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1/20/18

Hey again Andy,

Since the last time I wrote to you, things haven't really changed on my end. I can't really say for sure that things have been 'great' but it's been okay and I survived, so I guess that's what matters. It hasn't been better or worse. Though things been okay and decent, it hasn't been anything I've wanted to live with. Being okay, not knowing what to feel, how to respond, how to act or think, or in any case, what to believe or to trust anymore is just as bad as being off in worse circumstances. Like last time, I'm still feeling so distraught and confused on what to think at the moment. Every day I find a new reason to doubt things, to worry, to fear of losing things I care about, or to just fear of giving up or having the motivation to keep going in general. Every moment, every minute that passes by during the day feels like life is getting shorter, days are getting longer, and I am progressively losing my sanity and patience. It's been like a huge weight that's been pressing me down, compressing me into this bubble that I can't get out of. I feel like I'm struggling to breathe, struggling to move and to focus. Every day this compression worsens, so much that I feel it affecting me physically more than just mentally and emotionally. I feel like I'm carrying a huge weight over my shoulders and I just cant exert enough force to keep it off me, and every day it stays it just gets heavier and heavier. But the thing is, there is nothing I am materialistically or physically carrying that is making me feel this way. The burden and the worry has become so much that I just can't exert enough energy and strength to keep the invisible weight above me. I'm fighting something that isn't actually here, but something I can sure feel. And that is another battle and complication all on its own. Here I can't even get through the day, and yet I'm stuck trying to push off weight that isn't even here, but of which I can tell has been making a lasting impact on me.

I feel myself getting weaker and weaker. I feel myself slipping away. I feel the energy being drained out of me. I feel my body just giving up on itself. I feel myself giving up on myself. I...am giving up on myself. Every time I move an inch I'm exhausted. My mind is racing with these thoughts circling in my head and I can't gather the strength to even try to rationalize or control them. They just spin around and around, and I feel myself getting dizzier and nauseous from it all. I can't get through the day without slouching in my own shame and just wallowing in everything that's been going on around me, happening to me. I'm quickly falling into thoughts that I don't think I can get out of. I feel myself losing grip in the world. I feel myself disconnecting from reality around me. I feel like my body is just tucking into itself and giving up for good. Sitting here, recalling what I'm feeling at the moment, is making me too sick to even comprehend. My hands are trembling, my arms can barely lift themselves up while I type. I'm...just...wasting away. I'm wasting away and I don't have the courage or the confidence to do anything about it. I don't have the support, I don't have the care from not just myself, but from others, to even WANT to make a change at this point. I feel like I'm stuck in a never-ending vortex. Just floating there, immobile, unable to move or to process sound, thoughts, feelings. I'm just floating there frozen, stuck and elapsed in some alternate universe where no one could hear me scream. I feel myself just floating there endlessly, cold, lifeless, slipping away each decade to the next. I feel trapped, I feel consumed, I feel constrained, and I can't make it stop.

I've almost wanted to throw up a couple of times because the thoughts I have been feeling and the emotions that were running rampant were just becoming too much for me to hold in. It's been devouring me inside out, it's been consuming me inside, and I can already feel like I only have very little left of me that hasn't been chewed up before I'm completely finished for good. These thoughts are getting worse, these thoughts are getting darker, these thoughts are getting harder and harder to cope with. I'm losing my mind. I'm losing count of where I am, what day it is. I'm losing count in how much longer I can really trust anyone anymore. I'm just so ******** scared...Im ******** scared and alone... Things have been falling apart around me this month, things I never wanted to, but I know I am to blame for it. I am to blame to ever once question or doubt what I had, but at this point, because I had the audacity to pull it into question, things I never had to fear about or worry about are now surfacing, things I never had in the first place are rising up to the surface, and I know at any moment, any instant in time, I'm just going to get washed away. I'm going to drown, and never find the strength to break for air. I'm sinking...I'm sinking...I'm sinking...

I never thought I could experience what it feels like to sink inside my own body. It's a terrible thing. No one should ever have to feel that way... But unfortunately, the world isn't that easy.

