Melissa Peters:  

Life In High School I was pretty much a loner, partly because I was very shy, but mostly because I tried too damn hard to be everybody’s friend! I hated being alone and was secretly scared to death I’d never have friends, so I pushed myself on any poor soul that crossed my path…thus ending up being even more alone. I graduated from H. S. mid-term 1986 because at that point I just wanted out of there! I had no clue what I was going to do with my life, but thought maybe Bible College was the answer since I was raised in church…and after all, Christian students would be friendly and accept me, right? Yeah, right! I came to OK to attend Bible College and during the 1st semester made the same dumb mistakes I had in H.S. ending up with the same result…ALONE! Next I moved back to YC where I continued to seek attention and friendship from everyone that crossed my path. I made many mistakes and did many things that I regret all in the name of “friendship” and “love”…but all the while I was still alone and ultimately miserable. I continued this pattern in Yuba City, Sacramento, Arkansas, Nevada and Arizona until around 1992. Slowly during this period of time I began to understand what I was doing to everyone around me. I began to see that the reason I was trying so damn hard to get others to like me was because I didn’t like myself. In my eyes I was weak, small, untalented and had NO self-esteem. What was there to like? It was at that point I realized something HAD to change! So instead of working so hard at trying to get others to like me, I started working on liking myself. I began to change myself from the inside out…working on my fears and self-confidence. Now this didn’t fix everything overnight! All the while I was “working on myself” I was with a man who was undoing everything I was trying to fix. But then, after 4 years of building myself up and being pulled back down I made the greatest “mistake” I could have ever made…I got pregnant! And he disappeared!! So th...Expand for more