I was really grouchy when I woke up. Reeeally grouchy. But I've been watching Monk and doing things on the computer... and somewhere along the lines it started raining. I can't see it, but I can hear it. And eventually it worked its magic on me and now I feel really peaceful, but not only that.

I know that if I looked outside it would still be ugly. Yellow grass and dead trees. And I think that even though I've done well to not be depressed this winter, a part of me dies with the rest of the plants during the winter.

There's just something in the trees that captures my heart. When I think about it, I always remember walking home from Mike's house in the middle of the night. Sometimes it would be raining. The lampposts would give enough light to see, and even though I'd sometimes be scared cause I was walking alone at 2 in the morning, it was also my favorite experience ever.

Listening to the rain, not seeing it but hearing it, brings back that harmony - just like if I were actually experiencing those memories all over again.

The chaos has dissipated for a few moments. It always made me sad that Mike was so fixated on my flaws. So obsessed with my flaws. Because it wasn't like that for me. There are quite a number of flaws he has and quite a number of things he's done wrong. Even though I said I was very hateful and angry while I was dating him, there was this tenderness that surpassed the flaws.

It was only for Mike. And I can't explain it any other way except to use the word "tender". Because it was just a warmth and swelling of my heart that seemed unconditional. And that's why it was so soothing, because it was forgiving. Because intellectually, I kept score of all the bad things he did, because I lectured him and got pleasure in being superior to him and etc. But I don't know if this was in my emotions, or if that was the thing, my emotions didn't ever change my mind. I could get mad at him but his flaws never seemed to matter.

Of course, this isn't unheard of. But for me, it is unheard of because I've always been very fixated on flaws, just like Mike is with me. And at the very same time I was dating Mike I was completely obsessed with Shannon's flaws, so there you go.

It just wasn't that way with Mike. I've never been in love with someone quite like that. Aside from him, of course. You know how when you're done with the relationship, you realize all of the things you hate about that person, things you should have realized in the beginning?

I think I've kind of felt that way about Mike these past two years. He has been a total shit to me. And it's almost like I still wanted to love him, but I had to keep reminding myself to face the facts, that he wasn't a good guy.

I miss believing he was. I miss just loving him unconditionally. It's a phenomenon I can't fully explain. I'm so much more guarded now. Yeah, I am one of those people who wore their heart on their sleeve until they got hurt. I mean, we had a great relationship, but when we broke up he abused me so much, and it wasn't just him, it was coming at me from all sides because he got his friends to participate too.

It's like, he was saying, I don't love you anymore because of this flaw, and guess what? Everybody else hates you because of the same flaw. So you're Satan.

It wasn't that hard to survive it. There was a lot of nervousness that I felt, but it wasn't the most horrible experience. But I kind of sobered up from my naivety. I don't know what made me regret my naivety, maybe just the shame that Mike gave me. Like he was the closest person to me, the one to experience everything I had to offer, without protective walls. Because I trusted him. And when he broke up he just threw it all back in my face and suddenly I was Satan.

It was a slap in the face. So I think now I've come to realize that you can never know when someone is going to go nuts on you. It's not that I'm afraid to be who I am. I love who I am. But I know that people don't experience who I am objectively, they experience it through their own perspective, and their own psychology interprets it. Mike needed to hate me once we broke up, for many reasons.

And his friends did too, for different reasons. But they were all in it together, pretending like the fact of the matter was, the true reality was, that I was a horrible person. And I just wanted to tell each and every one of them that they were all agreeing on a lie. It's not so much that I wasn't what they thought of me, I won't deny everything they say - it's just obvious that the whole idea was a fraud. His friends got so much pleasure out of his hate for me and I wanted to say - it's not even real.

I don't know... I think I lost it. In one of my recent surveys I said that by the end of our relationship I no longer loved him, but I was still attached to him because he was such a part of my life that I felt it would be too significant of a loss to ditch him. And that's exactly how it was. That tenderness was gone. He was so horrible to me.

I've said before that somehow Mike represented me, in that I loved myself through loving him. I know that he didn't accept my flaws, so it wasn't the way HE made me feel, it was the way I felt about him that reflected the changes in how I felt about myself. I think it was shattered during the last couple of months because Mike was slipping away from me. We were always fighting because we were always hanging out with his friends and he acted differently to me around them, he was a lot meaner. It wasn't that way during the whole relationship though.

