So it's another night, and I'm going to try to do some more writing.. Figured I'd answer some more questions that the book I'm reading asks me.

1. What neglect and abuse did I experience growing up? This is a hard one for me, I always thought I had a pretty good home life with my mother and father and the like. They worked and took care of me and didn't quite give me everything and tried to give me some work ethic. Not terribly effectively mind you, but the effort was there. But I think I developed a fear of abandonment from them working the schedules they did. Mom worked nights, dad worked days, and I really didn't see a whole lot of either of them. Dinner was an important time, and food is still important to me because of that, I'm certain. But I didn't really have a parental presence most of the time, and I spent a lot of time being lonely. I also had my activities severely curtailed at first, I wasn't allowed to ride my bike up the hill into town, and I didn't have any friends who lived close. Well, I had one, and he uhm... Wasn't worth much really. There's a whole story there that can be told another time. School wasn't so bad, I had my social activities there, though until I got into high school I really didn't feel like I had any friends. So basically I wound up being pretty isolated during the summers. I don't really know how to talk about this, I have a lot of feelings of hurt and abandonment from my childhood days, but I don't think I've really nailed down where they came from. I know that, emotionally, I spent a lot of time feeling alone. I felt like the only person who really understood me that was family lived down in California, and I barely ever saw him. This person was my brother Lucky, yeah yeah, I've heard all the jokes, and what I haven't, he has. So this is a work in progress.. I know that even in this time I felt alone, abandoned, unwanted. But I don't know that it was my parents that were entirely responsible. It's hard for me to see how. I know that I often felt that my ways, beliefs, and hobbies were wrong. Mother always felt that DnD was a horrible evil game, I ended up becoming Wiccan at a young age because something about it appealed to me, I really had no appreciation of anything Biblical based. I'm not really sure how to answer these questions any further, there's a lot of bits and pieces, but nothing that's really straight up 'abandonment'. But abandonment is big in my list of fears.

2. When did I learn to turn my head when I and/or other people were being neglected or abused, and why? Another hard one, I really don't think I *DO* this.

3. Where did I learn that avoiding others was safer than being involved? Is there a point in your life where you can just... teach yourself these behaviors? I didn't have a way of dealing with the pain of rejection, or of constantly being subjected to reminders of seeing the faces of those who did. It was easier to run, to forget, to not think about it. So I did.

4. Where did I learn to control others for my sense of well being? I suppose I learned early on that people can't be trusted to be careful with your feelings, to treat you with love and respect, and when you trust them to give them that opportunity, they fuck you over pretty royally. A disturbing percentage of my relationships have been lost to them being lost to another person, usually one I feel close to and think of as a best friend. I'm actually still friends with one of them, and a strange but strong friendship has been born out of that betrayal. So controlling others, I guess, just became the safest way to protect myself, to keep myself from being made a fool of. Not that it's ever worked mind, because it conflicts with my desire to keep my relationship together. So even if I control and snoop and find, when I object it shakes the foundation the relationship is built on.

5. How did I learn I wasn't good enough or better than others?

To part 1: They always leave don't they? No matter what I do, they always leave. I do everything I can, and I still wind up alone. Usually for another man, so.. Yeah, I'm not good enough to keep anyone in love with me, leaving me inadequate, a temporary diversion.. a stop on their way home.

To part 2: I am god-damned magnificent, magnetic, charismatic, creative, talented, intelligent, and I shine like the sun when I'm happy and in a group of people. Other people seem so god-damned mundane, why can't they see with my vision? I always knew I was special, everyone told me so, and then I was able to make others believe it to. But considering part 1? How special was I really?

6.When, where, and how did I learn to deny my own feelings, thoughts, and needs for the sake of others or, conversely, to demand that the world revolve around me? I don't really know, Another hard one. In my head it just seems like the only way to prove I'm good enough. It seems to me that that's what love is, putting others first to the best of your ability. I always wanted to take care of someone, to let them know that they're the sun and moon and stars. I like feeding people, bathing people, generally tending to people in every way. I want to make the worship of each other part of a nightly ritual, a winding down at the end of any given day. I never understood how this became pathological. I wanted to do this for others, I wanted others to do it for me.