Book Review: Spilling the Greasy Beans on Demon Copperhead
Barbara Kingsolver dedicates her novel Demon Copperhead to survivors of the opioid crisis and foster care. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the book is dedicated to someone like me: I am an Appalachian who was put in foster care due, in part, to my father’s opioid addiction. Reading the novel, I felt […]
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How Gentrification Has Affected Me
I’ve watched the construction of 111 Montgomery in my Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights since it was nothing more than a large empty lot. There was a playground nearby where my brother and I always played competitive 2v2s basketball with the neighborhood kids. They were strangers at first, but after the first or second interaction […]
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Gaining Confidence and Control
Names have been changed. In 7th grade, I was bullied by a few of my female classmates. They made fun of me for being a hijabi (meaning I wore a headscarf) and said I was ugly. I had social anxiety. They talked about me behind my back and made fun of me to my face. […]
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Finding and Trusting the Right Therapist
Names have been changed. My father sexually abused me as a child and, a few days shy of my 13th birthday, I entered foster care. When detectives were first assigned to my case, I had to explain the what, when, where, who, and how of the assaults over and over. I felt like I was […]
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