There is a first for everything

[kaley]

I've been afraid to talk to anyone about anything about my life for as long as I can remember.

Nobody in my life knows all the shit I have gone through.

I have been able to start opening up to my boyfriend, but he is the first one I have talked to about anything that bothers me.

Whenever I start talking about my past, I start crying, and then I freak out that they are going to think of me as weak because I am crying.

There are days that I can't even talk to people in general about things like the weather because I feel like they are all judging me. If I try, all I do is stutter or whisper, and then I get embarrased that I have to repeat myself. I'm getting so sick of it.

My emotions are so fricken sporatic, one day I'll be feeling like I'm on top of the world, and then the next I feel like I should be dead.

I feel like I've f-ed up so much of my life, and I wasn't trying to. That is what makes it the hardest, the fact that I wasn't trying to screw my life, but that is what happened.

God, I went from being in college with a good job to dropping out because of family problems, then getting addicted to drugs, being raped, dating this physically and verbally abusive piece of garbage, doing more and worse drugs, losing my job, becoming an alcoholic, not holding a stable job for over a year. One of my best friends was killed, none of my family would talk to me, I barely even know my family any more.

Now, I don't do drugs, I don't drink, I've been working a stable job for 2 years, have a wonderful boyfriend for a year now, and have started college again. But the thing now is that everything I've been running away from for the last 6 years, I have to deal with. And I don't know how to. I just realized, this is the first time i've ever admitted to anyone that I was raped. And I'm doing it to some damn computer screen.

I know I'm doing better now, it is just hard to look in the mirror and like who I've become. I feel used, and unwanted, selfish and mean. It is also hard to feel bad for my self because so much of the time I feel like I put all of this on my self. Everything that happened was the consequences of my own actions.

[Jennifer]

good for you for getting your life back on track and from the look of it, you are stronger than you give yourself credit for. have you been in counseling to deal with these issues? sounds as if you need a safe environment to tackle them one by one. Does your school offer inexpensive counseling?