I want to share a brief version of my story, to see if it resonates with anyone. 

When I was 3, my mother married my step dad, who had just joined the military. For those of you who don't know, people in the military live a very mobile life. Every couple years, you're basically given a new assignment and told to move-often across the country or even to another country all together. I was ripped away from all of my friends many many times as a child. I still remember very very vividly how it felt to have to say goodbye to everyone and everything.

I imagine my parents didn't think this was cruel because in their eyes, I had the two of them. The thing is, my parents were cold, and abusive, and worthless as parents. My step father hated me until I was about 16 and he basically treated raising me like correcting a lower ranking officer on his insubordination. He was, not to mince words, an emotionally stunted jackass. My mother was a bitter and angry woman who yelled at me every day in order to settle her own anger issues. Needless to say, these two authority figures that dragged me around the world with them brought me no comfort. I never loved them, and I never took solace in their company. 

Today, I cried three times within an hour because I found myself having flashbacks to the time I had to leave my best friends in Ohio and love across the Atlantic ocean. I was 12. I'm 26 today and I have a wonderful boyfriend who I want to spend the rest of my life with. And still, I get this feeling like our time together is limited. I feel like eventually, he's going to be pulled away from me and it won't matter how hard I cling to him. 

To anyone who reads this and thinks they're going to join the military while taking care of a mentally ill kid, do something- anything else with your life. Don't put your kid through that- they'll hate you, and you'll deserve it.