I am so tired of being the “problem child”. My mother just told me she thinks she “f***ed up” raising me and that she’s sorry. She thinks I don’t care but the truth is I don’t feel anymore because feeling hurts too much. Too many people have cut me down too often for me to willingly court the possibility again. So, no, I don’t like you, mother, insofar as I actually consider you. But your nagging is driving me to extremes and if it continues much longer, this will be the final semester of my life. Why is it so hard for people to understand that I’m not being deliberately provokative? I just don’t think about how what I say or think is going to affect people. I am drowning in my own apathy. The only way out I can see is death. I can’t leave home because I have no money and no job… I can’t stay because mother and I can’t stand each other. I don’t want counselling because so far all it’s meant is sympathy I don’t need or want. I am hollow. There is no me, only a cardboard cut-out that moves and speaks as though I’m still in there. I wish I had more than one person I could reach out to because I feel like I am burdening my single outlet. I don’t want to lose that contact because right now it’s the only thing keeping me sane. If I could leave and never come back I would. I wish I wasn’t so afraid of pain. This would be over if I wasn’t so damned terrified that it’ll hurt. I want to wake up one morning and drive so far I can’t remember how to get back. I want to fly and then fall and then never wake up again. I fell apart years ago, but now the cracks where I taped myself up are starting to show.