I am going nowhere in my life

I feel as if I am going nowhere in life. I am about to graduate high school and the pressure keeps building. I keep having thoughts about cutting and even suicide but I don't want news of a student suicide disrupting others, or maybe I'm too much of a wimp to go through with it. I have only missed a few days of school and one teacher in particular is giving me hell over it. I am also taking band for the first time (yes, as a senior) and I'm so terrible compared to everyone else and my grade suffers because of it. I have a boyfriend (2 years now) who I've shared all of my problems with, but he can only do so much. My therapy appointments have stopped because everyone felt I no longer needed them and it seems like my medicines don't work anymore. I get headaches everyday and they aren't getting better. My dad is a hypocrite and seems to make everything a battle, whether its something we talk about or he has to fight to get something done with my stress. I know it seems like he would be helpful but he says one thing and does another, he denies bad things about him and whenever I talk about a small issue he blows it out of proportion and at the end its always me who fucked up. My mom lives in another state and my sister is nothing but drama. I want this stress to go away. I would write if I had time because I enjoy it but I never have enough time, and it doesn't help that I have no energy to do anything anymore. I'm trying not to do anything rash because if I do then I would hurt my boyfriend, the only person who I can talk to about anything and not be ridiculed for it. He has helped me with my self-esteem and other issues that what seems like every teenage girl has, but after a while I know he gets tired of hearing me complain about my problems and I have no one else to talk to. I feel like I'm stuck and I can't go anywhere. Please tell me what to do to stop stressing so much because I don't want to be the emo freak who cuts herself again.

You are a very sensitivity person who could use that for the betterment of mankind, starting with yourself. You say, “I keep having thoughts about cutting and even suicide but I don't want news of a student suicide disrupting others, or maybe I'm too much of a wimp to go through with it.” Why do you cut? Have you had trauma? You say you are about to graduate from high school. What are you going to do after that? What do you want to be? What do you enjoy? You say, “I have only missed a few days of school and one teacher in particular is giving me hell over it.” Why is this one teacher doing that? Does she give all students hell who have only missed a few days all year here at the end of school? When does he or she have time to teach? Why didn’t you take up band when you were a freshman? I took up band in the 7th grade. I don’t recall seeing any students taking up band for the first time as a senior. What instrument do you play? (Clarenet. All the girls in our band played clarnet.) You said, “my medicines don't work anymore.” What medicines have you tried? Anti-depressants? I’m on an anti-depressant, and on lithium, both for my manic-depression, and I take an health food sleep tablet which helps me sleep. You said, “I get headaches everyday and they aren't getting better.” Have you looked up on the net search engine what health foods, etc., might be good for headaches. My wife used to say magnesium from the health food store helped her with this. You say, “My dad is a hypocrite and seems to make everything a battle, whether its something we talk about or he has to fight to get something done with my stress.”: Look at your dad as a reason to get the hell out of there and get out on your own after any schooling you might be able to get after high school. You say, “I know it seems like he (you dad) would be helpful but he says one thing and does another, he denies bad things about him and whenever I talk about a small issue he blows it out of proportion and at the end its always me who fucked up.” Again, look at your dad’s behavior as a reason to get the hell out of there. You say, “My mom lives in another state and my sister is nothing but drama.” How do you get along with your mom? Why are you in one state and your mom’s in another? Would you rather live with her? You say, “I want this stress to go away.” Why are you stressed. You’ve given a lot of reasons, but…. How long have you been stressed? Is there any one particular reason? What was your childhood like? Do you have relatives who are stressed? Is it generic or have you had it rough? You say, “I would write if I had time because I enjoy it but I never have enough time….” What do you write? It’s good that you wrote here. You expressed yourself very well. Do you write fiction? If so, what kind of fiction? Have you ever written any non-fiction? And you added, “….and it doesn't help that I have no energy to do anything anymore.” My son put me on a no-carbohydrate diet (no bread, rice, potatoes) and my energy level doubled. You might give it a try. I may try to give you my diet for that below, and try it for a meal or two or three, and see if your energy level goes up. You say, “but after a while I know he (your boyfriend) gets tired of hearing me complain about my problems and I have no one else to talk to.” Why do you have all of these problems? You may have a negative unconscious, which is adding to your problems. In other words, you may be the chief culprit of you own problems. Let’s hope so, because that way you have a better chance to improve the situation. I had that, neg. unconscious, and it was getting to me, but I didn’t know what the problem was, so I could never solve it. I read a column on being positive, and it really helped me. And I show the column to a lot of people. I’ll try to leave a form of the column in the next post. You said, “I feel like I'm stuck and I can't go anywhere.” Here’s a saying for you: “The person you have to defeat