Mom found my permanent record from high school (in addition to all of my special services IEP report). Having read through it, I was hit with a flashback of all of the crap I've endured throughout my life.

Just reading through the reports makes me want to scream. I don't want to scare anyone. Sorry if it sounds like that. It's more just pain. Emotional, stabbing pain at rediscovering old wounds that have long been sealed and forgotten. However, they are never truly forgotten. Instead, they scab over and become infected, but like my teeth, with time, we no longer realize the crippling sensation as the body normalizes itself to the suffering. As the suffering increases throughout our lives, we see that new level normalize and the more terrible things get, we just keep readjusting the scale--renormalizing.

It's actually a pretty amazing feat of our bodies and minds to renorm our perceptions, but while it allows us to keep on living throughout the more horrible of situations, it also possesses grave consequences for our long-term survival and happiness.

Having the strength to look back on these life experiences really produces some grievous hardships. People throughout my life have accused me of being "weak" or merely "blaming [my] own problems on others." The claim is that people who "blame" others are themselves the cause of their own dysfunction.

I spent years not trusting people--because, so many of the adults who should have been there to help me as a child failed me. They did there "job", completed the "appropriate paperwork", but never took greater steps to see what was really going on inside of this kid's head.

I was truly screwed up and was lost amidst the waters of suffering and hardship.

Even in college, the argument is that "Christopher Brown needs to work on his social skills--he needs to learn to make friends, 'fit' in and perform socially appropriate activities. Chris needs to learn to act like other children his age and to be more organized. He forgets things, etc."

There's more, and a lot of it has truth, but it's like reading about any good character--you only see some of the external and have no idea what is going on on the inside. I was a real wreak in school. At home, I was alone. Mom read to me, but I just floated about for ages and ages, precisely because I could not fit it.

I was angry, VERY angry. And every time I tried to express myself, I was attacked. If not by the students, then by the teachers, administrators, other parents.

People may claim that I'm "victimizing" myself, but I don't think that's necessarily the case. Just because someone has been wronged does not necessitate them as being a perpetual "victim". Did it ever occur to people how when one is put in such a horrible state they are the "idea" victim? I mean, when kids are struggling with their own interpersonal problems, parental divorces, all kinds of other stuff, that lone, nice kid, who doesn't really fit in--he's weak and quite and really easy to push over (psychologically). Whenever we pick on him, instead of fighting back or hitting us, or calling us names, he just sings or screams or runs away. He cries, but he won't hit back.

I did. I did once hit back. I broke a kid's nose (or at least gave him a bloody nose in one swing when I was VERY little). Another time, I nearly blinded a kid by accident by swinging a bush branch at him when he was harassing me in 2nd grade.

Every time I did something "wrong", my parents were called. My father punished me by spanking me and using extreme military treatment. I was his little soldier, whether he realized it or not. Dad used what he knew. He couldn't get close to me after his heart attack and constantly used physical intimidation to keep me in line when I did anything dangerous. The problem is--I've always been curious. I'm always getting into mischief, because I enjoy seeing things as they are or at least, understanding what's out there, learning new things, etc.

Whenever I tried to do that--explore, etc. and it broke some kind of fear line or caused parental worries, dad "beat me". Spanked is more accurate, but 25 whacks with a leather belt is something pretty traumatic. It scares the daylights out of you and makes you fear your father. It doesn't help when dad declared, "I don't care if you love me. You WILL respect me!" I think in dad's mind, the Marine Corps or his own upbringing had a lot to do with this. My aunt may disagree, but it doesn't surprise me what he tells me. Both of them have issues, but what truly comes down to cause pain is the damage that has been done from all the years of abuse.

People look at me and will probably never see all of the scares of my life. They are hidden deep, beneath the surface. I don't consciously remember the pain, because it overwhelms me. I was hurt so many times, but I knew with my parents that it wasn't because they necessarily wanted to hurt me--it's just where they were at. I know as a kid I hated my father, at least, hated him when he was cruel. Dad never really understood me or what I was going through, but maybe he did. I kinda feel like my dad repeated the sins of his father through him. You could see it in his eyes and in the way he beat himself up. He'd beat me up, because he'd already beat himself up that any more beating would kill him. Well, I think that at least. Maybe, that's just my own delusion.

You all can say what you want. I might even post some of the stuff, just for the hell of it. My pain might give someone else solace from their torment.

I know a lot of you probably don't know me that well--even my friends. I never open up, because deep down--really far at the base of who and what I am as a person, is a kid who at ever turn was wronged--by his peers, by his parents, by his teachers and community. Somehow, amazingly, and against all odds, the kid survived. He kept walking even when his emotional feet were bleeding. He refused to surrender. Not to suicide, not to hostility, not to violence. He wouldn't give in. But, eventually, the overwhelming struggle he faced took its toll.

I broke down. Finally, I reached where I am. A relatively broken man, who has covered up all his pain and mixed in his childhood delusions to mask that pain. Created a fictional delusion to soothe his aching muscles and the loss he bears.

Once more he walks down this lonely road to discover where he will next be lead, where he will next traverse, what future holds him fixated upon a beacon far in the distance.

But, even with all this glory, how will I continue?

I keep walking, but my pace slows, until at last, I fall. I fall upon my back, my knees, my whole being.

I cry for all the pain I've endured. People just don't understand. How could they? They haven't lived this life of suffering. They had friends! They didn't have each and every one they ever held close taken from them!

I viscerally understand the pain of losing a loved one, because that's all my life has been--something wonderful happens and then it is taken away!

The only thing that seems to make any sense these days is "Life is change." Buddhism has this message of healing that the world changes and we suffer when we do not come to accept this fact.

I suffer because I refuse to give up on all I have lost.

I am Job morning the loss of his wife and family--his sons, daughters, children, grandchildren, etc. Was it for his crops or land that he wept? No! It was that which was most precious to him that was taken!

Christians say that God has the power of life and death and that E rules us all. We hear and are taught stories of redemption and rebirth. But, where is my rebirth? Where is that of all those lost and buried?

Pain grips me. I know how trying our world can be. We struggle day and night to live and to survive (and in the flickering of hope, to thrive), but do we? What is the purpose and resultant of our efforts?

Death. Change.

It's not that I'm blaming God or even speculating on the subject. I'm just pointing out something obvious. We die. Life changes. We suffer when we cling to things of this world. We  suffer, because we cannot be thankful of what we were given and appreciate the time we had with it. We greedily hang on for all measure and will and corrupt all that is and will ever will be through our malice.

What would transpire if we were to live forever? It would be merely an extending of pain. My death brings great pain, but it also brings an end to loss. When we pass away, we no longer lose. We no longer are bound by the changes of the world. Our life, in those last final moments are the conclusion of a tale long in the making.

I wish my pain was not so dramatic, so melodramatic, but it is nonetheless. I bleed and cry. I sweat tears of remorse for all that I have lost. I miss greatly all that I have ever witnessed. I want to greatly to return and experience the joys of my life as they were in their prime. But, can this be so?

It cannot, and my pain continues.

I'd truly like to cope with my pain, but in this hour of my life, it is raw--unkempt--unnegotiated. I am revealed in my nakedness and I am ashamed. Ashamed of my pain, my fear, my loss, my guilt, my longings, my hunger, all of who I am.

God made me pure, but I cast it off in the realization of all things about me. I continue to struggle in this way--ever hoping for some fresh release from my agony, but ever knowing that pain will never subside. I shall be marked by this torment until I fall for the last time. The pain brings tears into my eyes. I know not what yours bring you, but I hope you find peace where suffering resides within me.

I wish you all a good evening and morning. May the sun bring rays of hope upon your lives.