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"  Actress Rosie Perez immediately took a shine to Pine-Sol&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;When Life Gets Tough, Women Rise Above It&amp;quot; campaign, which shares real women&amp;#039;s inspiring stories of fighting cancer, overcoming drug addiction, leaving abusive relationships, and more. &amp;quot;It really champions women&amp;#039;s achievements,&amp;quot; says Rosie. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s very easy to go to that other place\u2014&amp;#039;Oh, you have a sob story. I feel so sorry for you. Tell me about it.&amp;#039; That may be well intended, but it comes off as patronizing. And it ignores the immense amount of strength, courage, and wisdom it takes to overcome adversity.&amp;quot; Perez should know: Before she was an Academy Award-nominated actress, she was a ward of the state, a childhood history she writes about in her upcoming memoir Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother, and Still Came Out Smiling (With Great Hair) (Feb. 2014). We talked to the sassy star about the reasons why sharing our stories is important\u2014if not a cure-all\u2014and why being a crying mess sometimes is a-okay. You appreciate that Women Rise Above It isn&amp;#039;t condescending to women who have struggled. Is that because you&amp;#039;ve felt patronized before? Yeah. When I was young, I would always get insulted that people would assumed that because of my experiences I was sub-par, that I didn&amp;#039;t have the ability to succeed. The pity party was offered to me, and I would say, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m smart, I&amp;#039;m capable, I just need opportunity. I&amp;#039;m opening the door and walking outside. I&amp;#039;m not waiting for it to knock.&amp;quot; That takes strength\u2014strength that I didn&amp;#039;t have every single day. I just think [women should give themselves] more credit. It takes strength just to acknowledge a bad situation. A lot of people think it&amp;#039;s normal to be abused, to live in poverty, not to have certain opportunities, but it&amp;#039;s not. And nine times out of 10 it&amp;#039;s not your fault\u2014and even that one time out of 10 that it is your fault, that&amp;#039;s okay. Just keep moving forward. Did other people help you on those days when you didn&amp;#039;t have strength? Yes. Thank God I had my aunt, my father, my cousins\u2014wonderful people who sometimes would cry with me, sometimes hold my hand, and sometimes laugh at me and say, &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re pathetic. Get over it!&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s a great thing. I really looked up to my aunt, who I saw struggle with grace, tenacity, and strength. She would say, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m so depressed today, but tomorrow is another f&amp;#039;ing day.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s really how you have to take it. I&amp;#039;ve had days where I cried and cried. But I always look forward to tomorrow when I have another shot. You&amp;#039;re sharing many of your struggles in your book.  When I was writing it, people would ask whether the process was cathartic. No! It was hard as hell. But I had to get it out and what I did find was that when I told the story, all of a sudden it became mine. You can have your opinion, you can have your judgment, but you cannot taint what I have said. You can&amp;#039;t take away from it. And that&amp;#039;s what I would love to share with the women who [participate in this campaign]. There is such power in owning your victories and struggles\u2014even if it&amp;#039;s not a miracle cure.  I say in the preface of the book, every day gets better. I&amp;#039;m a work in progress. I never believe anyone\u2014well, unless you&amp;#039;re freaking Oprah\u2014who goes on television after writing a book, and says, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m solved! Everything is healed! Everything is washed away!&amp;quot; I don&amp;#039;t buy that because we&amp;#039;re human beings. What experiences were hardest for you to write about? Being a ward of the state, being in the child welfare system and then getting out of it, being on welfare and going to school with holes in my shoes. The biggest adversity I had to overcome was the prejudice and judgment of others\u2014and it wasn&amp;#039;t specifically prejudice against me as a Puerto Rican, but against me being a poor female. Even the little things, like raising my hand in class and being overlooked for the boy sitting behind me in the sixth grade. And I was judged for my temperament. Because you were emotional? I was emotional, and people didn&amp;#039;t understand where that was coming from. I was quickly labeled an impertinent child or just angry. When you see kids who behave like that now, do you feel for them in a big way? I do feel for them. I have a charity [the Urban Arts Partnership] where I get to meet kids, and I&amp;#039;ll go over to them, listen to them, and hug them. I tell them, &amp;quot;I get it, but you know what? This teacher had nothing to do with your childhood. She has nothing to do with the abuse or the poverty that you are being subjected to, so try not to take it out on them.&amp;quot; I try to teach them how to articulate their anger. Which they are entitled to feel. Yes. You completely have a right to that anger, but how you articulate it is a whole different story. Submit your story to WomenRiseAboveIt.com. All participants have a chance to win free products, an entire year of housecleaning, and even a spa vacation. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/interviews/a16414/rosie-perez-interview/>