is the person you have to look at in the mirror every morning.” “Looking for a helping hand? What about the one on the end of your arm?” I like that one because I have been in ruts and wasn’t doing anything to help myself. You say, “Please tell me what to do to stop stressing so much because I don't want to be the emo freak who cuts herself again.” Well, here’s a tip. Keep being the nice person that you are. We don’t want you to cut yourself again, OK? You can use your tough times to help others, by being able to tell them, “Guess what happened to me one time.” They’ll listen to you more than they will listen to some freako, emo, psycho, behavior expert because you’ve been through the wars and they haven’t been though jack crap. Anyway, here’s some stuff for you, you little punk. And I still don’t know why you took up band your senior year. What are you, some kind of emo freak? --------------------------------------------- (Since you like to write, here’s a story for you.) A Dish of Ice Cream In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10 year old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. “How much is an ice cream sundae?” “50 cents,” replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied a number of coins in it. “How much is a dish of plain ice cream?” he inquired. Some people were now waiting for a table and the waitress was a bit impatient. “35 cents,” she said brusquely. The little boy again counted the coins. “I’ll have the plain ice cream,” he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and departed. When the waitress came back, she began wiping down the table and then swallowed hard at what she saw. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were 15 cents – her tip. ---------------------------------------- (Here’s another story for you, you little punkster.) ________________________________________ (below from http://www.inspirational-short-stories.com) In WW1 an English soldier watched in horror how his lifelong friend fell under gunfire. All the soldiers had to retreat. The soldier went to ask permission from the lieutenant to go and fetch his friend from the no-mans-land. The lieutenant gave permission, but added: "It is hardly worth it. Your friend is probably dead and you may die too." The soldier did not care about the warnings and miraculously he did reach his friend, lifted him to his shoulders and stumbled back. He was wounded in the process. The lieutenant helped them to safety and noticed the soldier´s friend was dead. "I am sorry for your friend - but I told you it was not worth it. Your friend is dead and now you are also seriously wounded." 1 "I have to disagree with you. It was worth it", the soldier answered. "What ever do you mean?" the lieutenant wondered. "It was worth it", the soldier repeated. "When I got to my friend, he was still alive and said ´Jim, I knew you would never leave me.´ " ________________________________________ There is a saying that friendship is one soul dwelling in two bodies. And true friendship indeed is like that. A friends knows your good and weak points, has the courage to point out to you even painful things you need to see, and is willing to share in your joys and sorrows. They brighten up your day by their mere existence. Friends are like flowers in the garden of life.

My mom was in the military and was married to my biological father. When she deployed to Kuwait my biological father started drinking and he got a dishonorable discharge from the military. My mom found out she was pregnant with me in Kuwait and the smell of food in the chow hall made her feel sick, and when my dad who I live with now learned this he cooked for her. They both came back to the states around the same time and he offered her to leave my father and come to live with him, and she did. She got an honorable discharge from the military and had me soon afterwards. I lived with my mom, dad, and half-brother (my mom had him from her first marriage) in New York. My mom missed her birth control because she was out, and she couldn't get anymore because she was pregnant with my half-sister. That's when my mom and dad decided to marry. After they got married they decided that my dad would adopt me as his daughter, so they sent my biological father the paperwork. Apparently it took them almost a year to get him to give away his parental rights. I was adopted a week after my first birthday. My sister came along and we were one big happy family. My dad got orders to Indiana and that's the earliest I can remember my childhood. I was molested by my brother when I was four. The whole family received counseling and they said that I was so young I would probably forget it. I've luckily forgotten most of it, except my brother called it the Halloween game. In 2007 my dad got orders to Fort Polk, Louisiana. Louisiana is where the fighting started. Every night at the end of dinner my parents would fight and we got sent to our rooms. When the fight was over my brother cleaned up the messes (my mom almost always threw something). My brother was acting out, so he got sent to live with his birth dad in Maryland. My parents eventually divorced, and the divorce was finalized on my tenth birthday (lucky me). My mom has never left Louisiana since. My dad got orders to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and he was always on his Everquest game. I was going through puberty around this time and I was very lazy. I never did my chores and I was grounded a lot. In sixth grade I did take band and I played the clarinet, but I wasn't a fan of it, so I dropped it. Later my dad got orders to Korea, but he managed to get it changed to Shaw Air Force base (Where 10th Mountain was). He rented a house an hour away from the base so me and my sister could go to a good school. I was in seventh grade and that was my first time going to a public high school. I became very self-concious around this time. All the girls