There was just something in him that was pushing to break away from me, as soon as school started he stopped hanging out with me alone, he always made up excuses. And I suppose you could say that reality clashed with my perception.

See, although it wasn't how Mike felt about me that made me love myself, it was his acceptance of me. All my life people have been trying to change me and control me, or they've decided they don't want to be around me. Like all my ex boyfriends who ask me out and then dump me within a couple weeks because, I don't know, they no longer want to be around me.

And each time, it was an insult to my expression. Because it was always like - every single time I tried to express myself somebody shut me down. My parents were always complaining about the way I expressed myself - in fact, most people have, because I chose to express myself in a controversial way, with my harsh and accusing words and things like that, defense mechanisms in my communication that have built up from past lifetimes.

In any case, I don't know why the guys broke up with me, but for instance with Dave, I was so ready to love him, so ready to express myself to him. And he broke up with me so randomly. It's like trying to walk into a house but running into the glass door. Like you don't see the door so you make the motion to step through the doorway and hit glass abruptly. I was always making the motion to start expressing myself and then I would hit glass abruptly.

Mike and I were in our own little world. He just let me love him. I didn't have to ask him if I could love him, if it would bother him if I wanted to be with him or wanted to call him or wanted to kiss him. We were such extremists. Always attached at the hip and attached at the lips. I never got a no from him in my expression of myself. It was such a startling reality. Such a novel experience. For the first time in my life I didn't have to apologize for trying to express who I was and how I felt.

I haven't experienced THAT since. Everybody puts conditions on being with me. Like, I want to hang out with you but you can't do this or say this or be this. Mike just let me be whatever I wanted, he never stopped me. I guess it had to do with his recessive personality, because it's changed. Now that he expresses himself more... he doesn't accept me as much.

At the beginning, he was one of those quiet people who you think are really nice. You think that if they're looking at you and thinking OH WHAT AN ANNOYING PERSON that you'd be able to tell, and since you can't tell, they must be really sweet and kind. And meanwhile, they really are thinking these things.

I guess I thought Mike wasn't, but during the end he started to express these things more. I mean, he loved me, but suddenly my flaws were larger than life, suddenly I was so WRONG to express myself. Just wrong.

So when school started and he no longer wanted to be with me, essentially he was saying - I'm no longer allowing you to express yourself. Suddenly I was a bother because I wanted to spend time with him after school. Suddenly I had to apologize for the way I felt. Suddenly I was wayyyyyyyy too controlling and if I wanted him to come over to my house I was the most horrible person ever.

And then we started breaking up off and on so I was losing possession. What I mean by that is, when you break up, you realize you're no longer allowed to be intimate with them. You no longer share that bond, that connection. So, I no longer felt it was my right to be around him, to go to his house, to call him. And he actually reeeally made sure I knew that by the very end. Because he won't have a single thing to do with me. He won't let me have a single thing to do with him.

So the entire dreamworld, bubble that we were living in during the summer shattered. And I just no longer felt that tenderness for myself through him. It's like, if you can't express yourself anywhere in public, where can you express it? If I'm around a single person, I have to apologize. If I write in a journal entry, I have to apologize to the people reading it. If I write it on myspace I have to apologize, if I write it directly to someone I have to apologize. If I say it directly to someone I have to apologize. It's like I have no where to go?

I WANTED to be around people, but how could I if I couldn't express myself? How could I if I always had to ask first, IS IT OKAY... if I express myself now?

I still wanted Mike. Not so much an emotion of love, as my ego kept saying - why can't we just turn back time and go back to that dreamworld? Why can't we just pretend we still love each other? And I didn't let that go for a long time.

Amelia was a lot of help. My entire life she has always criticized my expression of myself, but she had moved out of my house and she was having trouble with Anthony so she needed support. And we just grew to have a bond. We never fought, we never clashed, our emotions never got in the way - not like they do now that she's moved back in. She completely let me express myself. Far more than Mike, in some ways. Because I was coming into my philosophical self and she respected that and admired it, in ways that Mike would just be like "that's weird".

And all that time, these two years, what have I been waiting for? Somebody to express myself to. Somebody to be intimate with again. Somebody who is willing to accept me. It's kind of the same thing about what I said with the Divine Mother concept. The way I needed to give Mike some space. I needed to accept that his life was his to govern, who he was was going to be was his choice to make and I needed to respect that in him.

