feel husbands should get to shirk all gift-giving or holiday-celebrating duties and let their wives pick up the slack. And in my marriage, my husband is way better at cooking and entertaining people than I am.Mother’s Day rolls around every year. And every year, there’s this internal struggle for me of feeling angry yet guilty about who is going to have everyone over. That’s why I call total BS on Mother’s Day traditions—there’s just too much guilt and resentment and pressure.

Parenting in the social media age is torture. No matter what decisions you make around how much or how little you’ll share about your family life online, there are people out there with opinions. Try as we might to steel ourselves against what others think and say about us, if even the tiniest bit slips through, it can set up shop in your head.Now, if it’s that bad for parents, think of what it might be like for stepparents. As a stepmom of about a decade, I can tell you that people have plenty of opinions about stepparenting—what it should and shouldn’t look like and what is and isn’t appropriate. They are not afraid to share those opinions, either. In fact, they aren’t even afraid of stepping in and getting involved.

I’ve accepted that for her, social media is a tool to win the popular vote. As a stepmom, that’s a race you can never win.

The Role of Stepparent Comes With Tons of Unsolicited Advice

In my case, it was kindergarten graduation that started the trouble. In truth, it could have been any event because there are so many of them sprinkled through those first few years of school. At that point, I’d only been in my stepson’s life for about two years, but I couldn’t have imagined being anywhere that day but in that uncomfortable, too-small elementary school auditorium seat.His mom wouldn’t be there, however. I couldn’t wrap my head around it, but my understanding was that it was a scheduling issue at work and there was nothing she could do. I felt very bummed for her at the time.It was a great day, with adorable kiddos singing sweet songs and receiving little paper caps and diplomas. I took pictures of our little guy with his friends, his teacher and his dad. Getting to document it all quickly became my favorite part of stepparenting in those early years.It was only with my boyfriend’s blessing that I’d ever share anything on social media, as was the case with any of the other kids in my life who weren’t my own. I’d never had a bad experience sharing photos of my stepson before. So I wasn’t expecting to get a phone call about them.The chain of events went something like this: A mutual friend of my boyfriend and his ex’s saw a picture I posted and mentioned it to her. We were still social media friends at the time, but for whatever reason, she hadn’t seen the photos herself. She and her friend determined that the photos were somehow a sign of me being too comfortable.Then, in a move I still, years after the event, cannot quite figure out, she took the photos and posted them to her own account. There was a beautiful, heartfelt caption about the day, which ended with a passive-aggressive comment about no one feeling it necessary to take photos of her with her child there. I must’ve read that caption 300 times before I passed my phone to my boyfriend, quietly befuddled. He scrolled the comments and saw friends reinforcing the idea that she was there, even though she wasn’t, and saying how immature a co-parent must be to keep their child’s mother out of such a significant memory, et cetera, et cetera.I didn’t publicly engage with her, the same way I have chosen not to in similar issues that have come up in years since. I’ve accepted that for her, social media is a tool to win the popular vote. As a stepmom, that’s a race you can never win, especially on social media. If you love and care for your stepkids too much or are perceived as being too involved with their lives, you’re slammed for playing house with other people’s kids. If you don’t post about them at all but post about your partner? You’re trying to erase the kid from their lives, pretending they don’t exist.

He doesn’t need me to be his mom, and I’ve never once tried to be.