around me wore makeup and brand name clothes and had tan legs and were into sports. I wanted to be like them but I was too shy and I didn't look as pretty as they did. In 8th grade I switched middle schools because the house we were renting was costing too much, and the new house wasn't in the same zone for that middle school. I had gotten my first boyfriend (we met in a mixed martial arts class) and he was extremely depressed. I learned about what emo was and decided that I liked how it look. Well, his shitty outlook on life worn off on me, and both sides of my biological family had history of depression and drug/alcohol use. I got depressed and things went downhill fast. I was feeling very bad one night and I knew that emo people cut, so I tried it, and it surprised me that I didn't feel any pain. It kept getting worse, and one night I stupidly decided at three am to walk to my first boyfriend's house and said goodbye to him, and then cut my wrist to try and kill myself. When my dad found out I was checked into the hospital and later I stayed in an in-patient mental health treatment facility called Three Rivers. I got and and was committed 5 more times, 4 being short-term and 2 being long-term. They tried just about every anti-depressant and mood stabilizer out there. Lithium Carbonate was the magic medicine. When I finally cleaned up my act I went to high school. My sister was in the colorguard in the marching band, and senior year I decided to join the marching band. I relearned the clarinet in about a month and marched just this year. When marching season was over and we officially switched to concert season I changed instruments to play the tenor saxophone (not a good decision). The doctors took me off lithium a while back and put me on lamictal, and it just seems like its not helping my mood much. When I go to college I'm actually going to college for cyber security even though I've never taken a computer class, unless you count photoshop. I like computers and there is a large hiring field. Honestly I chose it because I have no idea what to do. I'm going to Louisiana to go to school and live with my mom (and I hear almost everyday that I'm making a bad choice) and my boyfriend is planning to come later in the summer to live with us. He also has family in Louisiana. His family is so nice and they treat me like I'm already part of the family. I can't wait to leave. I don't always feel so bad but on really awful days I have to lock myself in my room so I'm not tempted to pick up a knife. My boyfriend does know of my past and how my home situation is, and he is such a big help, especially with my self-esteem. It's not great, but I've learned to like a few things about me. My headaches are mostly from stress, but even on good days I get them. I wear glasses, and the eye doctor said it could potentially be the polycarbonate lenses that they use, so we recently switched to plastic lenses to see if that will work. I love to write fantasy and historical fiction, and thank you PJVL9 for the writing ideas. I feel somewhat better than before, and it helps to know that other people do care.

It's kinda funny, our stories are somewhat related - glasses, computer security, depression...not that having depression is a good way to be able to relate to someone tho lol. Oh, I'm a guy though, so peer pressure from girls didn't affect me, thankfully. I've heard stories... Quick tale: I had depression in high school, but continued functioning normal (it was expected of me). A year after graduating, I decided I couldn't do it anymore and just dropped my college classes on the day before a new semester. For six months I sat at home watching anime, finding cynical depression memes, and sitting comfortably in that muddy high-walled pit of despair. My mom couldn't give up on me tho, and I started working at a warehouse and stayed there for seven months. I chose to go for computer security, and started taking college classes for IT stuff (...I chose it because I had no idea what to do as well lol, but computers are something I've messed around with [side note: they say "follow your passion". I didn't have passion for anything, and still don't. That's still a problem right now, but the important thing is to keep moving forward]). Interestingly enough, I also got migraines after starting college - they've gone away now, but it was either a dental appt or stress. Stress would be most probable. Sorry, went off on a random tangent there. Now I'm deciding whether to keep going to school or to work while self-studying (certificates are worth as much as degrees in the IT field). Sorry, I feel like I'm talking about myself too much, as though my story matters. Depression made me very cynical. Doubtless you've had it harder - I had a stable, supporting family, which gave me room and time to heal. Looking at this situation from an outsiders view, I think living with your mom would be a good idea. It really would be a fresh start, as cliche as it is. The IT field is really nice - everyone needs IT people, and security is a must-have as more and more data is going online. Random fact: as I was typing just now I had a lightbulb moment where I figured out a possible future path forward; thanks! There is a lot of stuff to learn tho, and new stuff all the time. Concerning suicide: I never considered it - that indicates that I may have fallen into a pit, but I never considered myself unable to get out - I counted on a future. You seem to be doing the same - looking forward to the future. I hate to talk about death as a small thing, but death is game over. And you only have one life. It will get better. You may want to consider working for a while before entering college, just to get some money in the bank and to feel accomplished. Of course, I'm not qualified to sort out your life for you, but hopefully that helps! I look back on this answer and it just says I, I, I...but I really do hope it helps.

