I was born in Los Angeles California in 1990. I was 3 when the Northridge Earthquake set LA on fire. I was 10 when airplanes flew into the World Trade Center towers in New York, and I didn’t understand why my grandma was so upset about it. When I was 11, my parents separated and I spent several years blaming myself for their divorce, like most kids of divorced families.

Started having sex at 15 with my 25 year old boyfriend who I met at church. In 2011, I left that guy, had an affair with my best friend’s dad and married a youth paster in January 2012 right after turning 21, all in the span of about 6 months.
I was a ball of shame and unrealistic expectations about life and the nature of the world and of god. I knew I’d made a mistake, but I convinced myself, because of the religious beliefs that had been drilled into me, that if I just stuck it out, and stayed with this person I said “I do” to forever, I would eventually be happy. Eleven years, 3 kids and a move across the country later, after struggling for many, many years, I left my ex. I had been a stay at home mom for the past ten years, we had no savings, and I was trying to divorce a narcissist who genuinely believed (and still believes) he treated me well during our relationship.
I got a job, got an apartment, divorced my husband and left everything but the second car, and an agreement that he would eventually pay me what was my half of the equity on the house at the time when I left the relationship. No maintenance. No child support. I left everything so that I could get away from him. Custody agreement is 50/50 even though that rant what it actually looks like on the calendar.
During all that mess, I started attending some very serious mental health counseling, fell in love with art therapy, and decided to go back to school, which I thought I would never ever do, to become an art therapist. I truly believed it would be many years before I would be ready to be in a relationship again. I wanted nothing to do with men. Or woman. Or anything in between.
Then I met an artist in one of my online classes. I wasn’t interested in romance. I was exercising my newfound freedom to befriend and talk to whomever I chose. Polite email exchanges about homework quickly became a friendship. That friendship quickly became a romantic connection. I wanted to be single because I wanted freedom. In this new relationship, however, I was never asked to sacrifice my freedom or autonomy for the sake of protecting a fragile ego.

So here I am, 30-something, divorced, mom of three, apostate to the religion I clung to, divorced a pastor, full time sign language interpreter, master’s degree student of counseling, in a healthy relationship for the first time in my life, recently diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, trying really hard to do everything I can to raise my kids well and learn to take care of myself, finally.

Any questions?