Fear isn’t real. I pushed through and proved to my inner bitch I am good enough! — Fear isn’t real. I pushed through and proved to my inner bitch I am good enough! As I started school this week, I struggled with imposter syndrome. I thought I made a mistake by enrolling in legal studies classes. I wondered if I would be the laughingstock of the class…

My daughter didn’t get a chance to experience life. But I did. I live each day for both of us. — My miscarriage story is not any different from thousands of other expectant mothers. I had hopes and dreams for my daughter, but she didn’t make it. The pain of the loss lasted decades. I felt responsible for not being able to carry her to term. …

You can’t save them. But you can save yourself from their addiction. — After being married to an addict for far too long, I realized there was nothing I could do or say to make him stop using. It was something only he could do, and the odds were he would never get clean. When I tried to put my foot down and…

I only wanted to save her from domestic violence, but she ghosted me. Just like that, 30 years of friendship vanished. — We became fast friends at preschool. Like me, her grandma raised her. We discovered we lived two houses from each other. In a matter of months, we became family to each other and were inseparable. Suzie (let’s call her this name to protect her) had a mother who was absent…

Open letter to my grandma. She died in 2011, and she’s missed so much! — Grandma raised me from the age of three after my mom lost custody of me because of child abuse and neglect. Grandma thought her child-rearing days were over at 50, but she told many people she couldn’t say no to me after looking at my blonde curly hair and blue…

I am focusing on improving myself, and I cannot do that if I am not authentic and deviate from who I am. — The biggest change I noticed when I stepped away from Medium as a source of money and focus on furthering my career was I no longer cared if my comment sounded harsh. I would hold my tongue (or sit on my hands) a lot. I’d read articles and want to…

He should have been a role model, instead he destroyed my self-esteem. — My grandma raised me from the age of three. She did an amazing job as a mother and depended on my uncles to provide a positive male role model. She asked my uncle, let’s call him Sam, to spend time with me and be a pseudo-father to me. Sam was…

Change is scary. It has prevented me from chasing my dreams for far too long. But that stops now! — Change is scary. It has prevented me from chasing my dreams for far too long. But that stops now! I have spent most of my life afraid of change. I worried about what people would think of me if I changed my career. …

My mother allowed her wife to manipulate and control her — and as a result, she turned her back on her family. — My mother and I have a complicated relationship. When I was three, CPS had to intervene and remove me from her care. She wasn’t feeding or taking care of me. I was starving, with a swollen belly, and my entire mouth was full of cavities. My grandma took over the…