Thank you for your response. You do real well with your writing. I’m sorry to hear of those difficulties. Yes, there are people who care. And there are the other kinds, also, as you know. We can learn to care for ourselves when others care for us. In some cases, that might not be possible. We’re not saying all people are good, but we hope we can find the good in ourselves. That’s one of our challenges. Functioning among the son of a bitches. It’s like, a challenge. Can we find the good in ourselves, when all about us people are treating us like dogs. Does getting treated like a dog buck us up or wear us down? As a manic-depressive, I can go to both extremes very quickly Are you manic-depressive? Have you looked on the search engine for that title, or bi-polar, to see if that might be what you have? So I found out why you took band your senior year and you hadn’t taken band since 6thh grade. I’ve also never heard of anybody switching instruments in the band, going from clarinet to tenor sax. Sounds like quite a leap to me. You wrote, “My dad got orders to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.” That just rolls off your tongue without thinking. When I was in the active military, I would hear soldiers talk about that fort, and I could never could figure out, is that one word or two? I would think, are they saying “Fort Leonardwood, or Fort Leonard Wood?” So you explained it, it’s “Fort Leonard Wood,” and it’s in Missouri, I didn’t know that, either. You also mentioned Shaw Air Force Base, I do where that is, I use to live near it. Sumter. You also said about Shaw, “(Where 10th Mountain was).” You’ve said it so much, you left off what it is. It is “10th Mountain Division?” Is it 10th Mountain Squadron? I think there’s a Fort Sam Houston in Texas, and the solders would call it Ft. Sam. Is that right or wrong? You said, “I had gotten my first boyfriend (we met in a mixed martial arts class) and he was extremely depressed. I learned about what emo was and decided that I liked how it look. Well, his shitty outlook on life worn off on me, and both sides of my biological family had history of depression and drug/alcohol use. I got depressed and things went downhill fast. When I finally cleaned up my act I went to high school.” Is that a life story, or is that just one year? Some people don’t do that much in their entire lives. You said, “I was molested by my brother when I was four. The whole family received counseling and they said that I was so young I would probably forget it. I've luckily forgotten most of it, except my brother called it the Halloween game. In 2007 my dad got orders to Fort Polk, Louisiana.” Whose big fat idea was it to leave you two alone? Did that go on for awhile? Did nobody notice? How old was your half brother? You said, “When I go to college I'm actually going to college for cyber security even though I've never taken a computer class, unless you count photoshop. I like computers and there is a large hiring field. Honestly I chose it because I have no idea what to do. I'm going to Louisiana to go to school and live with my mom (and I hear almost everyday that I'm making a bad choice) and my boyfriend is planning to come later in the summer to live with us. He also has family in Louisiana. His family is so nice and they treat me like I'm already part of the family. I can't wait to leave.” You and I are probably the only two people in the world who haven’t taken a computer class. You say, “I'm going to Louisiana to go to school and live with my mom (and I hear almost every day that I'm making a bad choice.” Why is going to your mom’s a mistake? It sounds like it could be better than where you are. You say, “…and my boyfriend is planning to come later in the summer to live with us. He also has family in Louisiana. His family is so nice and they treat me like I'm already part of the family. I can't wait to leave.” That’s good that you have something to look forward to. You said, “I don't always feel so bad but on really awful days I have to lock myself in my room so I'm not tempted to pick up a knife. My boyfriend does know of my past and how my home situation is, and he is such a big help, especially with my self-esteem. It's not great, but I've learned to like a few things about me.” It sounds pretty rough. I think it’s from the sex abuse. Do you sometimes feel like two people, or one divided one? The trauma was so rough, you escaped to the other side of your ego? Are you really mean sometimes, and sometimes you’re really, really nice? If you’re responding to lithium, that might not be the case. Also, you said, they took you off lithium and put you on something else which is not working. Are you going to be back to your lithium? You might want to try magnesium from the health food store for your headaches. I’ve heard that it can help. I’m sorry you have to escape to your room. You said about your boyfriend, “he is such a big help, especially with my self-esteem. It's not great, but I've learned to like a few things about me.” He does sound like a good person. You also said, “I love to write fantasy and historical fiction, and thank you PJVL9 for the writing ideas. I feel somewhat better than before, and it helps to know that other people do care.” Well, I can tell you you’ve helped me. And I’m glad to hear you “love” to write fantasy and