The hardest thing for a person to do is stand up for themselves. Especially for women. If a woman stands up for herself society beats her up. A woman is told to stand up tall and be a fly on the wall. When she does not ask for what she wants she's told that she should have, but when she does she is told not to. What does it mean to be a woman that has strength? It means that you stand up for what you want and do what makes you happy. Or it means standing up for yourself. That can take more strength than one may realize.

I have a personal story about this I’d like to share. I grew up with divorced parents that believed in a lot of the same things, but had their differences. Growing up, my mom and I had established an open and comfortable mother-daughter relationship. which made the outcome that much harder to accept. She told me to always keep an open mind and not judge a book by it’s cover. At the end of 2016 I had slipped into a very bad depression spell. I felt nothing. All I wanted to do was sleep, I had to motivate myself to eat, to get dressed to even go to work. All my motivation for going to work was because I lived at home with my mom; I didn’t want to be around anyone when I felt that way. I felt empty.

Fast forward a couple months later, I’m feeling better not feeling as empty all the time. Then I meet someone on a dating website and agree to meet up for dinner. Dinner goes great and by that weekend we are on date number 2. From there, a relationship started to form and I decided I did not want to hide it from my parents anymore. I came to this decision because I’m happy, as I am learning more and more, is allowed. So I took a deep breath and told my mother that I am in a polyamorous relationship. I’ve been in this type of relationship in the past, but this one felt right which is why I told her. Things did not go well and two months into this new relationship my mother and I were not on great terms. I have been kicked out of the house and I am being “punished” by both my mother and stepfather. I say it with quotation marks because I don’t agree with it. I am allowed to be happy. I am allowed to live my life in a way that makes me happy and no one can change that.

Now I will admit, that some days are easier to accept this than others. But, I have the strength to get up everyday and stay happy and positive. I have the strength to fight against the desire to fall into a depression spell again. I don’t tell this story to get recognition, it’s not a very easy topic to discuss. If anything, I’d like my story to be an example that we all have demons that we fight against. But all it takes is strength to stand up against them. Even if it is asking for help.