People who have been through a lot (i.e. trauma) can actually be more calm and level-headed in an emergency. If she has witnessed other shootings, etc. in her life......

I’ve seen some people on my FB news feed (those that I affectionately refer to as “the asshole contingent” of my family, mostly) questioning how calm she remained throughout the video, and how matter-of-fact her narration was. The upshot seemed to be that there was something fishy about it.

You make a lot of sense.

As the child of an addict I am pretty deathly afraid of getting hurt, requiring surgery, and getting addicted to pain meds. I drink socially and there is no concern for me with alcoholism, but I’ve taken some pain meds in the past and I can easily see myself going down that rabbit hole under the right circumstances.…

In all seriousness, the over-prescribing of opioids is a serious problem, and I will eat my hat if this doesn’t unleash the litigation wave a la tobacco.

Those women are bigger than that. I promise you.

SO much this. It sucks when you literally tell your stepmother just how neglected you are and it’s like talking about dental floss. She made me call my mom when I was five to tell her to pack clean clothes for visitation. Then they leave the state for several years.

Man I wish this had happened sooner.

You have to have a pretty hard heart to dislike this. The long version of the video is even better:

the fact that “BirdieSanders” is trending at #1 on Twitter right now is honestly restoring my faith in humanity a little bit...

been there, done that. She passed away this January. I didn't abandon her as my siblings did and even though it was tough to stay and care, I'm glad I did...I have no guilt knowing that I was a better daughter than she was a parent. The stupid holiday was difficult - being reminded of all the emotional things I never…

I so dream of posting this on Facebook this morning sandwiched between every post of what is apparently everyone else’s blissful upbringing, but I can’t. I recognize that it would be rude. Let them have their day. But I do so love this. When I was a kid I watched this movie with my mom and she turned to me and said…

I wanted to stay in bed with blankets over my head today because I cannot face the expectations of Mother’s Day and all that it implies about what makes a Mother’s Day- worthy mom. I am not that mom. I have 3 little boys whom I love to bits and bits and bits but holely shit, I am looking at my current state of affairs…

You’re not really the target readership of this article, though, are you? You had a mother who tried her hardest through some very difficult situations. Why would you hold a grudge against her?

While Mommy Dearest is a prime example of an out-of-control parent, I also notice that this is a screen cap of a scene where Mommy is posing with her child for the paparazzi. in the moment, she has a legitimate excuse to not looking at her child. Outside of this moment, we all saw how fake it all was. Congrats on…

my paternal grandmother who was one of the best women in my life

My mom is mentally ill, and did a lot of damage to me because she wasn’t treated until she was almost sixty (I’m still not sure she ever got the correct treatment, but whatever). But I find that I’m angrier at the members of my family who knew the things that went on and did absolutely nothing to help me when I was…

Thank you so much for this. I’m one of those “middle ground” people you wrote about in the third paragraph, and I still go around in circles with my brother and father about my mom. (“Oh, surely she wasn’t THAT bad!” Oh, no, Mom railroading me into coming out to her at age fourteen, then publicly humiliating me a few…