Sometime in November, 1981

The last 3 years of my life have been shit.

1. Death in family/lose friends in 8th grade
2. Father comes to visit after many years
3. Finding out truth about illegitimacy
4. Mother's boyfriend comes to live with us
5. Lots of fighting in house
6. First display of adolescent rebellion on my part
7. Grades go down due to new problems
8. Fighting constantly with best friend
9. Best friend having problems at home
10. Cheat at school for very first time
11. Begin to realize I need a psychiatrist
12. Best friend's brother becomes very ill
13. I get mono
14. I turn away from a good teacher friend
15. Best friend's grandmother dies
16. Mother shocks me with marital plans
17. Best friend's brother goes to hospital
18. Fighting at home
19. Mother's boyfriend moves out
20. I start with psychiatrist
21. I miss mid-terms - can't handle a thing - am miserable and a mess
22. planning on not returning to Vail-Deane
23. begin school again, am in a lot of trouble - on probation
24. mother's fiance moves in
25. we go skiing with mother's fiance - i hated that
26. i move in with Ellen and family
27. no one cares about me
28. not communicating with school, teachers, friends
29. not communicating with mother
30. mother goes to psychiatrist
31. i become physically ill again
32. my friends meet Kevin
33. still no one knows about my mother's marital plans
34. friends hate me
35. getting in deeper trouble at school
36. bringing myself back up
37. told friends mother getting married
38. getting depressed again
39. talking to Mrs. Chasan - feeling happy but not completely satisfied with talk
40. next day almost committed suicide
41. become friends with Ray - tell him everything
42. finally admit to mother that her boyfriend sexually abused me
43. I must tell psychiatrist
44. become depressed for exactly one week
45. bridal shower
46. get A on term paper - happy
47. school ends
48. Mrs. Chasan, Miss Geier, Mrs. DeWitt all care about me and want to keep in touch over summer
    
49. makes me feel very much worth something
50. summer begins - I get sick again
51. start protein diet
52. become depressed for one month
53. lose lots of weight - gain it all back
54. fighting again
55. summer is awful
56. stop writing - had been writing for several moonths
57. never keep in touch with teachers
58. try pot for first time - don't like it and sorry I did
59. re-befriend an old friend
60. I totally skipped over my mother's wedding. How did I do that? My mother got married. I don't feel any pain after marriage or during. I was numb.
61. getting much flack at work - can't handle - realize it is good self-discipline to put up with it
62. don't see much of friends anymore
63. Ray and I no longer friends
64. summer ends - see some classmates a few days before school - things are the same - I don't like it
65. school begins - it's wonderful - everybody cared about me. I was so happy. Mrs. Chasan seemed like everything was over with and would let me be a friend again. Miss Geier and Mrs. DeWitt and Miss Goldman cared also.
66. Off ot a good start
67. Mrs. Chasan gets mean to me again and Miss Goldman too.
68. Having troulbe undertadning that
69. Maria tells me she is very fond of me, we become friends again, at least I want to be a friend again and am ready for it
70. Can realize everything that has been happening in the last couple of years and can analyze it
71. Am ready to continue with a new life
72. Can't wait to get our of house - it is hard living home - no one to share things with. It's two against one.
73. I fucked up everything for myself. Not knowing how to fix it. Not sure if it was my fault. Did a lot a lot of crying and writing. Those two menial things got me through it all.
74. Can't wait until mother gets pregnant
75. Call up old relatives

*****

I'll be seventeen in January 1982. I can't believe a year has gone by so fast. About a month before my sixteenth birthday, I began to undergo a personality change, and little did I or anybody around me ever know that it was going to last as long as it did. And now, looking back, it has only been a few moonths that I've recovered from this personality alteration, and it seems so short compared to what I know I'll come up against in my future. This change that took place inside my mind, I think was a culmination of the previous two year worth of previous frustrations and the frustrations that I encountered. It is unfortunate that I could not deal with my problems, and that I became so messed up, but I wonder now if the months after my 16th birthday were just an extreme display of adolescent emotionalism. I don't know yet, but I will try to analyze the situation one day to discover...

Since eighth grade, my life was pretty rocky, but it wasn't so bad. I just wasn't so used to having so much on my mind.

*****

I've got to be a sweet and quiet person (I keep telling me that). If nobody likes me, I don't know what I'm going to do in this school?!

Mrs. Chasan
Miss Goldman
Mr. Ambrose
Miss Prudo
Miss MacWhinney
Mr. Scozzafava
Mrs. DeWitt
Miss Geier

Got to get these people on my side.

Everybody was so nice to me in the beginning of the year. What happened? I want everybody to like me! I'm paranoid. But nobody knows me, or the kind of person I am. Who cares? Morgan likes me, what does that mean? He just thinks I'm a neat person. He's alright.

I'm not sick anymore but I don't understand why everybody's changed attitudes. Is it me, again?? It kind of feels like what happened before with Mrs. Chasan is going to happen again - but it won't.