Leaf: I get that temptation. It pisses me off. Did it happen the same way it did with me? Were you just suppressing it until one day it hit you like a **** ton of bricks? Why did it take you so long? Does that mean there are things I can't remember? I'm scared. How are you handling this?

Power: If we want to be a bit more tactful, maybe "malfunctioning" or "temporarily out of service" would be more... gentle terms. Is anything in life worth having easy? "Long is the way, and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light." So you're saying I still have a future, I just hate myself too much to realize how to make it so? You're forty two and I'm less than three weeks away from nineteen. I just started DBT and I've been seeing therapists all year and you've been on it for four. Why the Hell is this happening to us? Why at the beginning of my adult life and in the prime of yours?! I crack under the pressure, friend. I almost died because my body quit from the sheer stress of everything. I spent two months in a post-traumatic catotonic state because I couldn't handle the petty ******** in my life. I feel so weak, powerless, and pathetic. When I look at my problems, they don't seem real to me. Nothing does. I sound like a boy - a child, unable to comprehend the world doesn't revolve around him - unable to see the scope of reality and the pitiful lack of extent to his problems.

I'm furious at myself. I feel like I'm not a person. I want to hold her, I want to cry. I want to go back and change things. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I! Damn it, that word is said far too ****ing often. I don't want to spend every night, tossing and turning, unable to sleep, half of my bed empty, waking up to nothing and no one, I don't want to be alone. I've been alone my whole life. Even when I thought I had people, I didn't. Now my composure's all but out the window. God damn it, my arthritis and fibromyalgia are flaring up because of the stress. All of my problems and crazy decisions stem from not wanting to be alone...