Sometimes, I share stories and examples in my articles that are based on my personal experiences. When sharing these, I am trying to share my own experience and what I learned from it, and I am not trying to villainize or identify anyone else that is referred to in the story, regardless of how I feel about the person or my experiences with them. Because of this, I sometimes change identifying details in the story that do not change or detract from the relevant details in the story. The changes may consist of:

• Names - I never use the real names of anyone I am talking about on this site. All names are changed, if any are used.

• Pronouns - I may or may not change pronouns when referring to any given individual in a story, so as to make it harder to tell if or when I refer to the same person in different stories. I respect the pronouns and identity of any and everyone. These changes are not made in any way to disrespect or misgender anyone that was originally a part of the experiences that I have, this is exclusively a change that I may make in order to further anonymize any person I talk about. The pronouns I choose for a given story are randomized. That said, if any individual referred to in stories that I tell recognizes themself in my story and want to request a pronoun correction, so that they are only referred to with specific pronouns so that they are not misgendered, they can contact me via this site, and I will adjust the posts they request changes to, and modify it to use the pronouns they request. I will not reveal the identity of anyone that makes this request, I will just edit to update the pronouns.

• Ages - I tend not to use ages in stories unless it’s particularly relevant, but if I do, I may change ages slightly, while leaving the age within a range that still indicates the life stage that the person was in.

• Date/Time/Event/Holiday - I may also choose to change the context in which the story takes place, such as a different year, or a different event/milestone. If a time context is given, that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s when I remember the story took place, it is given to indicate that there may have been an important event of some sort when relevant. For example, if an event took place on one partner’s birthday, I may change what year, or even say it’s a different person’s birthday, but the context might matter that a story took place during a birthday party.

• Locations - Again, I may or may not change the location of a story, whether I refer to a building, city, or state. If I had an experience in Oregon, I may say California, because the thing that is important to convey is that it took place while I was away from home.

• Direct quotes - I may use quotation marks to indicate a person said something, but I may change the exact wording, whether to anonymize the statement or because I may not fully recollect the exact words. I may also accidentally get a quote wrong when I think I have it correctly. Generally speaking, if a statement is in quotes, to the best of my recollection I am conveying the sentiment and important parts of the statement, while some specific words may have been changed to another that conveys the same or a similar meaning. I never try to make a quotation sound more extreme than I recall.

Other than details changed in order to protect anyone’s identity, my experiences and stories that I share are all told truthfully to the best of my recollection. I do not make up my stories or experiences, and I do not exaggerate or attempt to cast individuals as villains or heroes. Memory is fallible, and there are always times where my memory will not match up with what another person recalls. If any person recognizes themself in the experiences I share and believes that my portrayal is inaccurate, they can contact me via this site to discuss any changes that they feel should be made. I may not make any changes, depending on the discussion and whether I believe the person that contacts me is actually the person in the story that feels that they are inaccurately portrayed. If I make any changes, I will not ever say if an individual requested them, or who it would be, for their privacy.

Any attempts in the comments to identify or locate people that are referred to in my stories will not be tolerated, and will be deleted. I condemn anyone who would attempt to do this in any other setting where I am unable to moderate the content. I am not here to accuse anyone or to attempt to call anyone out. Any stories shared are here so that I can share my experience, how I handled it, and perhaps how I feel I could have handled it differently if I knew more than I knew then.

Where applicable, I will state when I am sharing my own experience, the story of someone else’s experience (with their permission), or when I am giving a hypothetical situation that is not an experience or memory that is being shared.