So....where did we leave off? Oh, yeah. School. And my boyfriend. So, school has been the only highlight of my entire week. Yeah, that's a funny thing to hear huh? Well it's gone better than I thought it would. I went in on Thursday and met my Creative Writing class. It's only a class of 16 people in a large room, so that is nice. The class is actually quite quiet. Lots of nice people. The teacher I have is a teacher I had the first year for English. She wasn't really a good English teacher. There were a lot of negative comments about her teaching on her evaluation, and I myself even gave her a negative one as well. But, of course, being a student experiencing her first year last year, I had no idea how significant those evaluations were to the school and to her occupation. At the time, I just filled out whether or not she satisfied certain criteria, it's not like I left any unnecessary comments, but her report after I graded it wasn't aesthetically pleasing. She was a very strict teacher in a sense, and she buried us under papers and papers of essays right after we completed one, and she graded very strictly as well. I only took her again because when I was signing up for my classes at the time, I searched through at least ten classes I was interested in from the school catalog but they didn't exist when I searched them up. They either were closed, didn't exist, or were offered at another campus. I needed to finish my Government and take Speech as a requirement for my AA degree, and I also needed at least 12 hours of electives. But considering how narrow my results were coming up, I didn't really have anything to choose for them.

I thought about taking some dumb classes, but I didn't want to waste paying for a class if it wasn't what I needed. So ended up with Nutrition (since that is a very important thing), Personal Finance (since I don't know s**t about money), and Creative Writing (since I love to write, haven't written in a while, and need to expand my skills on writing and forming new writing ideas). She was the only teacher open for Creative Writing lol. So I hesitated at first, but knew that there was not another class I had for an option, and as well, I would have beaten myself up if I didn't take the opportunity. With regard to it looking good on my transcript. I can tell she's going to be just great in Creative Writing, and the class itself is full of passionate writers who enjoy the same things I do, and they aren't stuck up students like my English classes were.

So my first day back went well. I went to a new building on campus ground that I was interested about for a while. We went over the syllabus and some guidelines and policies for the class. Then we introduced ourselves, what our interests and hobbies were, what school we last attended, etc. We were already given an assignment to read several chapters out of our Nonfiction textbook we purchased for the class, then follow up with purchasing a personal journal we would use for writing our most secret, personal, intimate thoughts and feelings in it that we weren't going to share or weren't going to be graded. There is an exercise we have to do where we take some ideas from our private journaling and create a short story that we will turn in and read to the class next week. Knowing how quick I whip up stories, it won't take me that long to do. After taking a look at the syllabus and the content for the private journaling and how it offered us a save space to write our most personal and private of thoughts, different ideas that come to mind, what we observe, or what we remember about our childhood, I could tell taking this class was going to be interesting and something I might enjoy. I say 'might' because I know I'm going to have to share some stories with the class. But everyone is going to share some personal things here and there. It's a workshop class, so everyone has to contribute. But there are a lot of nice people there, some are already published authors, so I was surprised to find out that I may not be as worried as I assumed I was going to be sharing my work. I would like to practice more on poetry since I can only rhyme things x'D but I'm excited for the essays and the short fiction assignments. I just hope they don't overcloud the other assignments I have for other classes so much..

After class I ended up getting to know someone there, we talked for about thirty minutes before we departed, I was wearing a tshirt she liked so we talked about that and about some shows. It made me feel a little confident and comfortable there.

