Three Promises for Jane: A True Story of Madness and Redemption

Years ago I wrote how truth is anything but beautiful and how the deep well of an innocent child’s broken, bruised, and neglected heart is seldom untruthful. I’m not penning victimhood. I take full responsibility for the choices I made after I was released from under my parents’ broken wings. But I do hold them accountable for my early years: the foundational part of my life that influenced and shaped my young mind. I wish they would have given me something more than a shattered compass and ring of useless keys for life. As a small child, I felt lost—freakish, as if an indelible, scarlet-red mark had been placed on me, and I was walking aimlessly throughout life without any sense of direction. Like the only rule was: there are no rules. You just survive.