Carry your cross, you make your bed you lie in it and don’t hang out your dirty laundry are the idioms I heard over and over again when I was growing. This is what I heard up when I tried to talk to my mother about being wronged.

In other words if I ever complained about something one of those idioms were given to me as the solution.  Did I know as a child what they meant? Nope, I could only make up my own definitions, so here goes…

Nancy’s definition for “Carry your Cross”.  Lif...

I paid my ex-husband. We had been battling for almost 2 years primarily because he did not want a divorce.

I had reached the end of my rope one day and called my attorney and said “I no longer care that he does not want a divorce I just want nothing to do with him and further if I see him on the street I will not acknowledge him…l will pass him like he does not exist.”

Well she must have contacted his attorney because a few days later she called me and said my husband agreed to a div...

My mother enrolled me Immaculate Conception grammar school.  All my cousins went to that school too.  Kindergarten was a half day and I was enrolled in the morning session.  The first day of school I was dressed in a pink dress.

My mom drove me to school and walked me to the classroom. 

The classroom was set-up with small round tables and chairs.  I was told to sit at a table with the other little kids. Separation anxiety ran rampant! All the kids were crying, but I didn’t.  I did ...

I was born in the Bronx to a Sicilian Roman-Catholic family.  I was the oldest of 3 girls.  My mother’s family lived in the Bronx and since she was one of 10 children I had a large group of cousins and aunts and uncles.  I was told from a very young age that children should be seen and not heard and I listened.  I was not a loud or rambunctious child, if someone told me to sit I sat and I did so quietly.  My favorite places to sit were in corners and to this day I still like to sit on the c...

There I was lying on the floor outside out bathroom, naked. I had just been repeatedly sodomized by my new husband.  It was the day we came home from our honeymoon.  I had put the towels in the bathroom not to his liking and this started him off screaming, pushing and hitting me.  It ended with sexual assault.

The honeymoon was over and my 20 years of married life was just beginning. I knew I was bleeding from my rectum and told him to stop but rather than stop he continued telling me all wo...

I am Nancy Salamone and I’m a survivor of domestic violence. For 20 years I kept a secret from my family and co-workers. The secret was that I was physically, emotionally and economically abused by my husband. I kept this secret for 20 years - because I was ashamed.

Then on December 28, 1991 I left.  To this day I do not know the Nancy who left but I will always be grateful to that person inside me who summoned the courage to leave. 

I have started this blog to tell my story.

 I am tell...