Yesterday I checked out my Nutrition class. It was a FULL class. Lots of people. Though we still did lecture and reviewed powerpoints too THANK GOODNESS. I hate in class activities or individual/group projects. I just hate interacting with assignments or other people in general xD So any chance I get where we have the possibility of taking notes, I'm always excited to do it x3 The work I had to do the previous night wasn't so bad either since I already read all the content for Chapter 1 AND the 40 slide powerpoint notes that were basically repetitive information I just had to fill out on my classnotes. What concerned me wasn't really the load of work so-to-speak but the load of reading I had to do. I didn't even touch or check in on my online Government and Speech class this week because I was so crammed having to read all 1.1-7 contents of Chapter 1 for Nutrition, plus the powerpoint notes. I asked myself this week why there was so much online work and reading I had to do considering the class I was taking was in person Mon-We-Friday at the same time. The class itself IS a lecture class and not lab, so it would consist of notetaking, powerpoints, and overall listening and paying attention. Turns out, there is a lot of reading I have to do before the assigned deadline, with the classnotes I have to turn them in completed and have them ready on that day so we have them to use during class (duh), and also to reference them when we take an exam. In class, we review things we should already know about by outside reading and activities. I like the feeling of already being on top of everything, but that work interferes with a lot of other class work and reading too, so even though I'm a little more calmer than I was, I'm still worried about whether I can stay on top of it for long.

It was cool though to be the only person in the class yesterday who turned in the class notes fully filled out and finished xD my teacher used my notes as an example of how we turn them in and what they are used for. I was the only English/writer in the class full of nurses and nurse technicians so when we introduced ourselves and our major this one student in front of me asked, 'is there anyone here not going to be a nurse?' and to that I laughed and said 'me' so everyone cheered and clapped x'D it was a great feeling <3

So I had a great week. I picked up my books yesterday at the bookstore that were ready. There are still a few in transition so I had to purchase one of them yesterday to have ready for next week. However, when I showed the students there who were working at the bookstore which book I needed and the ISBN for it they had the book there but a different ISBN. I don't actually know what the cover was supposed to look like so I assumed that was the book I needed, but they all came with online class codes. Knowing Personal Finance was going to be technically a 'in class' class, and my teacher said nothing about the codes, I decided to get a new version with the code wrapped up inside it. All of them had it regardless of whether it was new or used. I hesitated buying it at first cause I didn't want to spend money for a book I didnt need, but the student there reassured me that I can always return it if it isn't the right one. So today I need to take a picture of the book still unopened and send it to my teacher so I can confirm whether it's the right book or not. I also still need to get another book of his but it was only about 14 dollars and it was still out of stock. Since we didnt need it right away, I didn't pay too much attention to that.

Aside from having difficulty with that one book though, I still had Speech. I checked the syllabus and my teacher told me to get a book by this author Kory Floyd and a 3rd edition, but the book at the bookstore website had no author and was published by McGraw. I hesitated purchasing that as well this week because I was uncertain of whether it was the right one or not. My friend has the same class as I do, we were planning on taking it together but she enrolled with a different teacher. I asked her what book we are supposed to get so she sent me a link of it on Amazon. Of course since it was a college textbook it was over a 100 dollars. Though I checked other options on different websites for the same book, making sure it had the same ISBN number and front cover, all of them were either used, scribbled in, or had different book numbers.

I made sure when I was in the book store to check just in case, but the book they had had contents of the 3rd edition, but not specifically written to be the 3rd. Plus the author was inside and not on the front cover, the cover was different, etc. So I bought the book last night on Amazon and had it shipped two day shipping so it should be here this weekend (hopefully). I am just so far behind on my online work because of my Nutrition class... I hope things are better next week. Especially for my Personal Finance class. I have yet to actually visit the class or sit down to know the teacher, due to Monday being a holiday. So I can only cross my fingers things will turn out well in class next week, and I have everything I need for all classes, and I'm still on top of everything I need to get done. I know I still have a bunch of reading to do in Speech as well. There is activities due next Tuesday but luckily they are only introduction activities that I could have done this weekend. So I'll check up on that this evening. The only thing I will have to wait for is the Chapter quiz until I have the book at my disposal.

So. Yeah. That's about it. That's how my week went in regards to school and work. I can't tell if I'm really 'eager' to get started and start back with the five courses and loads of class work expected of me, but. Again, I hardly do anything in my free time. I try to catch any free time I have of course, since the work will be tedious and stressful, and will deprive me of having a break. But, I don't do anything in my free time, and I hardly hear from my boyfriend anyways. So, it will give me something to do I guess.

