My mother always warned me that crying is an admission of weakness. With her thick skin and hunched back she trudged and taught me coping mechanisms that she embraced as survival skills. At a young age, I learned to cry silently, to be skeptical, and to always look to the future for happiness. However, as I have grown older and experienced my own challenges I have learned to ignore the lessons of my mother; something that I consider to be a sign of socioeconomic progress for our small immigrant family. The catalysis was that throughout my college years, I had to deal with the prosecution of a family member who sexually abused me when I was a child. The severity of this taught me that in trying times, allowing myself to experience emotional