I've Come to Know My Boundaries as a Stepparent

The thing is, stepparenting doesn’t look the same way in any two situations, let alone any two households. I love my stepson with my whole heart. I nod politely and square my jaw when people tell me I can’t possibly love him like my own because I don’t have any children of my own. I pretend not to hear comments about how if mom’s around, I shouldn’t be. I swallow back swear words when I want to lash out because that’s not doing anyone any favors and, simply put, I’ll stress myself to an early grave trying to change society’s ideas about stepparents. I also know that he has two parents who would move mountains for him. He doesn’t need me to be his mom, and I’ve never once tried to be. In my world, stepparenting looks like being a safe adult for this kid, in the way an aunt or uncle or grandparent could be. I’m here to love and to offer guidance and, sure, once in a while, I step in and do some hands-on parenting. But I’m not here to step on toes, not here to replace or outdo.These days, the kid isn’t making as many appearances on my social media. And I’m sure people have opinions about it. They will as long as we’re all living and breathing. It’s not about them, however. It’s about him. The kiddo is approaching those awkward teen years at a rapid rate, and he’s got a right to figure out how he wants to be represented online. Old stuff is slowly getting archived. I don’t expect my parenting to be reflected on the internet, but maybe if I’ve learned anything in these short-long years that have passed, it’s that if you’re doing it right, the parenting is reflected in the kid. And so far, I feel like all of his parents, however they feel about each other, have done a damn good job.

My hands tightened around the steering wheel as rain pelted the windshield, my arms trembling from the fear clawing at my gut. I shifted the car into reverse and slowly backed out of a narrow parking space sandwiched between a concrete pole and a large SUV. My kids were arguing over a toy in the backseat, one of them screaming in anger. When I turned around to see what all the commotion was about, I heard a loud scraping sound and the crunch of my rearview mirror folding outward as the car dragged against the concrete pole."Mommy, what happened?" my daughter shouted from the backseat. I slammed on the brakes, and my mind went blank. A loud buzzing sound rang like a bell in my head, preventing me from answering her. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words caught in my throat as I fought to keep from vomiting. Once home, I inspected the damage (the entire right side of the car was scraped and dented) and worried about what others would think when they saw it. I couldn't tell them (or my kids) what had really happened—that I had been in the throes of a panic attack. Instead, I concocted a completely different version of the story—one that blamed the accident on thick sheets of rain and limited vision—because this was something that normal drivers would understand. But my husband knew the truth, and he wasn't mad. Instead, he hugged me and asked if I was OK.

The phobias outweighed my guilt, burdening me with the shame of being less than an ideal mother and wife.

My Anxiety Was So Bad I Could Barely Drive

Even as a teenager, I never liked driving and dreaded the day I was old enough to get my license. While all my high school friends were drooling over fast cars and counting down the days until they could take their exams at the DMV, I was busy making excuses to avoid the entire process. My parents didn't understand my hesitancy because I hid my driving anxiety well, so they sent me to driver's school. Surprisingly, it wasn't as scary as I'd anticipated, and I did well with my lessons as long as I stuck to quiet roads and avoided major highways.It wasn't until I had an accident years later while driving home one afternoon with a massive migraine that my childhood anxieties were triggered. All the old fears came back—my fear of dying, rejection, getting lost and being alone. My vehicle was totaled, and while I escaped unscathed, I never wanted to get behind the wheel of a car again. Of course, at the age of 22, this was not an option since I had to go to work, but I awoke with a new sense of dread each morning, knowing I had to drive.Driving was only one of several phobias that plagued me. When my husband and I started a family, the challenges of motherhood amped up my anxiety. I felt far more vulnerable since I was responsible for keeping my children safe, which led to excessive worry, constant fatigue, frustration, irritability and guilt. I also feared that my disorder could be passed down to my children, either as a genetic predisposition or from the unhealthy environment of fear that I was raising them in. My anxiety had reached a point where I could barely drive and could no longer enter unfamiliar buildings unless I was accompanied by someone else. Simple things such as grocery shopping, running to the drugstore, filling up the car with gas or flying on a plane were no longer options. I also feared the dark, tall heights and large crowds, all of which made me feel trapped. My world was shrinking by the day and impacting how I raised my children.

