I can't sleep. Tonight, out of desperation, I meant to cut off almost two feet of my hair (what's left of it). But I didn't. I couldn't. And I've sat here staring/pulling at it knowing that this hair was on my head when I met W. When I lost my virginity and later regretted it. When he broke up with me 6 weeks later. When I cried all that summer. When I got my GED. When I met P, when I met P's girlfriend, when I met everyone who later avoided me at school, when P moved...and this hair needs to go. No one is talking to me just because my hair is past my waist.

I've been thinking a little about my chances of surviving this. Mental Illness doesn't kill you, it drives you to kill yourself, or to die spiritually. It makes me rip myself apart. It muddles my thoughts, and it makes so I can't write clearly. It muddles my discernment and I have to try twice as hard to do anything and give up out of exhaustion.

I've been thinking about relationships again, which I shouldn't. Really. I know. but I am. Because I've been trying to think of my life before I met W. Trying to imagine how it will be after...But 3 years ago I had Helen, and Mary, I had Eric, I'd just met Josh, so many people read my diary daily. I could actually write decent diary entries back then. My life was on the verge of endless possibilities. It was exciting - so many first things to experience - and people loved that excitement in me. All of my open dreaming and thinking about what I would do if I weren't stuck in my house. And my adventures when I finally managed to. I had so many internet friends that people would try to chat with me 3 at a time. I really believed I'd kick these disorders and they'd be gone...as soon as I had friends here.

Where is everyone I knew online?

Mary, and Helen are on facebook now, keeping in touch but not talking. Eric is nowhere to be found. I've lost 3 other people due to fights and disturbing behavior on their part. I still have Josh once a week now, for which I am grateful. But before I went to school I had a lot more than I knew. And I still had my self-respect and virginity intact. Even though I didn't realize the former. I've lost so much in the past two years. Much more than I gained.

I know now that when I'm not losing my mind, I can write, but I don't even try. I'm not trying to be published. I don't want to use my real name even if I wanted to. Only part of me wants to write. 3 years ago all of me wanted to. But I wasn't sure if I had what it takes to be a professional writer. M grammar was 95% fixed a year ago. And now that I know what I'm doing grammatically, I don't write. I can't say it's "all" because of school that i don't. It's not. I could write a page in-between 4-10 page papers for school. But it seems like, I've gained a really bad perspective of myself in relation to other people. And it's affected how I share my "wisdom" or my thoughts, and it's altered my willingness and eagerness to create things in writing. It feels vulnerable in a way it never did before, as do my disorders.

Unlike almost everyone at school, I'm still getting straight A's somehow. My teachers like me, yes. But my disorders feel almost blaring at times, and I feel too apologetic of myself to try to befriend anyone. Imagine this scenario I've lived through - on the wrong end: you meet someone, theyre the coolest person you've met, then they tell you they have a disorder that prevents them from doing pretty much everything with you unless you're more patient and forgiving than God...I somehow held hope that one person here would stay and really be a friend. Because I'm not a bad friend, I just need understanding, to get really close I just wait till you're in crisis to really seriously pour my heart to you. One thing I truly 'get' is pain, so I'm there all the way when you're feeling that. But yeah, I seem to stress everyone out and I don't mean to. So I fear starting it up and having to say the words "stress disorders" to them, like...I'm almost perfect... But it wouldn't have been so bad if the people I've met (sans P) didn't judge me and leave for not being able to do things with them. I know I shouldn't care, but I do.

And somehow all of this is tangled up in my nearly 3 feet of hair...

~e