How I Lost Myself in a Controlling Friendship and What I Know Now

“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” ~Søren Kierkegaard I didn’t lose her all at once. I lost myself first—slowly, quietly, in the way that only happens when someone you trust makes you doubt everything you think and feel. She was magnetic when I met her. Warm, intense, the kind […]

How Friendship Helped This Veteran to Heal

In January 2011, after struggling with unstable housing for three years, I received good news: an offer from a childhood friend to move into a room in his apartment in Manhattan. Michael knew about the sharp downward turn my life had taken since my honorable discharge from the Navy in 2008. I was a skilled […]