“Perhaps I really was disillusioned; unable to see myself for who, and what, I really was. Maybe I really was an ungrateful wretch who just refused to take responsibility for my own actions. Maybe I was lying to myself because I didn’t want to admit to being a bad person. Maybe…”

“Just because we live in a world of chaos and madness doesn’t mean we have to subscribe to that sort of behavior.”

“Perhaps I really was disillusioned; unable to see myself for who, and what, I really was. Maybe I really was an ungrateful wretch who just refused to take responsibility for my own actions. Maybe I was lying to myself because I didn’t want to admit to being a bad person. Maybe…”

“My step-dad’s rendition of events was uncontested even by me and therefore, it became our truth. Truth I’d never be able to prove or change; truth that protected him from suspicion and penalty. Truth that I now knew was a lie.”

“What did that say about me? Had I become one of the monsters I thought I was fighting?“Things didn’t have to be like this,” I commented. “He could’ve made different choices.”

“I wanted more than anything to connect to someone. I wanted to feel alive again. I just felt dead inside. I could understand how some people just gave up. This darkness was overwhelming.”

“I was starting to feel like my opposition was futile. Was my resistance worth the weariness that was seeping into my body? I couldn’t deny that I coveted him. I recognized my body’s demand for him for what it was and I had no disillusionments”