I've always wanted someone to do that to me. Someone who says - yeah, you can be a little crazy, Melissa. But you know what you're doing and who you want to be and how you want to express that is up to you. Someone who didn't tried to always make me think about them.

You see, I Will Not change my bad methods of expressing myself, for other people. Because they're about the dire need to express myself. It's like a test, saying, I'm going to be the worst I can be and see if you still love me. I couldn't ever accept the fact that people would let me express myself, if I did it in a pretty way, if I did it in a compatible way to them. I had to know that I could have the freedom to express myself in any way, that I didn't have to feel unstable, I didn't have to feel that my expression was conditional - that I could only express myself in nice ways and if I slipped up UH OH I was in trouble.

I know that it's difficult to be around me when I'm at my worst. That's the point. The point is, will you let me be? No matter how I'm doing it, will you just let me be? And no, my family never could. And although my friends seemed to, I didn't trust them. I was too afraid to be myself around them, so I couldn't express myself anyway.

You do that with family, they know your worst. They see you when you just wake up, for example. They changed your diapers. etc etc etc, the list goes on. And you try to hide that from everybody else. I didn't try to hide that from Mike. That's why I felt like we were married. Because we had the intimacy of family, that you gain when you start living with somebody new, when they become your family. And that's why it felt like a divorce, in significance, when we broke up. We were literally divorced - in the sense that we had separated from each other, but our union wasn't marriage, it was a different concept.

I want to heal, and be healthy. People don't understand that. They think I'll always be at my worst. But the truth is, I just want to know that the decision is mine.

I tried to explain this to my mom and she did not grasp the concept. I said that my teacher Botsford told us that he didn't take attendance and he didn't care if we were there or not, it was our responsibility to be there and we had to be adults and make that decision. Most teachers essentially manipulate us into coming by taking away points if we're not there. He just said - hey, it's up to you.

And a lot of people abuse that, and don't come at all. But I like to come, I like to be responsible, truly. It makes me happy. And I especially enjoy coming to his class, even though it can be boring, because it's my choice. Because I know I'm not there because he's making me. I know that I'm there because I want to be. I don't want to be because it's fun, I want to be because it's responsible. That's my test. He's given that to me, he's said, I'm not going to make you come, so the test is, will you come anyway?

As an adult, I've decided to go.

My mom thinks that I'll never be responsible, I'll always be lazy and wasteful. When she goes on her trips for three weeks? I am responsible. Not as psychotically unwasteful as she is but I do turn off lights when I leave the room and things of that nature. Why do I do it? Because at heart, I want to be responsible, I want to be healthy and in sync with the natural order of things. But even though that's true all the time, why don't I do it when she's here? Because she's always trying to MAKE me do it. And I have never, in my entire life, wanted someone to get the pleasure of knowing that they've made me do something.

I've never let somebody manipulate me into doing something. That's why in a fight, I always win. For instance, when my mom goes DO THIS OR I'LL TAKE AWAY YOUR INTERNET! I say, go for it. Because I refuse to allow her to manipulate me into doing something. It's not always that I don't want to do whatever it is, although in earlier cases it was that I didn't want to go to school or whatever. But the point is - I would sacrifice anything to make the point that I refuse to be manipulated.

She always tried to bargain by taking away things that she thought were important to me, but they really weren't in comparison with this. This point was more important to me. And even though I may eventually give in (shh this is a secret), truth be told, I know that I only have to hold out until she gives up. I probably wouldn't give up the internet for the rest of my life just to make this point. But I can't live a lie. I can't live doing everything I do because I'm being made to. Even if I wanted to do the same thing, there is no distinction - it still appears that I'm doing it because I have to.

My mom has never understood that if she only backed off, I would be way more responsible than she thinks. Only a month ago she said in a firm voice that "things needed to change around here." And I reminded her that she's never been able to MAKE me do anything, so why try now? And I told her about the Botsford thing days before but she didn't understand that if she gives me freedom, I'll be more of who she wants me to be than if she tries to make me be who she wants me to be. I won't be everything, but I definitely won't be whatever she's afraid I'll be if she let's me.

It's not that she necessarily wants to control who I am, because she's always given me a lot of freedom to do what I want. But she has this insane obsession with money and with waste, she cannot stand waste. It's like people who are obsessed with organizing things, with having books straight or in alphabetical order or something and they cannot function when things are not in order. My mom can't function when things are being wasted. So she is always doing countermeasures to use as little of anything as possible. She ALWAYS makes too little dinner. I'm always wanting more dinner. I've always hated that.

