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The first stage is one of the most important stages of Erick Erickson's Development timeline when an infant is cared for, fed, held and heard when they cry. My mother was a stay-at-home mom and took great care of me and my older brother. This stage ends in trust and has instilled a feeling of hope and positivity that I still carry today.

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This stage is where a child makes their own decisions and is either encouraged for their desires or turned down. For example, letting a child pick their own clothes. Although I do not remember everything, I do remember that my parents were very strict with rules, routine, church, clothing, music, tv, and discipline. Although many of these categories are important, there was no sense of self-control, and all of those categories were to extreme levels. This perhaps could have led to the start of low self-esteem. The strict rules and lack of "self-power" continued until the age of 13. This resulted in shame and doubt.

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This stage is when a child socially matures with a group of friends. For example, a child leading the game they created. I had a close friend group with neighbors, church families, and cousins which resulted in initiative and creativity socially.

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This is the stage of competence vs. uncertainty and the will to push through and finish tasks. The end of this stage resulted in inferiority and lack of competence. This stage was where my life got flipped upside down. My father traveled a lot, my mom was tired and depressed, but still tried her best. When my dad was home there was constant family conflict and yelling. I started developing an eating disorder at age 9, and was diagnosed with anorexia and later hospitalized at age 10. My dad struggled with depression, and was unable to hold a job, which ended in a foreclosure of my childhood home. This resulted in even more family conflict, my parents divorcing, moving schools, being separated from my brother, which led to extreme feelings of guilt, depression, and uncertainty.

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This stage is when a child has a regulated sense of who they are vs. a crisis on who they are supposed to be. During this stage, my mom and I moved cities and moved in with my grandparents. My mom went back to college and worked full time. I started a new school, and my grandparents took care of me. My mom started dating again, my dad didn’t want a relationship with me, and my whole world changed. I was angry. Rules did not apply to me. My “overly strict” mother turned into a “friend” role, watching her go through a divorce and the dating scene made me feel sad and responsible for her well-being, and sometimes I played the role of a mother to her. I had a newfound sense of independence and I led myself into getting involved with the wrong group at my new school, substance abuse, a long for intimacy, feeling invincible, and eventually moving out on my own at 16 years old. My sense of identity was non-existent. This resulted in confusion.

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This is the stage where an adult can feel the connection and bond of love, or where they are by themselves and choose to be alone.  At 21, I married my husband, and he changed my life. We both come from broken backgrounds, but the connection and ambition we both shared turned our negative situations into inspirational love and we became each other’s family. Right before I turned 22, our first son was born, and we moved to Indiana due to his job in the Air Force. This was also life changing, and so healthy for us to get out of our hometowns. Since then, we bought our first home, had our second and third son, and have gotten acclimated in a local church. This stage resulted in intimacy.

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This is the stage where you take care of others and the community, or you are self-centered and only seek to take care of yourself. This will (hopefully) resolve in generativity due to my early presence of hope and positivity from the first stage of trust. The hopefulness and positive characteristics of myself always play an important role in taking care of myself and others.

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This is the stage where you are either at peace with death, and the life you had, or you are unsatisfied and feel as if you missed opportunities and regret not doing them. This will (hopefully) resolve in integrity and I will have peace with who I am, death, and what is to come. The most important factor in this stage is my faith and walk with God, and everything I have learned and look forward to learning. Although it may be easy to slip into despair and feel as if you made a lot of wrong choices or missed opportunities, this is where I will look to God to health the feelings that are out of my control at this point, which will hopefully lead to inner peace.