"For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." - ‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭6:20‬‬

When my parents had me, I was a result of my father's first marriage and my mother's second marriage. My mother already had a daughter. My parents were alcoholics when I was born, and my mother is still an alcoholic. However, by God's Grace, my dad was saved, and he gave up alcohol when I was around six years old. However, I was an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy to two alcoholics, and until they gave custody of me to my aunt and grandparents, I was being neglected at home.

My mother was always too drunk to take care of me, and my father was always off drinking. At a young age, I had to learn to be without my parents in my life. It was around that age that I was diagnosed with autism and my parents never accepted me for it. They still deny it, and I've gotten no help or support from my family, and life has always been challenging because of it.

For years I was being neglected at home, and no one did anything about it. Because I had autism and had no support at home, I started to struggle at school.

I went to a Catholic school where I also went to Mass every Sunday and was christened at (I'm not Catholic anymore). The classes were really big, and because of how big the classes were, I could never get the right help or attention I needed from the teachers. I would struggle in school and fail. I never understood anything I'm school, had no friends at all because I couldn't socialize due to my autism, and would fail at everything I tried.

⚠️(Trigger warning, last chance to probably stop reading this)⚠️

My mother would have drunken blowups at me because of my issues, and I developed hateful thoughts towards myself that still resonate with me today.

One of my most vivid memories of my mother is me, only at the age of five, and I came home one day after I failed a math test and got a note from my teacher saying that I needed more help from home.

She was drunk and screaming at me. My dad was in the hospital at the time because of his own drinking, and it was around this time that he decided he was going to get sober.

My mother said this to me in exact quotes, "YOU'RE F**K*NG RETARDED AND I'M DONE WITH YOU!" My relationship with my mother has never been the same with her since. She has called me that multiple times.

It got to the point where I didn't have my mother in my life at all, and I personally was fine with that. My family guilt-tripped her into dragging her alcoholic self back into my life, and some days, and by some, I mean most, I wish they didn't.

My mother and I still don't have a good relationship at all. I want to love her because God called on me to love everyone, and I try my hardest every day, even when she's drunk, to do that, but it's hard.

Meanwhile, the Catholic school that I was attending wasn't giving me an easy time. I was always at the back of the class, I always had the worst grades, I was picked on because of my motor tics, and I never had a single friend in that school. I was constantly being compared to other intelligent, neurotypical students with their parents involved in their lives by the school and continually being told to "be more like so and so."

I became incredibly jealous of my classmates. They all had friends, and my family would get upset with me for not socializing with my classmates. They also all had their parents in their lives, something I never had. I got incredibly jealous when hearing about or seeing children with their parents at this point, whether at school, on TV, in books, or anywhere.

I hated that I stood out because of my family and my disability. Eventually, at age nine, I was in second grade and going into third grade. I was kicked out of the school because they said: "it would be better for me to attend a smaller school where I could get more help with my disability."

However, I fully believe it was God's Will that led to me changing schools. I was nine and in third grade, and that year, I met my first friend, who, eleven beautiful years later, is still my best friend. She's such a blessing in my life that words cannot even describe my love for her.