I would much rather have too much dinner than too little dinner. She wouldn't. She would much rather have too little dinner than too much dinner, God forbid she wastes anything.

So she refuses to let me be, in regards to the house because she just HAS to have things her way, otherwise she can't function.

Yes, I'm sure I would find it in the DSMV.

In any case, it's the same concept with expression. My mom hasn't really controlled me in the sense that she's tried to make me be a good person. Most people make their kids do chores or get a job or do their homework etc. She's never done that. But she's always bitched about all the bad things I've done, like listen to rock music and wear black.

And she's always had a problem with my expression of myself, because it's that communication thing. She once brought me to a councilor, I don't even know what you could call her, a therapist perhaps, a psychologist maybe? Because she wanted the woman to tell me that there was something wrong with the way I communicated.

And yes, there was something wrong, but my mom never realized that there was a purpose for it. Sometimes the way we do things is wrong, but our intentions are not wrong. And she never had any faith in my intentions. People often read superficial levels. If you try to explain to them something wrong that they do, they jump to the conclusion that you hate them and you think they're a horrible person. They never seem to acknowledge that your intention was not to express hate or that they are a horrible person, it was to change things a little bit, in a productive way.

People do a lot of horrible things, because of good intentions. And I don't just mean how evil thinks that the things they are doing are good. I mean that the way people act, that is sometime perceived to be just simply arrogant, mean, defensive, cold, sarcastic, stupid etc. They build up these personality aspects for a purpose. You can blame them all you want for the wrong they're doing, but they often refuse to change because on the subconscious level, they still believe that they MUST carry out their purpose and that this is the only way to do it.

And so they need to identify that, and identify a better way to do things. Until they do that, many people just simply won't change, no matter how hard to try to make them.

I think that there's a better way to communicate. I think that my purpose can be carried out in a more harmonious way. I think that it will reflect the changes that have been made, that I'm a healthier person, that a lot of my wounds have healed and so I can function better. That's why I have changed my communication habits for the best. Not because it was the right thing to do according to my mom. Not because it was horrible to people and I felt guilty. I did it for me, because who I am is no longer expressed that way. But until things changed internally, my external behavior was adamant that it should not have to change.

I sometimes get defensive at other people's suggestions, even today. But I'm not as black and white as I used to be. I used to think that if people gave me one single suggestion they were essentially saying that I couldn't express myself. And that's the same thing with the intentions of people who are trying to help, but we jump to the conclusion that they're suddenly the enemy and it's wartime and if I don't take out my countermeasures, they're going to destroy me.

But it has been true, that a lot of people have not liked me. Have just plain, summed it up, they didn't like me. And that they refused to let me be who I was. And Mike didn't do that. I guess the extremity of how much he let me be who I was, hit me in my depths. I couldn't reach my subconscious because I didn't know what the hell the issue was. But what happened between us did touch my subconscious. Things didn't change right away, because I was still dependent on him. And that's part of the reason why things needed to end.

Because I still hadn't learned to communicate and express myself with everybody else. I was only doing it with him, only controlling myself and being responsible and mature with him.

I have grown a lot. Not completely, but I've made progress since then. I think, though, that I've brought up some walls because I feel that trusting him in such a naive way was foolish. Now I'm cautious.

I guess this all brings me to the two people I've dealt with since Mike, Dan and John. John does put conditions on who I am, and he is another one of those guys who wants me until he's got me and then he ditches me after a week. And he fucking keeps doing it. I should acknowledge that although that may never change in him, there's a reason why he's directing it at me. There's a reason why I'm attracting the kind of guy who will not let me express who I am. I just haven't applied what I've learned yet. I guess I should meditate on it. I don't yet know how I should behave towards him, how I should handle him, and what I should feel when I'm around him.

Perhaps I should just be able to love myself and love expressing myself regardless of his abrupt glass door blocking my way through the entrance. I keep trying to enter into a relationship with him and even though he invites me in the first place, invites me to be in his home to express myself there, he abruptly puts up that glass door and I don't anticipate it so I slam right into it each time. I need to learn that I don't need his invitation or his acceptance. That I can just be, no matter what. That even if he's rejected me I can still be. That I can still express myself without having to make apologies or feel guilty or bothersome.