I guess that means I should bring up my boyfriend huh? I'm not going to go into too much detail about how much he means to me, how much I need him and how much he has changed my life for the better and understands me when no one does, because I don't think you want to hear those long paragraphs x'D and ...well....I don't know where we stand at the moment, so I don't want to take the risk pouring my heart out just to have it shattered. Like it always is. The last time we talked, I told you that I havent heard from him for 3 days. Well, it's piled on to 7. Haven't heard from him in 7 days. An entire week. I took the courage to send him a text message I think the night after I wrote my last journal entry, afraid of what he was going to say or tell me if he ever did respond, but I have never received a response from him since then. I mean...I know he has a lot to deal with. He has a lot of complications and issues he's struggling with on his own, whether personal or family oriented, and like I said before, I always keep that in mind and never forget about such severity and significance when he's away and busy for a few days. And I cant disregard the fact he is always quick to plan the effort and time accordingly to reassure me of the reasons why he is busy, and the reasons why he is away for as long as he is whenever he gets the chance to get into contact with me again. So considering the validity in his voice and how he responds to me when I doubt it at first, I eventually accept it, once my irrational thoughts and fears subside. I can certainly understand how painful it must be having to leave me for such a long period of time without a word. He tries as hard as he can to make up for it and I always give him the credit and appreciation where it's due for trying as hard he does to talk to me, even when I am having one of the worst days, while he juggles with that and other issues at home. I know at times I get unruly and difficult to handle or work with, but I try my best to let him know I have his best interest at heart instead of assuming things rather than what they are. I dont want him to ever feel like I take him for granted because of that.

When I get really bad emotionally and mentally and I start questioning things, I start doubting things in fear because of what has happened to me before in past relationships with other people, when I start getting moody and irrational and get upset over every stupid thing because of how I have been degraded and unappreciated, humiliated, he is ALWAYS there to remind me of better. To let me know that I matter when I feel like I dont. He understands me and my insecurities because he has endured the exact same for as long as I have. He goes to extreme lengths to help sort me through my insanity no matter how difficult or rough it gets. He has always been there to show me that I can love someone, I can trust someone. I've opened myself up completely to him. Fully. Entirely. I gave him more than my heart, but my soul and my body, trusting and expecting him to cherish it like I believed he would. Because I know he deserves it more than anyone else ever could. He takes care of it more than any other person could. Because I know only he can love it, me, and help see me through my worst at the better that I have. He actually makes me feel safe in my skin. And I've never felt that way for as long as I have tried to date. Never. He's a gentleman, a sweetheart. He's tender and good. The way he cares about the tiniest of things when it comes to me blows me away. But as honest, faithful, and loyal as I have been, as open and vulnerable as he has made me feel, I'm more easily scared. Timid. Paranoid. Fearful of what may happen to it all. To all of what I have given him. To all of what I have given up. Of what may happen to me in the process. I've never felt this way about anyone before. I have never cared so much about someone like I do with him, and chasing him down as long as I have proves just that. I never felt what real love was before. Not the feeling, but the real thing, until I experienced it with him.

I'm scared. I'm really really scared of losing him. Losing every remarkable, sensational, breathtaking thing I have shared with him, heart to heart, soul to soul. I'm scared of losing everything I trusted with him, everything I gave to him, the love, the affection, the appreciation, the commitment, the honor, the respect, the tenderness, the romanticism, the sacrifice. All of the goodness, gentility, decency, sincerity, purity, vulnerability I have given and poured out to him, and which I continue to make up for and give back more of every single day. It was a risk, a huge challenge I have had to accommodate to over the years. Over the many times we have fought, argued, and had complications because of me, my feelings for him, and the fear of being mistreated again. To come out, to trust in him, to believe that he can make me feel better than I have ever once felt before. And even though I love him with all of my heart and I feel safe with him, I'm still scared, still worried, still anxious, paranoid of what he might do without my acknowledgment. What he might do without my whereabouts. What he might say or do when I'm not around.

