One thing I know about myself is that I was depressed and had been for a long time. Maybe even since I was a teenager. As I already said, both of my parents had drinking problems, and they fought constantly. My adolescence was spent frightened they would split up and leave me and my sisters, Jamie and Karen, to fend for ourselves. I was the oldest but ill-suited for the place in my family, and I used to long for an older sister or brother to take the brunt of responsibility off of me. I also felt out of place because while Jamie, who was two years younger than me, was accomplished, poised and distinguished; and my five-year-younger sis, Karen, was sweet, eager to please and the cutie-pie, I was just… me. School was a struggle, I was very introverted and a dreamer. Like being the odd man out. My low self-esteem attacked me from all angles, and you know how it is in high school with peer pressure and the social strata- you are either part of the in-crowd or you aren’t, and if you’re not, you’re nothing. I lost myself in being an over-achiever and trying to please my parents, hoping they would notice me. I know they loved me, I just wasn’t sure they knew who I was most of the time. I had dreams of going to college and accomplishing something when I grew up, but as my mother would tell me, I "wasn't college material". It was in high school where I met Mike. We were both 16 and in our junior year at Covington High School, and it was instant attraction. We dated off and on the remaining two years before graduation, and we went our separate ways during the summer. I counseled at a Christian girls’ camp, and Mike worked construction with his father. However, we registered in the same community college in the fall, began to date seriously and by Christmas we were engaged. I wasn’t even 19 yet. Michael Steele had come from his own set of hardships in his childhood. His mother was an illegitimate child whose own mother never let her forget that she’d ruined her (grandmother’s) life. Mike’s father died when he was six, and his mother remarried a very good man who loved and cherished Mike and his sisters, Mary and Lisa. But his mother was the dominating force in the family, and her controlling behavior and shrewish displeasure when she was crossed etched itself into the family’s lives. Mike’s parents started drinking when he was 11, and with the drinking, his mother became physically abusive. Mike was determined that any girl he married would not be like his mother, and I was as different from her as one possibly could be. She was loud and bossy, I was quiet and humble. She went out of her way to meet new people, often disliking them behind their backs, although she acted like each new person was her best friend. I was very shy who hated social functions, and I could usually be found taking care of somebody’s baby or helping in the kitchen. Mike’s mother dictated to everyone, and Mike planned on dictating to me. And while I didn’t appreciate the over-possessive way he acted sometimes, I was flattered by his attention. Little did I know the grief it would cause years down the line. We married a few months before my 20th birthday and moved into a shabby apartment. Having never lived on my own, I went from being daughter to being wife. What a strange new world! I had to figure out how to live on a budget, balance work with school and Mike’s needs and learn to cook. Right away he began in on the “you aren’t trying hard enough” litany of complaints. I didn’t keep house the spotless way his mother did, I couldn’t cook such and such like she did, I spent too much time at my part-time fast food job, and he never got to see me. Depression settled over me like a damp, musty blanket, and I wondered, “Is this all there is?” I completed two years of general education at our local college the summer after our wedding, but my plans to go on to a university and study nursing were out of the question. This was a sticky point between Mike and me- he had promised that he’d support my quest for a degree, but the construction industry took a nose-dive right after we got married. Suddenly we didn’t have the money for me to go on in school, even if I was to qualify for loans and grants. In reality, Mike didn’t like the amount of time I had to put into studying for school, and I think he used the lack of funds to his advantage. So I settled for a trade school and became a medical assistant, working in doctor’s offices as my career. Jason was born when we had been married for two years. I was unable to quit school at the time, and not working was out of the question. My heart was broken because it had always been my wish to be a full-time mother. And with our son’s birth, we entered another major family crisis. Who was going to babysit Jason while I was at work? I had asked my mother to do it, and she was thrilled. And it would’ve been far easier for me to have my mom look after the baby because my folks lived in the direction I traveled to work each day. However, Mike’s mother did not like my parents, and because of his propensity for exaggerating the bad side, she knew of my parents' alcohol problems. So, convinced that they would be unsafe as childcare workers, she persuaded Mike’s step-dad, who owned the construction company he worked for, to threaten to fire Mike if she wasn’t allowed to babysit. Not only was this grossly unfair to my family, but it also meant an extra thirty minutes of traveling each morning and afternoon for me. And as Jason got older, I also sensed a determination on his mother’s part to win the boy’s affections away from me. I made up my mind then and there that if I ever had another child, money or no money, I would stay home and take care of it. But a couple of years passed, I got pregnant and lost the baby, and then even with fertility counseling, there were no more pregnancies. My body totally betrayed me, and I was so hurt and angry. **** TTFN, Julie