[dancer]

Hi Kendi,

thanks for all the encouragement. It's helpful to hear.

With my friends, some of them are currently unreachable because of being in their first days at college, while others I'm afraid of triggering by telling them what's going on, because I know that they're dealing with stuff themselves. Unfortunately, my doctor kind of sucks. I had seen a counselor a few times, but even when I was eighteen, I still had to beg my mother for permission to go, so that didn't work out so well...

I know that a lot of how I feel has to do with my family, but I can't really change them, and talking with someone else doesn't change the way they'll act toward me. I've tried talking to them before in various ways, but either nothing really happens or I'm told to shut up.

I think I'm possibly way too altruistic. I hurt when I see that other people hurt. I just do. It's an involuntary rather than constructed response. And when I see my family or friends or other people I know hurting and don't feel like I can do anything about it, or more so that I can but that I'm not doing a good enough job at it, it bothers me.

I think I'm just tired of not being a real person, of having to tell myself that I just have to deal with being treated as if I don't matter, accept that, in order for things to maybe not hurt so much...

But thanks for listening, Kendi. That means a lot.