Member-only story
About Me — Mary L. Thompson
Sometimes I think my life story sounds too bad to be true.
When I put it all in black-and-white, it almost doesn’t sound real.
My brother died when I was seven. Then, after six years of struggling with guilt, grief, and mental illness, my mother took her own life when I was thirteen.
People acted strange around me when they found out my mother died from suicide. I felt like an “other,” different from everyone else.
It was painful for me to see other kids with their mothers after she died. I felt like I was under water watching everyone else breathe. They took for granted what I desperately wished I had.
At 20, I got married, except everything I got married for was gone on our wedding night. My marriage was disappointing and emotionally painful. I didn’t believe my husband really loved me, but my marriage gave me my children, whom I love with all my heart.
Twelve years later, I went through a long and difficult divorce. There was one point when I lost yet another job the same week the engine on my car died. Getting through it all seemed impossible, but sometimes you find a way to do the impossible when you have to.
Once divorced, I was a single mother with four kids, struggling to make ends meet and keep…