historical fiction. What kind of fantasy do you write? And historical fiction. What is that? I’ve written historical non-fictional, you know like, really boring. No, I write about local history sometimes. If you write, you punkster, you can also write free verse poems, and even about your difficulties, which someone told me about. Speaking for writing, here’s another story for you, punkster. And then, speaking of helping you with your self-esteem, I’m going to give you a column I read of being positive in your mind before going into a problem. OK here’s the story. A Simple Gesture By John W. Schlatter (true story) Mark was walking home from school one day when he noticed the boy ahead of him had tripped and dropped all of the books he was carrying, along with two sweaters, a baseball bat, a glove and a small tape recorder. Mark knelt down and helped the boy pick up the scattered articles. Since they were going the same way, he helped to carry part of the burden. As they walked Mark discovered the boy's name was Bill, that he loved video games, baseball and history, and that he was having lots of trouble with his other subjects and that he had just broken up with his girlfriend. They arrived at Bill's home first and Mark was invited in for a Coke and to watch some television. The afternoon passed pleasantly with a few laughs and some shared small talk, then Mark went home. They continued to see each other around school, had lunch together once or twice, then both graduated from junior high school. They ended up in the same high school where they had brief contacts over the years. Finally the long awaited senior year came and three weeks before graduation, Bill asked Mark if they could talk." Bill reminded him of the day years ago when they had first met. "Did you ever wonder why I was carrying so many things home that day?" asked Bill. "You see, I cleaned out my locker because I didn't want to leave a mess for anyone else. I had stored away some of my mothers sleeping pills and I was going home to commit suicide. But after we spent some time together talking and laughing, I realized that if I had killed myself, I would have missed that time and so many others that might follow. So you see, Mark, when you picked up those books that day, you did a lot more, you saved my life." . -------------------------------- OK, below my lead-in, is the column on being positive before trying to solve a problem: ------------------------------------------- My parents were both negative, and I developed a negative attitude. I believed my dad, for instance, when he believed everything would turn out wrong. So I would look for the wrong, and expect it to turn out like that. I believed positive was for sissies, for people who were not realistic, for people who didn’t have the intelligence or the ability to see how bad things were. I was copying my father, and he was a good example. He had a job, he paid the bills, he did a lot of things right, he was older and knew more about life than I did, and I believed everything he said and did. And I wanted to be like that. And it almost killed me. But I wouldn’t let go of it because he was my father. And I’d been following him since I was born. I believed that problems were bad. I believed that it was difficult to solve problems. If they weren’t difficult, they wouldn’t be problems. How could problems be anything but bad? Here was the catch: Problems are bad. But it’s not the problems we we’re saying is good. It’s our chances of solving the problems that we are saying are good. And that if we go into a problem with the idea that we can solve it, it increases our chance of solving the problem. And we want to solve the problem for our sake. But we are doing the opposite of that when we are neg. We are hurting our chances of solving the problems, and we are hurting ourselves. Which is just the opposite of what we want to do, hurt ourselves. That makes no sense. But by being neg., we are doing just that. We are making…no sense. We are deliberately hurting ourselves. So why do we do it. Because our neg. attitude that we learned as children, and it is in our uncon. And we can’t see it, and we don’t know we’re doing it. So by being positive, we are helping ourselves, which is what we want to do. It means we are on our own side. I realized that what I had to do before trying to solve a problem, was l clear out any neg. from my uncon., which might be, and was, tripping me up. So how do I do that? Well, accidently seeing the col., by national columnist, Nikki Scott, was the key. It said, before going into a problem, think positive that you can solve it. Whoa! What a novel idea. It was to me. So, I told myself, next time you have a problem, don’t worry about the problem, worry about your hidden neg. attidude that may be in your uncon. That you don’t see. So how do I get the neg. out? By, next time I have a problem, don’t worry about the prob., worry about any hidden neg. in my uncon. That you won’t see. So how do I get By, not worrying about the prob., work on any neg. in your uncon., by, first reading the col. on being positive when trying to solve a problem, before even thinking about the problem. I told myself, next time you have a problem, get the col. on being positive when trying to solve a problem down from the bullitan board, and read the col., forget