And as far as Dan goes? I guess Dan has never recognized my flaws. He's always supported me in such an absurd way. He's always thought the best of me no matter what the truth is. It's not so farfetched, because I am a great person. I believe myself to be at heart, what he says I am. It's just that, he seems to be in denial, like he refuses to acknowledge my flaws. And when he does, they aren't even my flaws. Like he acknowledges that I lie. That would be acknowledging a flaw except I don't lie at all, except through my evasiveness - which is indirectly keeping the truth instead of outright lying.

In that sense, I don't feel threatened by Dan, surely. I don't feel unstable, I don't feel paranoid that suddenly he'll hate me, I almost don't think there's anything I could do wrong - what could I do to shatter his illusion of me? I don't know.

So when I talk to Dan I almost feel like there's a disconnect from reality. There always is, really. It's just that, most people think the worst of me - and they're so off from the reality. And he simply thinks the best of me, and he's only a little bit off from reality. Like he holds the immaculate concept. Except, as I said, he seems to be in denial. The immaculate concept would be to say - I believe that you will become beautiful. However, you don't have to be perfect, you don't have to have flawless hair and flawless skin and symmetrical, petite features. When he thinks of me, he seems to want the perfection, and the reality is, that I'm not perfect. I am beautiful, but I don't have flawless skin.

He seems to want to believe that I'm beautiful, and believe it by perceiving that I have flawless skin, which is a denial of the reality.

I don't quarrel so much about it because at least he still thinks I'm beautiful (and this is a metaphor by the way, although he does seem to think I'm beautiful, the point is that he approaches all of my personality aspects in this manner).

In any case, he has always let me express myself. And he lets me be a Divine Mother to him, what I should have been to Mike but I screwed up a little. I guess you could say that I give more to Dan than he gives to me. It's not an insult to him, it's just that the nature of our relationship is benefiting him more than it's benefiting me. It's definitely, definitely not harming me in any way. It's a healthy relationship. But it doesn't affect me the way the relationship with Mike did. And maybe that's just a part of maturing, you stop being emotionally influenced by everything around you.


BAHH. It's 8 in the morning and I have to get up at like 11 for a doctor's appointment. In order to get a working permit (because I'm 17 for a month and a half longer so I need one) I have to go see a physician and he has to sign off that I'm healthy enough to make coffee for people.

Can you sense my sarcasm? I have to pay $135 for him to be like YEP, YOU'RE HEALTHY ENOUGH TO MAKE COFFEE FOR PEOPLE FOR THE NEXT MONTH, until May 14th and then it doesn't really matter what I think because you're no longer a minor.

I'm okay with it. It's stupid but I could just wait until my birthday if I really wanted to. My mom is paying for it anyway. I just don't know if I should wait until the appointment and then go to sleep, cause I've been up all night and if I fall asleep and then wake up three hours later I'll be miserable. I'll be miserable if I stay awake until noon-thirty but it might just be easier to stay up.

So anyway I sent this message to John: "I've decided to retract my statement about not being friends. I didn't change my mind because of your not-call call. My perspective and understanding of things has simply changed. And I'm willing to go with the flow here. Obviously you're the current. And you're crazy. But I can handle it. So if you're willing to be friends, I'm willing to forgive and forget whatever I did to make you mad and whatever you did to make me mad."

And he said that he couldn't just tell Lyla we were friends again because he's always saying that we're not. So I told him I would tell her.

So I sent her this message:
"So, I've decided to forgive John. Because I told nearly two weeks ago that I didn't want to be friends any longer. I kind of just needed to break away from him, because - in all honesty, he's not trustworthy and I was trusting him. I was too close. I still don't trust him, but it's unhealthy for me to resent him and to be angry that he lies and changes his mind every two seconds. Ironically, that's the opposite of the nature of this message. He doesn't want to change his mind because of you.

See, I told him that I would like to be friends again. I'm not really eager to chat him up and I definitely don't want to hang out with him, but I need things to be neutral between us. Do you know what I mean? If I'm avoiding him and ignoring him because I'm afraid he'll hurt me or I'm angry at him - it's unhealthy for my emotional state.

So I'm trying to counter that, I'm trying to forgive him and move on. I can only hope that I don't fall for his bullshit again. Hopefully I'll be able to resist his crappy lying charm. Not to say that he'll give it to me, but I have to be honest, nothing has changed in him - from how he's felt about me all along. I still don't think he loves me or cares about me but he still has that interest in me, for whatever reason. I don't intend to encourage that interest.

