This is insane. I was MEANT to find this article after what just happened. Your article was well-written, well-detailed, and it really, really made me feel so much better about what I'd just written about. It was truly soothing to my soul to read this.

I recently started getting comfortable writing about my childhood in my recent articles. There was a lot of emotional abuse from my mom and stepdad and abuse with each other. It was BAD.

For 20 years it was screaming almost daily, separating weekly for days or weeks at a time, telling us they were separating almost every week, forcing us to side with one of them, threatening each other that they would have affairs, and threatening to take the kids from one another.

Name-calling and bullying and anger towards us as well.

After I published one of my recent articles, my mother found it, denied everything I wrote, claiming I was a "pathological liar." She then blamed me for her own actions as I was "just a bad kid" who deserved it. And then threatened to have my Medium account reported for slander. I blocked her off of everything.

Initially, I was afraid and I wanted to remove the articles, for fear she would publicly berate me on here.

But, after reading YOUR article, I'm going to keep it on. She doesn't get to hold control and power over me anymore.

Thank you, truly.