I was afraid to attend football and basketball games, fearing people’s judgment. I had been conditioned to believe that I was short, fat, ugly, and stupid. I spent most of my time alone in my bedroom with the lights out, listening to music on repeat. I couldn’t escape the feeling that I didn’t measure up.

Although I was short, I wasn’t fat or stupid or ugly. I had beautiful long red hair that curled naturally. I was a mix of Irish and Italian, carrying the recessive gene. But my mother didn’t see me that way. She would look at our Easter pictures and say, “You look like a monkey.” Her distaste for me was evident in picture after picture.

I was constantly ridiculed, taunted, and laughed at by my family. My father, who struggled with alcoholism, lost his jobs and our lake house. While my friends went off to college, I was told I had to stay home and attend a community college to become a nurse. But that wasn’t my dream. In my dreams, I was a journalist for the New York Times, living in a one-bedroom condo in Manhattan.

I did what I was told and stumbled through nursing school. When I graduated, I joined the ER at a small hospital in a small town. Eventually, I was promoted to manager. I wrote policies and procedures, bought defibrillators, and taught BLS (CPR). I held hands with Joint Commission and helped our staff get their ACLS certification, which was a big deal back then. I dealt with gunshot wounds, domestic abuse, cardiac arrests, respiratory arrest, delivering babies, and catching placentas. I saw too many children with parents who were their abusers, and it wrecked me.

I eventually left the ER and joined the adult ICU team. ICU was addicting. I worked with ventilators, dialysis, central lines, PA lines (pulmonary artery/Swan-Ganz), arterial lines, CRRT, CPR, multi-system organ failure, and a team of doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists who became my new family.

Along the way, I met someone special, my “magic man,” my last hippie on earth who dazzled and charmed me. Despite being told I was short, fat, ugly, and stupid, he lifted me up. I was on fire until I wasn’t. He was not a good man, a narcissist who never had enough women. I was so naive I didn’t know. But we created good children, so I kept pretending we had a good marriage until his death, and then I was finally free.

I haven’t been on a date since. I’m too afraid of making the same mistake. So I don’t. I’m retired from nursing now, and although I sometimes miss it, I don’t miss it enough to clock back in again.

I may never know why parents turn their beautiful children into frightened animals. Back then, there wasn’t a lot of therapy, and obviously not enough self-awareness. But now, I want to write about what everyone was trying to hide: insecurities, hate, anger, addictions, and abuse.

I’m here to open the curtains of lies and deceit and betrayal, to let the light in. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Debbie Moore-Black is a nurse who blogs at Do Not Resuscitate.