This is a heavy entry. I'm trying to sort some things out.

TRIGGER WARNING: Talk of sexual abuse below. Do not read if this is a problem for you.

I've dealt with depression for most of my life. As a small child, I was very quiet, always afraid of my father who had a boiling hot temper. He wasn't around much due to his job, but when he was home, we were expected to walk on eggshells. He drank a lot and wasn't always the kindest man around. Don't get it twisted. He was a good provider, not an abusive sleaze or anything. Just a very hot-headed guy, is all.

I was painfully shy even though I grew up in a very rural and close knit area where everyone knew my family. That wasn't a good thing though. We looked different, weren't perfectly white like the rest of the townsfolk. My father is of native ancestry and we (he and I) look it. I was bullied quite a bit as a kid, pushed around at the bus stop, called names on the playground, etc.

When I was about 7, two older boys tricked me into thinking that they were my boyfriends and that I should let them do special things with me. This sick game went on for two years before I told my mom and aunt about it one rainy afternoon. They said nothing and did nothing. It was best swept under the rug, left alone. There wasn't any proof and my mom didn't want to ruin their lives by pressing charges. So it was.

So I was. Until I was 12. That year, our small town school combined with a reform school for troubled boys in a nearby town. One of the boys from this reform school was especially cruel to me. He grabbed me during gym class, hit me a few times. Our PE instructors were aware of what was going on, but felt that it was best that we "sort things out on our own". Both though that it was harmless flirting, that he liked me, etc.

It wasn't. One day it all came to a head when we were playing tennis. We reached for the same racket and he grabbed me, pushed me into the stands in front of everyone and called me a bad name. I pushed him back and sent him flying across the area between the court and the stands. He fell into the fence. His pride was hurting, so he yelled obscenities at me and the coaches came to get us, take us to the office for discipline.

I started crying after it was over, ran off when the lady coach tried to grab me. I was sick of this guy's shit, sick of guys period. I hated myself and wanted to disappear as the principal told me that I would be suspended. I didn't say anything when my mom came to get me from school that afternoon. She was upset, I was a "good" girl and now I was suspended for fighting with of those boys from that reform school?

The next morning after my mom left for work, I laid down in bed with my dog and decided to end it all. So I took a bottle of pain relievers. I wrote my mom a note on a drawing pad and left it next to the answering machine so she would see it when she came home from work that evening. I passed out and woke up that evening to her shaking me, telling me that she was scared of losing me, what happened, etc?

After that evening, she never mentioned it again. It was another rug sweep, another issue never to be discussed, not even in passing. It was shameful, I was shameful, and even though we were close and still are, it is a dark thing that we do not ever discuss.

We moved to another area when I was in high school. It was tough. The depression followed me. I attempted suicide again at 15. Once again, my mother found me. Once again, it was never discussed. My parents put me in therapy after this, afraid that I would lose it all. My grades had slipped from A's and B's to D's and F's. All I did was eat, sleep and listen to heavy metal.

All of my friends were moving on, getting jobs, cars and boyfriends. Having sex, going to parties, all of that teen stuff. This was before cell phones and constant monitoring, back when kids could still have some freedom in a small town. I went to a few parties, but I never fit in. The depression got even worse and soon I struggled to even make it through school. I spent more time hiding in the bathroom or the second floor of the library than I did in my actual classes.

My junior year I fell in love with a beautiful girl on the debate team. She was in my English class and we had a few mutual friends. I would have gone to the moon for her. I told my best friend at the time about my feelings for her. My best friend told some other people and news spread quick in our small town high school. People taunted me, called me lez and when the object of my affections found out, she stopped talking to me.

I was devastated. I wanted to drop out of school. My life was shit. I ended up going to an alternative learning center to finish high school. There I met a guy who wouldn't leave me alone. I didn't like him, not like that...but I really wanted to be normal and stop the rumors that had killed most of my friendships. So I got with him and pretended to like him after he relentlessly pursued me for several months.

And so the pattern had been established. Hide who you are, what you are. Don't ever talk about your feelings. Don't ever share your thoughts. Don't be a real person. You are hideous. Die, freak, die. Over and over again for years on end, that's what goes through my head. All of my relationships are damaged and have been for ~15 years.

As a Christian, I was taught that people are made gay and that one of the primary causes for homosexuality is sexual abuse during childhood. Another main cause is having an absentee and/or abusive father. I believed that for awhile and tried really hard to pretend that I was straight. It seems so stupid now, so pointless. Thing is, those years of pretending, those years of waiting for healing from a loving God...affected me on a deeper level.

Those years, that waiting, that wanting of healing...drove me deeper into myself. I wanted that peace, those relationships, more than anything. Sometimes I pictured myself married to a man and all of that thing. But in my heart, I felt that it was a gross violation of who I was.

I became pissed off at God for letting me be abused in the first place. Why did he let that happen?

Answer: He didn't let it happen because he doesn't exist and doesn't control anything. If he does exist and he lets shit like what happened to me go down, then he's a first class asshole of a bastard. A sick and twisted fuck that gets off on tormenting little girls and boys for sexual purposes, all in the name of free will. Whose free will? Not mine or anyone else who has ever been raped, that's for sure. My free will was to NOT have two teenage boys rape me on a regular basis for over two years. My free will was to be a happy little girl riding her bike through the countryside and playing in her yard without fear.

That is all for tonight.