Lilly Ann and Jaf Wolvesley

Lilly Ann's Story

I don't have the really traumatic stories that many who suffer from mental illness have. I didn't exactly have a charmed childhood, but it wasn't the worst either. My mother didn't begin recovery through Alcoholics Anonymous until I was seven or eight. After that, she was definitely a "dry drunk." My parents divorced when I was five, right before Christmas--I took it hard. My father always made me feel as though I wasn't good enough (this was certainly the case with math). My dad remarried a couple of years after my parents' divorce. I lived primarily with my mother and thought that we had a close relationship. I had grown up with my mother's paranoia--accusing me of things I hadn't done. Her jobs were always in jeopardy because of her volatile personality. I was taught from a young age to stuff my feelings with food (a habit I have tried vehemently to break for well over a decade).

My step-mom passed away my senior year of college. She had been my champion in many ways. Myself and my two half brothers took it pretty hard, and none of us have fully recovered since. I moved back home and decided to follow in my step-mom's footsteps and become a teacher--what else was I going to do with a double major in History and Women's Studies? I moved to Virginia to pursue my master's degree and find a teaching job. It was going to be a new start for me--the beginning of MY life.

My mother followed me to Virginia. About a year after moving to Virginia, I met my husband, Adam, on eHarmony. We clicked instantly. This is where the problems with my mother truly began. She resents my relationship with my husband and continually tries to force us to believe that we are highly codependent. I earned my Master's in Education and found a teaching job with a well-known school district. Shortly after the beginning of my first school year, I had my first breakdown. When my daughter was born a year later, my mother quit her job, forced us to all move in together (as she was on the verge of eviction). Once under the same roof, my mother began to blame, rage and criticize. That wasn't the worst of it. She constantly claimed us to be unfit parents and threatened to call Child Protective Services on multiple occasions. I fell into a deep postpartum depression and was hospitalized in a partial (ie. day) program for a month.

I was out of work for about four months. My colleagues had all wondered what had hap