May 29, 1981

I've been depressed for days now. Tonight Barbara was very upset with me. She wouldn't talk to me when I was sleeping. In the car I told her that Mike sexually abused me. It's true. I hurt so much. I hurt so much. God it hurts. It hurts me God. I'm in pain and trying to reach out. I'm in pain. I'm in pain. Please, the pain is too great and I can't take it anymore.

You know what I feel like doing dear diary.

For some reason, despite Ray's homosexuality, I feel like hugging him and having each other embrace tightly. Today we were so close, not sexually, in a friendly way and it felt so good.

(Author's note: This was truly a tough night, especially after the events of the night before as well as the whole week before. I went to Barbara's house after school and I was so tired and depressed that I fell asleep in Ellen's bed. I was hoping so much that Barbara would be a soft pillow for me to rest my head on. It wasn't to be. Barbara seemed so disturbed by the severity of my depression that she wanted me out of her house immediately. I was desperate. I needed her love and her comfort. But she wanted me out. I suppose she just couldn't deal as I was so depressed that night that I was catatonic. I do understand that that is definitely something to be uncomfortable around. So she told me to get my things together, that she was taking me home. In desperation, I told her in the car that Mike had sexually abused me. I wanted LOTS of sympathy. Her response though: "Well, you didn't lead him on, did you?" I yelled back, "Of course not!" but in my head I actually wondered if I had. I had a vague sense that the abuse wasn't my fault, but I truly wasn't sure if it was or it wasn't. Being that I was getting no sympathy from anyone, I was just left to wonder on my own whether everyone around me just thought that the abuse was my fault. My psychiatrist, my mother, and Barbara had all let me down. As a kid, I just had no idea how people should have responded to me, but being that this was the response I was getting, I was left alone and confused by the whole matter. No one ever gave me the sense that it wasn't my fault, and no one ever put two and two together for me; that I was suddenly severely depressed after learning of my mother's impending marriage, after being a bright, cheerful kid, and now that I was also revealing that I had been abused all those years that my mother was with Mike).