Peyton Kathleen

Religious abuse is defined as: abuse administered under the guise of religion, including harassment or humiliation, which may result in psychological trauma. Religious abuse may also include misuse of religion for selfish, secular, or ideological ends such as the abuse of a clerical position.  

 Sometimes I have to remind myself: Being divorced isn't a personality trait.  I was going through the flyer that was handed to my by an usher after mass, and I said, "Oh my god Andrew! Good Shepherd has a Divorce Care class!" Andrew goes, "Why do you care, you're not divorced." I know why I cared. I felt very alone in the Catholic church for being divorced. I had no idea that they had programs that extended love and healing to people like me. That is why I cared.  But in Andrew's eye, I'm not divorced. I'm married, and happily at that! So why would I jump to identify as divorced?

I have come to the conclusion that there is no right way to handle yourself during heartbreak. Heartbreak recovery looks so different on everyone. But I know one thing is certain- pain demands to be felt, so feel it.  I realized how ugly grief is. How grief made me cave in on myself. How it made me hate the happiness and success of other. How grief made me feel so low, I wanted others down there with me. I thought grief was just sadness, but it was so much more than that. It was disease and rot and death. 

 The Fall of 2016 I started to feel terrible. I wasn't myself. I had no interest in my former passions, like working out and writing, I was feeling listless and anxious all the time, and what was weirder than all of that- I was constantly feeling angry.  I couldn't focus at work, I really hated the principal I worked with at the time, a toxic English department, and lack of real resources. The school I taught at was slowly becoming a Title I school, with increasingly more fights, drugs, and drama. At home I could feel my marriage was falling apart. My husband was never home, deep down I think even then I knew he was cheating. I was hours away from my family, and I was alone all the time. I don't know how I came to this idea, probably from my sorority days, but I thought I could really help get myself motivated if I could get prescribed Adderall. I had taken it once in college and remembered the incredible high I got- I studied, cleaned my room, scrubbed my bathroom, and wro...

 And I seriously don't want to hear anything from people who work from home and wear a mask for ten minutes when they go to the store. It actually IS a big deal when you have to wear it for 5 hours straight, get a 25 minute break, then have to wear it again for 3 more hours. It IS a big deal when you work with kids, and relationships mean everything. It IS a big deal when you can't smile at a student or read a passage aloud with expression.  I had a student come in yesterday and say, "Mrs. Adams! I got my braces off!" I said, "How exciting, let me see!" She pulled down her mask and gave me the biggest smile ever, showing me perfectly straight pearly whites. I audibly gasped when she did. I was taken aback because I realized- I'd never seen her face before. I had never seen her braces. I've been with this child everyday, Monday through Friday for 5 months, and I've never seen her smile. 

 TRIGGER WARNING: Violence/Rape * * * * * * * * * * * * * I've worked in the Texas Public School System for eight years and am very familiar with the standards teachers are expected to meet. You can't just read whatever you want or teach whatever you please. There is curriculum that is approved and must be adhered to. There are walk-throughs from our admin to ensure our standard is being met. A lot of top-down orders that are taken seriously. Private schools- I have no idea what goes on there. As I look back at my time in the private school system- I genuinely wonder what was going on. Was there accountability? Were there any standards that had to be met? Surely there were some? My geometry class seemed normal, my chemistry class ran smoothly, even my theology classes had workbooks and tests that needed preparing for. However, the extra curricular class I took my Senior year, European Film, was a complete shit show.  There is a certain teacher archetype I think we have all enc...

 I have always had this tugging feeling in me that I wanted to be a writer. I never studied the craft or made a discipline out of it, but I have always felt that there was a story within me that one day would need to be told. I told my husband about this secret desire and he was so encouraging and supportive, it was the first time I had really been motivated to start finding my voice. I decided as a New Year's Resolution to become a student of the craft. To start writing daily, to read memoirs, to work toward some kind of thesis or idea. But in the back of my mind, this little voice keeps saying, "Who are you to write? You aren't particularly smart, you haven't had a monumental life, you haven't really accomplished much of anything... what makes you think anyone would be interested in what you have to say?" And that is all true. I'm a nobody who has really done nothing. Then yesterday at school, we started reading The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. As a lead up...

When I was 15 years old, I tore my ACL while warming up at tumbling class. That evening at the Emergency Room, I had no idea that my promising athletic career had come to an abrupt end. Months of waiting on a donor tendon caused atrophy in my leg, weight gain in the rest of my body, and heavy depression in my young mind. We finally went ahead with a surgery that stripped one-third of my hamstring that replaced my torn ligament. Surgery was followed by months physical therapy, pain, and recovery. Though it has technically healed, my teenage injury continues to limit me. I have stability issues when doing certain leg exercises and occasional pain and soreness from where they harvested my my hamstring. When I was 27 years old, my husband left me. That evening as I stood in our kitchen I had no idea that my new marriage was coming to an abrupt and painful end. Months of being yanked around by my ex lead to a depression so deep, I wanted my life to end. When he finally went ahead and diss...