Surviving Soberly

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August 17, 2018 Dear Larry and Vicki: I felt compelled to write this letter to you since McKenna just turned 18 and her Adoption Placement anniversary day is the 24 th . I happened to be in the ER on Larry’s birthday yesterday and witnessed yet another event that made me all the more grateful for the fact that you raised my daughter. As I was laying there waiting to be seen in triage for my knee there was a 13-year-old little girl who was in severe pain on a bed in front of me in the hall who had come in ahead of me with her mom. Except from the time she and her mom came until the point of the transfer to Cooks next door, her mom had no interaction with her whatsoever in the way of comforting her, touching her, telling her it’s going to be okay. I could picture Vicki doing all of these things and I’m about to cry as I write this because I just felt so bad for that child. The nurses were so great and I thought about what great nurses you two are. I could picture ...

August 4, 2018 Dear McKenna: I can’t believe I have a birth daughter who’s going to be 18 on August 15 th ! When I think about the year 2000, it really doesn’t seem that long ago. This has been quite a year for you – another incredible dance recital that I got to attend, getting contacts, perseverance that knows no limits, lots of achievements in your life. You continue to amaze and inspire me with your bravery and limitless strength. I’m so glad you got to meet my sister Cindy this year, something I’d dreamed about since the day you were born. She talked to you when she came to visit me one week before I had you. I wanted you two to meet since the day I found out I was pregnant. The other night the movie “Flashdance” was on and if you hadn’t seen it you will probably crack up at the dance moves and 80s cliches. But when it came out the summer I was 17 it was all the rage. It’s about a dancer pursuing her dream. When it was on the other night I thought of y...

From the time I was three years old, I’ve had nightmares. And I remember the very first one I had because it became a recurring one for a very long time. When I tell you what it was you’ll at first think it’s very silly and that it doesn’t sound like a nightmare at all but to a child it very much was. I asked an older woman if I could borrow a pencil and she handed it to me. Then I was going through a tunnel. Then my body became heavy, then light, then heavy, then light. But then it felt like I couldn’t breathe and everything was going in slow motion and she was talking very slow to me, then very fast. I remember running to my parents and trying to explain the dream to them and why it was so terrifying to me but they couldn’t understand. I would continue to have this nightmare periodically. Maybe because I was an abused child, nightmares would plague me all my life and continue through present day at the age of 52. I wake up every hour with nightma...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/family/when-fathers-day-is-a-painful-reminder/ar-AAyMt0W

This is depression. I go through this every few weeks. This is the most I've had to cut off. These are massive tangles I get in my hair because I'm too depressed to brush it. Now my hair looks terrible but it feels better. Now I can color it again.

By Terri Rimmer I’ve been diagnosed many things but the nickname I hate the most - “Crazy Cat Lady,” - is not one of them, though my neighbors would beg to differ. Oddly enough when I was in my 20s and writing for a small town newspaper, The Camden County Tribune, they published a column I wrote about what different lives my sister and I lead. She’s a therapist and I was the creative type, she was a neatnik and I was messy. But I also addressed the fear that I would one day grow up and be like the crazy cat lady who lived across the street from my mom and step dad at the time. Now this woman was not a Crazy Cat Lady. She was unmarried, morbidly obese, worked, single, and had two cats. But in that neighborhood there were no feral cats. You might run across a stray once in a blue moon and if one had darkened her garage door she probably would’ve fed it but no one in the 80s would’ve said a word. It was a different time. My fear of becoming the Crazy Cat Lady woun...