I fight for him. But at times I wonder if he does the same for me as much as I do. I love him, but I fear of being replaced, abandoned, temporarily loved just to fill in his time. That he doesn't see more with me. That he doesn't want more with me. I haven't told you this yet, but a while back I went through another sporadic episode wondering if he even loved me as much as I loved him. Through the crisis, I asked him why exactly he fell in love with me again. Granted, we have been friends for about 4 years, were on and off in relationships because of my foolishness, immaturity, and lack of understanding of how good and tender he needed to be loved and treated. That was the reason I became even more difficult because of the jealousy that lapsed because of the friends he was with. But, excluding that out of the picture, I was hoping his response was something along the lines of him missing me, missing what I gave him, missing what we had. As if he actually had feelings for me. But no, nonetheless, he straight up told me that it just ''happened''. We joked that day and he just decided to go along with it. Like, are my feelings a ******** joke to you? Am what I feel just nothing but a game you like to play around with? Manipulate? I've loved him for as long as I have met him, and every time we broke up it hurt me more and more. But not as much as it hurt me fearing that he loved someone else without my acknowledgement.

It took enough patience to establish trust with me, on the grounds that he was going to be there regardless of what I may feel or how bad I may get. That he was going to be the one to take care of me. But, not in those words as I want them to come. After he told me that, I just couldnt help feeling that he just loved me for the sake of it, because he was afraid to put me down, to tell me he really didn't. I already feel like I'm not good enough. I already feel like I don't give enough. And now, I can't help but wrestle with the idea that he has already found somebody who has all the qualities I lack, all of the features I don't have that he says he supposedly 'loves'.

Seven days... How much longer must I wait? How much longer will it be until I hear from him again? Two weeks? A month? A year? I love him...a lot...And I do see a future with him. I want a future with him. Because the way he makes me feel is beyond anything I have ever felt before. Truly. I've been cheated on a lot (even in one incidence where the guy I liked didn't say a word for a month until I later found him with someone else), I've been wanted only for sexual things, I've been demeaned by sexual preferences and things I was forced to do that I wasn't comfortable with. I was never once comfortable, safe, secure, happy, appreciated, loved, in my own skin, for who I am, for what I do. Not like he makes me feel. Not like how much he reminds me, does for me, and how much he makes it a dire urgency to continuously tell me about. But. At the same time. He rarely tells me I'm beautiful, or he appreciates me for what I do, or that he'll be here to protect me when I feel upset and need guidance. Or that he's going to stay by me no matter how hard things get or when it comes to having doubts of trust because of what I have been through.

I just don't know...I'm all over the damn place. I can never truly feel safe because he is absolutely perfect. Too perfect for me, and I constantly have to stress about either losing him because of my faults or losing him to someone who can love him better and treat him better than I do...

I don't know how important bringing this up is, since it's irrelevant to the conversation, but I snooped around on his old facebook profile and saw he was in a relationship with another girl long before I ever met him. I mean, sure I was jealous, but, come on, this was before we met xD the dude has had dates like I have. It's...just.... looking at his profile I saw that he was actually open about it. People actually KNEW they were together. Her friends knew, his friends knew. They were public about it. And he had no problem with it. The girl he was with changed her last name to fit his. And, well, everytime she commented on facebook, particularly to start an argument, he would comment there too, and a fight would break out in the status. Seeing how open, innocent he was back then, roleplaying, being all sunny and happy, blushing a lot, and by telling from how they responded to each other, they probably engaged in erotic roleplay (sexting) as well. I mean....he was just so happy. Happy before things apparently ended between them. Like...he's so closed off now. I know he's just as damaged as I am from the other relationships we have had on our own... But, he never has the interest in doing erotic roleplay, sexting. I know he's busy a lot so I can understand on that part. But nowadays, he doesn't like his relationship to be a public thing. Mind you, Im not friends with him on facebook even though he doesn't get on anymore.