So he said: you didnt make me mad. and i told lyla i wasnt talking to you anymore and this is like the 5th time, i cant just be like, oh yea, btw, me and melissa are talking again..so i dont know what to do, i wouldnt mind being friends with you, and i dont want it to sound like, snotty, or anything, you know what i mean? but yea, i dont know how lyla would react..idk.

And I said: I think you underestimate Lyla. She can handle more of the truth than you're ever willing to give her. Shielding her from reality, only ends up hurting her more.
If you want, I'll tell her that we're "friends" again.


And he said that he wanted me to ask you how you feel about it. So that's what I'm asking. I can understand that every single time John and I have been friends, things have had an unhappy ending for the three of us. But hiding from the situation doesn't help me, it may help the two of you but it doesn't help me. And I suppose since John eventually comes back to me with the offer of friendship, every time, it doesn't seem to work for him either. He'll pretend it does for a month, sometimes three or four months. But it doesn't help him.

And now I suppose I just want to know if it helps you, to pretend like the situation doesn't exist. I think that it's no different. He feels how he feels regardless of if he's talking to me or not. And I don't intend to help him cheat on you again. I haven't done so since August or whatever.

In any case, it's your move."



And I don't really care what she says. It's just that when he told me that he didn't want to be my friend because Lyla may not approve, it was that rejection thing and I recoiled because it hurts. My first instinct is to say Alright then let's not be friends. To act like I don't care. But that's a lie. It would be alright if I didn't care but I'm only pretending that I don't care. I do care, because I'm hurt that he has rejected me. The extremes are that I could be either begging him or ignoring him. But both are unhealthy, there needs to be a balance. So I'm not going to accept his rejection, I'm not going to beg for his friendship, but I'm not going to recoil at the slightest hint of a rejection.

Because I can be balanced about this. I can be in contact with him, knowing he doesn't want me as much as he wants Lyla, knowing that he has essentially rejected the idea of being my boyfriend. Right?

Well, that's the test. Can I be okay with it? I'm certainly going to try.

I'm still really offended that he loves Lyla and not me. Because he's always saying to me that he does like me... only not enough. There are plenty of people who don't love me and I'm alright with it, but he not saying that. He's saying he does like me except it's just not enough.

But I have to find a way to be okay with the rejection. To accept it for what it is. And to not be afraid to express myself anyway. I can just be and do and say whatever I want, without his invitation or acceptance. Regardless of his rejection.

I mean I know that still wants me to express myself even though he has rejected dating me. But it's not enough to know that. I have to know that even if he didn't want my expression anymore, that I would still be ready to do it.

Because that's what has made me such a recluse since Mike. I said FINE you don't want me to express myself? Fuck you, I won't be around any of you. I didn't want to discriminate, I just decided to recoil from everybody, to keep my distance from everybody.

Which was definitely unfair because what about the people who did want to be my friend? It was like I was spiting everybody. Saying, I'll give you what you want and you'll regret it. Only the people who didn't like me in the first place obviously don't regret it and the people who did mind didn't deserve to be punished in the first place. So that was a bad plan.

I just feel that I can fully express myself here, along in my room. I've found a way to do it. And I needed that. I needed a safe haven to heal and to become myself. But I can't be hidden away for ever, I have to come back out into the scary world and show that I can handle it.

You would not believe the difference it is to be in my room with the door closed and locked and then to be in my room with the door wide open. To have such directly comparable experiences. Like when you have two pictures side by side and you're trying to find the subtle things that have changed in the second picture.

Only these are not as subtle. I've just grown to feel so safe when I'm behind the locked door. Even though I experience the world through my computer, obviously I'm disconnected from people to a certain extent. I had a lot of confrontational stuff. I mean, essentially my whole lunch table told me they didn't like me. Kyle and Garland were saying it because I wouldn't let them sit in my seat during computer. In fact both of them liked me just a month later and Garland even asked me out in time. But Evah said she didn't like me and Mike said he didn't like me and Shannon was the only one, how ironic, who said that she didn't have a problem with me. Not that she liked me, but that she was neutral.

It was too hard to deal with that. I didn't believe in myself enough at that point, I wasn't secure enough to not be bothered by it. I could resist it but I wasn't protected from it. And I needed to learn how, by retreating into my little locked room. But now that I've learned how I need to apply it. I need to open my door and not be bothered by the exposed feeling, the insecurity of knowing that now somebody is perceiving me and can hate me for what they see.