Richard’s words pierced my mind like burning needles. Fifteen years of marriage, and only now did I see who he really was. A useless fool.” That’s what he called me. His pupils widened like a predator spotting its prey,
While acne is not a life-threatening condition, it can significantly impact self-esteem and mental well-being, making it an important issue to understand and address. The primary causes of acne include excess oil production, clogged pores, bacterial infections, and hormonal fluctuations. Hormones, particularly androgens, stimulate the sebaceous glands to produce more oil, increasing the likelihood of…
Acne is a common skin condition that affects millions of people worldwide, particularly teenagers and young adults. It occurs when hair follicles become clogged with oil, dead skin cells, and bacteria, leading to inflammation. The most common types of acne include blackheads, whiteheads, papules, pustules, nodules, and cysts .
The tradition was this: for two glorious weeks each summer, the family would gather at Mom’s cottage. It was a nice-sized home—four bedrooms, three baths, a lovely deck with a view of the ocean. Plenty of space for a family gathering. But every year, without fail, my mother would call me in March, her voice…
My name is Amelia, and for eight excruciating years, my family’s summer vacation was a tradition I was never a part of. My mother, Evelyn, has always played favorites, a fact as constant and undeniable as the tides near her North Carolina beach cottage. My older sister, Olivia, was her sun, and I, it seemed,…
This was the foundation of my childhood: her condition, my silence. If I snored too loudly, she wouldn’t gently wake me; she would blast a deafeningly loud sound horn in my room until I jolted awake, my heart hammering in my chest. This, she explained, was “negative reinforcement” to condition my “bad behavior.” I ought…
My mother has misophonia, a condition where certain sounds can trigger an intense, visceral reaction. For most, it’s an aversion to chewing or tapping. For my mother, it was a trigger for a rage so profound it made her self-destructive. My first memory is not of a lullaby or a bedtime story, but of a…
For years, our morning routine was a ritual of self-hatred. It consisted of our mother rubbing cheap, acrid-smelling skin whitener from the Dollar Tree all over our bodies. The whiter we looked, the better she treated us. I remember just wanting to be a normal kid, to play in the sun without fear, to love…
My family are the most colorist people I have ever met. Growing up in a Hispanic household, the shade of your skin was, in my mother’s eyes, the ultimate measure of your worth. Every summer, when my older sister Elena and I would play outside, my mother would count the number of times we stepped…
It happened a few months ago. I was at their house, the same house I had been helping them pay for over the past five years. The mortgage, the occasional grocery runs, even fixing the leaky faucet under the kitchen sink—I was the one keeping it all together. Meanwhile, my younger brother, Eric, did absolutely…