My Life Story

My Life’s Story
The True Tale of Nicholas Benjamin Schafer
By Schafer 1/30/2011

1

The end says I spent 3 hours writing this story of my life for you. This is incorrect. I spent 3 hours on the rough draft, what you see now is the work of seven-and-a-half hours. I’ve spent most of today awake, typing, looking over, correcting, adjusting. I’ll be honest, there are some things in here that are wrong. Never outright lies, but wrong. I don’t have a perfect memory, don’t blame me. If you know me, or if you’re in this story, I appologize, but I wrote it how I view my life. You might be altered, your actions or words skewed a bit. I don’t care, don’t bother letting me know. If all you get out of this is something like that, you can leave me be. I’ve finished my story, and I’ll be putting it for the public in a few minutes after writing this, and I hope you enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy it, I hope you learned something. I’ll be honest, if any of my friends wrote this much, I’d tl;dr, but I hope you don’t. I hope you read every word I have for you here. I spent a long time on it. And now, the feature presentation:

Where to begin? Well actually, that is a stupid question when writing any kind of autobiography, short or long. You start from the beginning. But how far back to I really remember, and how far back do I start to make up things? I guess starting with the things I know to be true. I know I was born in the end of May, 1993. I know that my parents were married and young, but not too young, not enough for anyone to call it young. I guess I just view it that way. They hadn’t been married long, and weren’t married long after. It might have been two years or two months. I’m pretty sure it was two years. My dad walked out on my mom, as my mom says, or they mutually decided to divorce, as my dad says. I’m guessing it’s somehow a combo of the two. They’re both liars, so I’ll never really know. I’ll get to that. After this, my life story will go faster until around middle school, which I consider to be 6th to 8th grades. I know that I went only know this because into a gravel pit and remove it with tweezers my forehead. to Pre-school at the ages of three and four. I when I was three, I fell down a large ditch gravel got shoved into my head. They had to and I still have some marks in the middle of

Here’s the speed-ahead I was talking about, I really don’t know or remember anything until third grade, or …7 years old? Yeah I guess. This is the first I considered myself to be depressed. Yes, as early as third grade, here’s why: I was being babysat by my step-brother… oh I should tell you about my step-family. I lived with my mom at this time and visited my dad every weekend or maybe every other. My dad lived in one apartment or another at this point, and had a few girlfriends who all liked me

1

and I liked them (he ended up marrying a huge bitch, but I’m not going into their lives. They don’t deserve my time). My mom dated one person after the divorce, Douglas. I will get it in your head now, I have always and currently do hate Doug. He married her when I was five, and we moved into his house with his two sons from a previous marriage, Adam and Brian. I hated them greatly at first, but today I’m more neutral with Adam, and pals with Brian. But like I said, I hated them. They bullied me, they were the first of many to do so. Many. A quick note is that before this happened, one of them (neither will admit to it) smashed my head onto the cement outside that it knocked both of my front teeth out. I had bucked teeth for a very long time after, when they grew in. So it’s third grade and I’m at home with Brian and he’s watching TV. I’m on the computer… doing who knows what. I can’t imagine using it so young, but I know I’ve used a computer since second grade when we got one. So I’m in the computer room, out of sight from the TV room and I yell into Brian, “How funny would it be if I went to A-S-S-DOTCOM?” or something to that effect. He gives me a neutral “Whatever” type of response that of course to a seven year old means yes, do it. I did. At the time it was a porn site, the first I’d ever seen, I don’t think it is anymore. I’m not going to check. So I see then what I can still vividly remember was a naked girl. I didn’t tell Brian, I knew that this was bad because it was a website of a bad word. I picked up that nobody should know what I’ve seen, but curiosity consumed me. This is new. Different. Eye-opening. I proceeded to visit such things as girls.com, naked.com, and other generic things because either Google didn’t exist or I didn’t know about it at that time. This behavior is dangerous, as any porn-viewing teen could tell you, because it would show up in the history. Which, on a shared computer… well it’s a bad idea. I didn’t know how bad it really must be to my mom and step-dad, so I kept at it. I only looked at the pictures, I never … did anything. I was far too young to know what to do anyways. One day, months later, my mom was helping me with my Christmas List and was logged into my profile on the computer. Why she couldn’t type Nintendo.com is beyond me, I guess it’s because she knew it must be in the history. It could have solved a lot of my future problems, her just typing it in. Oh well. View my history she did, and oh my god did I get screamed at. I didn’t know what I had done, I hadn’t really been told that what I was viewing was bad, I had only assumed it was something to keep secret.

