[Aaroneet]

Now I am truly stumped. I know that it's an awkward first sentence, but I feel awkward (and frank) at the moment. Does it ever seem as though you work to improve yourself and you land right back where you started? I have worked to find camraderie on this site, and to establish myself. Granted, I have had some tussles along the way, but overall, I am starting to feel like I've found where I belong for the first time. I feel welcomed, and suddenly I find myself by somebody who thinks that he or she knows me, and knows nothing about me. Many of you have read my "Dissapointed" post, and know where I, the former, I hate to say it, "bully victim" and U.C patient, am coming from. I've come so far; I've gone nowhere at all.

Whether it's my father discussing my impairment with distance or seeming obliviousness to my surroundings as a result of delayed development at infancy (echolalia), or somebody I hardly know giving me directions as to how I should conduct myself, I feel trapped. I know that it may come off as "teen angst"; it is simply the result of a slightly abnormal childhood. My father always had to determine who could be my friend, and who couldn't. HE had to constantly monitor everything I did like a hawk. It was fine when I was little, but at sixteen, I shouldn't have to take this type of direction, especially from somebody I don't even know. It's more than just tacky advice; it's reopening wounds. It's having your contributions, everything positive that somebody told you, being ripped apart in front of your face. It's being told that you're a hack when you've been told that you're a brilliant writer. It's...being in the emergency room again at midnight, your mother screaming about how your internal organs are "bleeding buckets." It's having to walk into a room with an angry teacher daily who wonders why you can't seem to follow simple instructions. It's losing control of your life...It's...It's...not worth living. A life lived in shame is not worth living.

Again, I apologize for the emotion, but this is simply how I feel. Having emotions are a part of being human; these are my imperfections. That is what makes me who I am. It is the reason I write; if I am not a writer, then what am I? Just a miserable shadow of a person, just waiting for that final heart-tick.