I never expected to live past the age of 27.

Not bravado, just facts. When you grow up like I did, with as much pain and torment as I did, you don't have any hope. I don't know what was special about "27," why that was the age I'd decided on, but that was it.

So, as that year approached, I panicked and got more and more reckless, more and more careless. I was a lot of "fun" back then.

If you knew me, you probably thought I was a lot happier then. But that's the funny thing about trauma. It looks different from a distance.

I didn't know it then, but #PTSD was ruling my life. I wasn't sleeping because I was in constant flashbacks, not because I had insomnia. But I never remembered the dreams because I dissociated from the experiences.

Furry saved my life.

I had found, at 17, an amazing, accepting community that was expressive and inclusive. And in my 20s, it allowed me to burn through a really terrible self-destructive phase in a safe place with people around me who cared about me, something I will forever be grateful for.

But I wasn't supposed to survive, remember?

27.

That was it. I was done. Marked. Doomed. Fated for death.
Problem is, it never happened. And now I'm on "borrowed time." I talk about this concept with my therapist a lot, and she hates it, haha.

But I don't have …value? …purpose?

That's my curse. Intellectually, I know all the tricks, I know all the CBT skills, I understand the exercises. And I know that I'm a good person, compassionate, and kind.

But as to whether I have worth or not… I don't see it.

And no amount of medication or training or talk therapy is going to, it seems, change that. Maybe that's why I'm so alone? Because who wants to be with the guy who hates himself so fundamentally that he can't be tricked into admitting he has value?

I'm not going into the gory details here, but… 18 years. It was 18 years of hell.

And that has a lasting impact on who you are and how you are. What you are. Like I said, I *know* intellectually all the things, the truths about what should have happened, what shouldn't have happened. What was right & wrong. I *know* I have "value." But I don't FEEL it inside.

Because I guess, at the end of the day, I want someone to love and someone who will love me back in a way that I have never had. And that's what I'm lacking. But, again, who wants to be with the guy who fundamentally hates himself? …Answer: No one.

So I'm sitting here on my couch, listening to albums about love stories that defy cosmic forces of life and death, waxing poetic about how I should be a decade in the ground because I'm hurting… finding moments of solidarity in lyrics that don't really mean anything.

Oh, the irony of quoting Tyler Durden in this thread. lol

But… What if I never had anything to lose after all?

Anyway, goodnight, Moon.