It bothers me because I want to be able to give him the things he needs no matter what it is. He always complains that it makes him seem like he's taking advantage of me, but he never does, never will. I want him to be just as happy back then, now. I want him to know that he can come to me when he needs reassurance and encouragement, and know that he doesn't have to close himself off anymore. That even his most intimate secrets can be discussed with me. I'm usually very flirty and tease a lot but I now have to hold that back, I have to change my attitude around him because he doesn't have interest in that. He's shut off on that stuff. I love roleplaying, I'd be eager to do it for him but he never asks. He says he's 'insecure' about asking. He doesnt want it. But I know he deserves it. Every guy does. And it's a natural, romantic, intimate thing to ask your partner for. I want him to blush when I talk to him, I want him to tell me that he wants to talk forever with me. I want to send him kinky things time to time. I want him to feel safe and comfortable asking about those things like he did back then. But maybe....it's too much to ask. Too much to imagine ever sharing with him. I know at the back of my mind I fear that he probably wants things he wont ask for, and I fear he goes to other people for it, but I ALWAYS reassure him that I am open to things. For god sakes, I want to talk about the damn future with him. Talk about what our sex life would be like. You know? Normal things significant others talk about. And the fact that he would much rather close me off from his friends, keep me a secret, knowing I talk about him to my friends, just disgusts me. He should be proud to show me off. He should want to show me off knowing that he has someone like me who takes care of him. But, I dunno. I dunno about it all. Maybe I should just stop bringing him up with my friends. If I'm never mentioned with his friends, he wont be mentioned with mine. Wouldnt you want everyone to know who you love? Wouldnt you want someone you love to belong in your family and circle of friends? You can't just date someone, fall for someone and shove them in a closet away from people you care about. You cant date someone and NOT talk about them to people you care about and trust. Does he even love me? Is he THAT ashamed to ever bring me up? To ever bring us up? Am I doing something he doesnt want? Do I make him resent me? I have no ******** clue.

Anyways, I'm getting a little nauseous and hurt right now so I need to cut this short. I want to talk about all of the feelings I feel, and all the issues I'm dealing with but it only hurts me, makes me want to talk about it less so I can just ignore it and let it destroy me inside out rather than making things worse. I don't know how much longer I can hold on. I don't know how much longer I have until I fully break. I don't think I can be saved at this point, I'm just falling in too deep. It's been two months and things haven't improved....And I'm starting to feel like it may never will...This is my last chance giving my heart to someone and if this falls apart, I'm ******** done with it. I'm ******** done with ever believing I could fall in love, or believe in someone who completely has my heart and trust. What trust? It's gone. I made a mistake in ever falling in love in the first place. I still have flashbacks of when I was 10 and I didn't even know what love was. I was boundless, free. I had a heart that never ached or been treated wrong. I didnt even give a ******** s**t about love because other things were more important to me than that. But now. I'm broken. I'm shattered. I'm all over the ******** place and I don't even know who I am anymore, or what my ******** purpose is at this point.

I don't know how much longer I can hold on to thinking we're together if he remains absent from this. I hate thinking about me, and thinking about myself rather than us or his condition, but, when I feel like s**t and believe I'm s**t I want an hour long conversation of appraisal, trying to remind me and reassure me that I'm not. Days go by where I just have to feel that way and live with it and we only get halfway through my problems before he gets irritated reminding me of things over and over again that I can't help needing to hear EVERY DAY. He never tells me some things when I need to hear it, so why get mad at me when I push you to your breaking point for you to THEN tell me what I want to hear every day you love me? I mean, does he even think about me at all? Does he even think about how happy he is that he has me? That is the BIG question.

Huhh...I'm going to stop now....I don't want to cry right now. I'm already too exhausted from everything else. I'll give him another week. I'll try to give him another week. If I have that much patience left. If I hear nothing back, I'm done. I'm so ******** done with dating. I'm so ******** done with trusting anyone anymore.

I'm sorry you have to listen to me ramble on. I hope things have been better on your end. God I just wish I could see you and hear your voice. You always know what to say. You always know how to express yourself and your care in your words. You always say everything a girl needs to hear and actually MEAN it. Thank you for sticking by me as long as you have, and still will. Thank you for being my best friend Andy. You're amazing. No one can ever take that away from you. I wish you the best this week, hope to hear from you again.

-Ashton