07/09/03 - 9:22 a.m.

Awhile back a friend from high school and I started speaking again. We weren�t the best of friends in school but we were buddies. After we graduated we drifted, of course, but I did try looking for him once or twice. He found me first.

We started talking about my attempts at escaping my home, my family, my father. I thought no one from high school knew I had run, but he knew I had taken off. He just did not know why. It�s simple; I was frantic to get away.

And then he asks the question. The daunting one. Why was I so desperate?

I�m propelled into an in-depth explanation. Justifying, justifying, always trying to justify. Illogical behavior and secrecy under the ruse of a jovial face. Terrifying nights and the days that seemed deattached from them. Dichotomy of me. The night I tried to avoid, the day I always looked forward to. The two people that existed in me, one at night, one at day.

He asks me another awkward question. Did I ever fight back?

Did I fight back? Maybe I tried sometimes. But I never hit him; I never pushed him off of me. I never did anything physically to get him to stop.

I tried to get myself out of it. Gulping down pills fistfuls at a time, trying to slit wrists but being afraid of the blood, trying to put myself in a coma so he could not wake me up. So someone would ask me, why are you trying to end your life.

Nothing worked.

I didn�t try hard enough.

When he would pull me out of my sleep, I would follow him. I would FOLLOW him. I didn�t scream, I didn�t tell my mother, I just went.

Why didn�t I scream? Why didn�t I fight? Why didn�t I try to stop it? Why did I just LET IT KEEP HAPPENING?

I never knew that I blamed myself until he asked me that question. I never knew that I was still so fucked up about it.

I just always push it away. Always pushing. Sometimes I get these images and I shudder violently but then I just push until my mind is elsewhere. Then there are times when I can�t push it far enough.

At what point will the pushing consume me? Can I stand the hiding? Can I stand the contact with someone that I hate. And I do, I fucking hate him. I hate him for every moment I wanted to die because of him. I hate him for every piece of my life he took away because he wanted me in away that is obscene.

The rational part says. I am not to blame. I was a kid.

But at some point I was 18 and it was still happening to me.

And I wasn�t fighting.

So at what point to I actually take some of the responsibility.