As I set about performing the tasks required to finish my first books, one that is deeply personal, I am thrown back into pondering about my life. I have lived many lives. And that is not just in relation to the mental illness that has woven my life into many different names and points of time, stopped. I have been a child, a child who was a parent, a street kid, a college student (many times over), a Vice-President of the Student Body (at my community college), a young married adult, a mom, a wife (x2), a dancer, a computer programmer, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a cake decorating teacher, the host of pre-internet nodes, a gardener, an artist, a poet and a survivor. I have held many other roles, some of them frozen in time when my mind forgets who I am now and switches to another point in time. But how to convey the information about MY life without defaming others, especially those who victimized me in their roles in my life?

That seems to be my main stumbling block. How do I tell the story of those things I have overcome without hurting those people that I love? My children, two of which have already ceased communicating with me because of family drama, the other who I have, on several occasions hurt with my disclosures. She has called me a “liar,” not wanting to admit to the trauma that she sustained. I want to respect that, I don’t desire to put her or my other children through any further trauma. I do not wish to hurt my mother. I also do not wish to hurt my brother who sustained a large amount of trauma at the hands of those who victimized me.

But I have a story that needs to be told. I know there are people out there who could be given strength from what I have survived. I want to help them. I want to tell my story for me also. I need to. They say writers don’t write because they want to, but because there is a story that is burning to get out. That they would explode if they don’t tell it. That is how I feel about mine.

The challenges are not insurmountable, but require me to be sensitive not only to my feelings about the past, but also to my family that remains and my future family. I do not want my grandchildren or further generations hurting or repeating the trauma that I experienced.

As I progress in the writing and publication of “Standing UP to LIVE” I will have to keep all of this in mind. I look to God in prayer to help me with this task. He is the only one who really understands what I am going through. Above and beyond all of my roles in this life, I am eternally HIS child. I am a Child of God with a future as bright as His love.