about the problem, it’s you that’s tripping yourself up. And that’s what I did. By the 4th paragprh of reading the col, I had solved the problem. By first getting the neg. out of my uncon, which reading the col did for me. I had taken myself (my neg. self) out of the mix. I replaced it with this woman’s pos. column on being pos. when trying to solve a problem. And it worked. I wasn’t the stupidest son of a bitch in the valley after all. I even had the ability to solve some of my problems. I felt like a king. For the first time in my life, I felt like a king. Here’s the col. ------------------------------------- Here below, in my own words, is what the column on being positive said, when trying to solve a problem: --------------------------------------------- There are people who can solve problems very well, and there are those who cannot. But solving problems can be learned. The most important thing to remember about trying to solve a problem is your attitude going into the problem. The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. If you think you have little or no chance to solve the problem, you probably don’t, not because of the problem, but because you are stacking the deck against solving the problem before you even start to try. As such, the problem is not the problem, you are the problem. Take yourself out of the mix, and concentrate on the problem, with first having the belief that you can solve it. Let’s say you’re in a place of business that is on fire. Your conscious mind want to get out, but your unconscious is negative (which you don’t see because it’s in your unconscious). That could be your biggest problem: you don’t see the negative in your unconscious. If your conscious wants you to escape the fire, but your unconscious is negative, thinking you can’t solve this problem, every time your conscious thinks of a solution (“Open the door and go outside”), your unconscious says: “That won’t work, because….” and it comes up the flimsiest of reasons (“…the door might be locked.”). Your unconscious comes up with these putdowns of possible solutions, because it has been programed to where everything must be negative, so it is forced to downgrade all possible solutions. And until your conscious and unconscious are going in the same direction (win or lose), you can’t move, because half your brain is going to the left, and half your brain is going to the right. A possible solution to that might be, “Dive out the glass window. You might get cut, but you might survive.” That satisfied both the conscious (“I want to get out”) and the unconscious (“But I can’t allow myself to solve the problem in a positive way.”) So, you must retrain your unconscious. I do this by saying to myself when I have a problem, “Think positive, think positive, think positive,” as I pave the way for my conscious to come up with solutions, while trying to damp down my unconscious, which may be negative and preparing to downgrade any solution my conscious comes up with. Also, Ms. Scott said in her column on being positive when trying to solve a problem, if you come out of the attempt with less than an A on the test, give yourself credit for having tried, and learn from the experience. That's what I try to do now. If I fail, and I still do, I try to say to myself, try to learn from this experience, also. Where did you come up short? What did you do wrong? Did I not try enough? Did I fail to get enough info about the problem? Did I not contact certain people who may could have helped me. I tell myself, if you don't look at your blunders, you could repeat the same one tomorrow. (I found this works, and I’m able to solve problems much better.)

Yu said, "My dad is a hypocrite and seems to make everything a battle, whether its something we talk about or he has to fight to get something done with my stress. I know it seems like he would be helpful but he says one thing and does another, he denies bad things about him and whenever I talk about a small issue he blows it out of proportion and at the end its always me who fucked up. My mom lives in another state and my sister is nothing but drama." I think it's really bad that you were sexually abused by your brother, and now you catch heck from, I'll assume it's your stepdad. He would know this and should be treating you better. I am sorry to hear of your difficulties.

He would be my step-dad if he didn't adopt me, but legally he is my father. I should be leaving here soon enough to Louisiana and getting away from here. Getting this stress out was such a big help, and thank you. Since I have decent grades I may decide to spend less time studying and more time writing. It seems to help a lot. It feels like I'm making a new world and a few choice words written by me can change the world upside down.

I'm glad you replied. I'm glad you're going to do more time writing. It might also help you to do more time helping others. Since you make good grades, you would make a great tutor, in a hospital (you can contact "Volunteer Services"), in a library, in a senior citizens home, writing down some memories of a person or two, and giving copies to their children. As you get into their lives, you might worry less about your own. Plus, your difficult experiences can help those who are down, by saying, "Guess what happened to me one time?" I'm glad you wrote.