**Content Warning** This piece discusses violence, including sexual abuse

The first tale is the story of the trauma I experienced leading up to my diagnosis. It begins within the environment that I was born into and how it provided opportunities for early traumas to happen. I suffered molestation from family and friends of family alike. I was subjected to child abuse: physically, emotionally, and mentally. These abuses occurred up until the age of twelve years old. The harshest part was being molested by my step-father and paid for by friends of the family to my mother to be alone with me, and my mother deciding to put me on birth control. In an attempt to protect me, she ended up misinforming what reproductive justice should mean to a young girl growing into a young lady and what these changes mean physically, emotionally, and mentally. I was not being protected in the ways in which I needed and this would end up setting the tone for future decisions. In an effort to cope with the abuses I was facing, my mother introduced me to alcohol at the age of 12 years old. Continue reading...