Natalie’s magnetism blinded me from the deleterious aspects of her personality and our friendship. I consistently disregarded my relatives’ and other friends’ disapproval and defended Natalie and our friendship. Denial of her toxicity persisted until I grew cognizant of the truth. The conspicuity and severity of her ornery …show more content…
Numerous traumatic experiences occurred in my childhood and adolescence. Beginning around the age of 6 and continuing for a year, I endured molestation enacted by a relative. I harbored details about the vile episodes out of fear and shame until weeks before my hospitalization last year. Unpalatable thoughts detailing the disturbing events burdened my mind every day before awaking one morning, ready to tell my mother. Unyielding tears expressed her grief without words. She embraced me and we wept together. Confiding in her assuaged fourteen years of woe and empowered me to affirm my victimization and repudiate shame. Braving sexual trauma contributed considerably to my character and motivated my aspiration to attend graduate …show more content…
My father abandoned my mother, sister, and me for his mistress, whom later became my stepmother. I easily welcomed her, guided by my six-year-old ingenuity. She concealed her undesirable traits by hyperbolizing those benign for months, but her troublesome traits eventually appeared. Notably, her spitefulness manifested through deleterious actions. I awoke to the sound of vociferous speech and slammed kitchen cabinets--a conspicuous disregard for those asleep--before her departure for work nearly every morning while visiting. She considered those times felicitous opportunities to denigrate my character to my father. One morning she announced her discovery of marijuana in my desk drawer; another, she accused me of placing nail polish remover in her lotion. My father believed her blatant dishonesty and chastised me, despite my thirteen years and innocence. Her disrespect vexed me, but the grin on her face that I noticed as she spied behind the wall during my punishment, astounded me. I endured her unwarranted and increasingly malicious actions through childhood into my college years and refused to compromise my beliefs and values by sparring with her. Years of psychological abuse produced several harmful effects, including severe clinical