Sometimes life takes its time bringing something of value into plain sight. It took me twenty-nine years to bring this book to a place where I can present it to you with both pride and satisfaction. I am hoping the story I've shared is one you will find as valuable in your life as it was in mine. The only problem is that my story took its time in me so I could make the necessary changes needed in order for me to find a balance of meaning and peace. This book is a mystery in the way it presents my life to you. I've been able to use a sense of seriousness mixed with a bizarre sense of comedy. Nothing in this book is what you might expect. About the time you begin to feel sorrowful, I hit you with a note that tells you there is no sorrow in me about what happened, only a sense of victory that I've been able to make sense of a life that is still unknown to my conscious mind. I've taken a shovel and dug deeply into my past then explained how I handled myself, both as a child and as the woman I have become. I've worked to expose the workings of how hard the mind works in order to survive in the healthiest way possible. I've used every tool at my disposal to retrain my thoughts, behavior, and language in order to break apart habits I developed in order to remain alive. My book is generally the type written by psychiatrists, psychologists, or counselors about patients. In this book, I became my own therapist, being led only by the insight given to me in a yet mysterious and unknown way.