LJ Idol: Week 1: I need the struggle to feel alive.

[i_love_freddie]

I am a perfectionist. I am hard on myself, harder than I would be on anybody else. It's the way I am.

I like deadlines. Goals. Something to strive for, to push myself further.

Before the breakdown, before my life became a whirlwind of depression and suicidal thoughts and medication that makes me too tired to function - I lived my life like that. I was always a loner, that kid at the back of the group that everyone bullied... but inside I had a strange kind of confidence; a belief in myself.

I stayed up all night scribbling fantasy stories in notebooks, certain that one day I would be a published author. When others made crazy suggestions, I would go along with hesitation. Anything that others could do, I would do - as a teenager I went to karate classes and I made friends with some boys. They did one armed push ups so *I* did one armed push ups. They went to the adult class so *I* went to the adult class - there was me at 5'2, a skinny little kid sparring with fully grown men.

It never occurred to me that I couldn't do it.

And I wasn't particularly happy back then. I had a lot of anger and was constantly struggling to fit in, I was bullied at school and abused at home because my parents had problems with alcohol and drugs. But I survived, by focusing on the next goal, the next achievement.

That is when I feel most alive.

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[penpusher.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people have been through something like this... or maybe it's just a lot of writers...