I Felt Like I Was Letting My Kids Down

Fortunately, my kids were too young to realize how heavily I relied on my husband to run errands or shuttle everyone to extracurricular activities. He often called out of work to drive me to appointments, deal with repairmen at our house or take the kids to school functions. Although he worked two jobs, he handled my disability without complaint. I hated being dependent on him but also felt incapable of changing. The phobias outweighed my guilt, burdening me with the shame of being less than an ideal mother and wife.Anxiety had not yet been diagnosed as a disorder during that time—people like me were considered weak, lazy, cowardly or immature. So I kept a mental list of excuses to hide my disability whenever I was called on to do something beyond my comfort zone. If the PTA board needed me to run off-campus errands for school programs, I told them I couldn't because I had a doctor's appointment. When the other moms invited me over with my children for playdates, I lied and said my car was in the repair shop. If the kids needed chaperones for field trips or a ride to a friend's house, I feigned a stomachache or told them I had already made other plans that day. I broke into a sweat and my heart raced at the thought of getting behind the wheel of a car and approaching a major highway. I tried to drive to the mall several times but was overcome with nausea and headaches. Eventually, I gave up.Once my kids were old enough to see through my excuses (but still too young to have a driver's license), their frustration mounted, especially when they missed functions that I couldn’t drive them to. They asked why I never volunteered to carpool like the other mothers did or why I wouldn't attend extracurricular activities unless their father also participated. My oldest teen lashed out one day in anger when he was stranded in the rain at an outdoor event and I refused to pick him up. He accused me of being an inept mother who was selfish for expecting their father to run all the family errands. I let him think the worst rather than admit I struggled with crippling anxiety, because I didn't want him to see me as a weak or abnormal mom.Over the years, my kids realized their mother was not like the other mothers they knew, and they stopped asking for my help. The upside was that my disorder forced them to become more independent; however, it also convinced them that they couldn’t rely on me for anything that involved driving or going to unfamiliar places. So I did other things to compensate for my disorder—I volunteered three days a week at my kids' school (it was one of a handful of places I felt safe going to), catered classroom parties, baked special homemade treats, spent countless hours helping with homework and school projects, allowed them to have their friends over as often as they wanted and rewarded their success in school with little gifts. Of course, I always dropped whatever I was doing to be their sounding board and their friend, but underneath it all, I still felt inadequate because I couldn't do the simple tasks that other mothers did so effortlessly for their children. Everything changed when I met another mother my age who suffered from similar anxiety symptoms. I was amazed that she could laugh about her fear of driving or how she admitted going half a mile out of her way to avoid making a left turn at a busy intersection. She, too, had a ready list of excuses to avoid doing things outside of her comfort zone. Still, the difference between us was that she acknowledged her disability, referring to herself as a "perfectly imperfect" mother, and approached her disorder with a sense of humor. It also helped that more research was being done on anxiety disorders and celebrities took to social media to discuss mental illness openly. Stigmas were being shattered, making it safer for mothers like me to shed our shame and admit that it was OK to say that we were not OK.

Over the years, my kids realized their mother was not like the other mothers they knew, and they stopped asking for my help.

I Learned to Open Up About My Anxiety Disorder and Find Support

In the beginning, I was too embarrassed to admit I needed help, but once I did, my doctor convinced me there was no shame in taking medication for my symptoms. She taught me different ways to decompress: deep breathing exercises, long walks, yoga, warm baths, playing in the yard with my dogs, listening to calming music—whatever else brought me peace. I also learned that it was OK to say no to the things I didn't want to do and communicated my feelings to my husband whenever I felt a panic attack coming on. He often talked me down from that frightening ledge before I fell.The next step was to talk about my disorder with my adult kids. They were very supportive, and it explained so much to them. I couldn't do certain things expected of me as a mother, but they understood that I did my best to be there for them in every other way possible.I see things differently now and have since learned how to give myself grace. An anxiety disorder is an illness and, like any illness, I have to take care of myself until I feel better. However, it doesn't define me or diminish my role as a parent.Yes, motherhood is chaotic and messy at times, but I have both hands on the steering wheel now, ready to move forward, one mile at a time.