I read works such of that as Sapphire ('Push', currently reading... again! We both combine poetry and writing, I really like that.) and can't help that feel my work is hardly worth reading. After all, she's a phemonenal author; I am hardly comparable to that, in fact, not comparable at all. I do not expect my work to be the voice of a generation either, so perhaps it is a little bit of a bad comparison. I am not here to whine about my life as well, for it too is something that one cannot whine about. Like billions of people in the world, the one I lead is certainly not the best and it is definately not the worst, but normal as far as that title goes.

Although then again, no matter how far the title of "normal" goes, what is normal? A social standard maybe, a difference between each class; we are taught that it "doesn't matter what other people think", yet we string ourselves together with a mask for each act of the play to give the illusion of normalcy? That's what confuses me the most. It's something crossed my mind for years at a time and I haven't come up with an answer for myself that's been the least bit satisfactory. We, as humans, have the same emotional crisis' through each stage of life, don't we? Thick or thin, rich or poor, we must understand each other at some sort of level, be it low or high. We're just too afraid, rooted, conceited (in both senses of either that our lives are "too good" or "too bad") or stubborn to admit that. But as you might've guessed, I'm not smart or merely close to being, so I won't go on. About this, I'm only blindly repeating what every other person has thought at least once, even if they've reconsidered that thought.

I've heard once, though, that the most dysfunctional types of people and families (I can't help but adding this!) are the ones that try to appear normal most of all and really do the best at it. When I am watching television dramas, which is rare for I don't find them entertaining in the least (I like comedies, cartoons, and sitcoms), it's come to my mind that financially stable and "perfect" people only have those few problems to focus on, whether they are truly big or small, and drive themselves stark mad over not being socially acceptable should anyone find out. Television dramas are an enormous annoyance.

Normal for me, however, is one that I find exhausting time from time- emotionally, psychologically. I cannot sleep at night and never have because of my excessive over-thinking, feel guilty at making even the slightest movement in the wrong direction (which triggers me into saying "sorry" about a million times a day. If there is anything at all to know about me, it's that I apologize for everything), and in other words, overwhelmed by guilt at the fact that I am alive well and breathing.

I have been to the "looney bin", the psychiatric ward, four times, three of which before I was sixteen and once in this year where I am currently sixteen-years-old. Each time it has become less and less frightening for I am fully aware of what to expect- which, in turn, only makes it more horrific when I am to return. I've talked to at least twenty psychiatrists, all trying to "help", since I was only a child. I tell myself all the time, perhaps even every day, that "I will never go there again. No, I have changed!" which has never persued it's purpose of calming me and wondering how many changes it would truly take... probably many.

I was living with my father when I had taken my worst overdose, last Febuary. My father is not a man one should aspire to grow into; I pity anyone who should think that. No, he's a horrible man who's content with his life filled with drugs, countless relationships, and the loss of respect from his friends and family including myself. He is not home for the holidays, no, he is only home when he has gotten himself arrested and needs money for bail, is running from the police for armed robbery, trafficking, or some other terrible thing he's done. I hate him, and it is not "teenage angst" or anything along the lines of. I do hate him, and my terrible temper and tendancy to hold grudges has kept that true.

The abusive behaviour he engaged in has affected me deeply at that time- my anxiety, which I never knew I had, was surfaced to the point of three or four panic attacks daily; I was so out-of-tune that I would be shaking, playing with my hands and feet, or hyperventalating all the time. Unkind people had began starting rumours that I hid behind the school and did meth in-between my classes and at lunch, though not a touch of it was true! Of course it wasn't, for I wouldn't even think about touching meth although some actually did believe it.

The day of the overdose, however, was not one filled with anxiety as one (myself included) would have expected of that time. It already felt as if I were dying even without action, and not in the peaceful way it is so often described- I was not peaceful. I woke up with the feeling that my life was only an extension of the nightmares that I've been suffering from for years, for there was no beginning or end to them. They just dragged on and on...

I was brought to the emergency room, for the third time because of suicidal idealation, through an ambulance after a frantic call by myself to 9-1-1. I had swallowed two-hundred diphenhydramine sleeping pills, and from the moment where I lost my vision on had been nothing but a blur- both literally and metaphorically. I had it in my mind that I would never see again, and since then I have had an intense fear of becoming blind or coming across complications with eye-sight. I was prodded by paramedics, heart meters, and had pure, cold oxygen in my nose.

I remember clearly though, one memory of mine while I was being talked to, more or less I was having my name said over and over again from somewhere distant. Was I concious? Don't ask me, I don't know. I was somewhere else.

I was six-years-old again, a young child with bright blue eyes and blonde hair. It was a sunny day, though whether it was spring or summer I can't determine; it didn't matter. The grass was green and there was a field of it, dark and perfect with yellow dots all over. Dandelions. I thought they were exceptionally pretty but didn't pick them, and it's because I wasn't dawdling- but racing.

Move your right leg and back, left and back, that is how you run
It's really easy; You just gotta push yourself a little bit
and run
run run
run
run fast.

I am not the smallest and the slowest
not not
not-
"My Girl" like a broken record.

Right leg back, left leg back,
run run
run-
"I've got sunshiiine on a cloudy day"

Right leg back, left leg back
run run
run-
"When it's cold outsi-ide, I got the month of may"

Right leg, left leg
run run
run-
"I guess you'd say, 'What can make me feel this way?'"

Right, left
run run
run-
"My girl..."

My girl, talking 'bout...
My girl.