A hot shower and my favorite jeans did me a world of good, though knowing I had to go to school put a damper on my day. But I'd think about that after. Because I decided while the water cascaded over me and the soap cleansed the outside that it was time to face the dirt on the inside, no matter how much it hurt.

That meant confronting my mother and my great grandmother about the crapfest that had been the way they chose to raise me. At sixteen, sure maybe I wasn't a great ...