1

They didn’t tell parents about telling kids such things back then, they do now though. So, you might wonder where the depression starts. Riiiiiight here. My mom took it much farther than it needed to be taken, to the school. They called me after school to meet with my parents, my teacher, my councilor, and the principal. I never went on such sites at school, I know this for a fact. Why was I even there? I’ll never know. My mom cried through the whole thing, like I had killed someone with the boobs I’d been looking at. My dad and step-dad yelled at me as though I was supposed to know that porn is bad at birth. My principal just shook his head mostly, and my teacher and councilor seemed moderately aware that what was going on was overly over-done. Again, you wonder why this was so bad, this wasn’t. This meeting with the administrator is the first of many to come, but it wasn’t the meeting that made me so messed up. It was how I was grounded that messed me up. Imagine a 90’s kid’s room. Colorful, posters, Gameboys, lots of stuff. It was all packed into plastic tubs, by me, and brought down two floors to the basement one at a time, by me. They’re still down here. I go through them every so often and just shake my head in disgust. For a few months, three, I believe, I had nothing. No bed, just a mattress on the floor. No toys, no color. White room, white sheets. I stayed in that room when I wasn’t doing a ridiculous chore for my parents, or eating. I ate on the landing, far away from my mother and step-family. I ate peanut butter sandwiches. I. Hate. Peanut. Butter. They knew this, and used it against me. I got water to drink. When they wanted to go out, they brought my meal with them, p.b. sandwiches. Now, the chores. I was seven, remember. They were all physicalbased, or really tedious. I cleaned out our - as I call it - fancythings-cabinet. There’s like fifty billion things in it and they’re all fragile or small. I cleaned it all. Multiple times. Not because I did a bad job, but because they thought it’d give me something to do. Basically take that, change it up a bit, and repeat. and that’s what I did for 3 months when I wasn’t at school, which was a lot due to Winter Break. I cried every single day until the end of it. It wasn’t just crying because of how unfair things were, which was part of it, but I cried because I kept thinking that the only way this would end would be to kill myself. I didn’t want to kill myself. I didn’t want to live even more. It messed me up at such a young age, and all because of a freak-out.

1

The reason I stopped crying at the end is because of what I’d been thinking. About killing myself. It hardened me. It gave me purpose. I could only think that if they made it any worse, I’d get back at them. How? They’d lose the son they didn’t appreciate. That’s how. (again, I was seven). Now I’ll continue with my life, to generalize up to fifth grade, people all made fun of me because I was different, and I cried myself to bed often, though not everyday, to be honest. They had very little to hate me for, other than the fact that people need someone or something to hate to function. I must have been incredibly functioning because I hated everyone and everything. I had two friends, who to this day often. So in fifth grade, when there larger girl, I took the chance to get teach her to hate me like they did. A time, for my age. will hang out with me every so was a new girl in school, a to know her so THEY couldn’t very intelligent move at the

Siarra ended up being my first girlfriend by the end of 5th grade. Now I know most people don’t’ consider such a young age as dating, but at the time I did, so I still refer to it as such. I’d go to her house everyday, play games, talk, just sit there with her. Me, a skinny, short white kid, her a large, tall white kid. Things looked up. A girl liked me. Really I was happy that anyone liked me. I’ve never required myself to be in a relationship, but when I am, it’s the only time I’m truly happy. It’s because I spent so much of Elementary School feeling like constant crap compared to everyone else, and then a girl came and changed it. Relationships make life livable to me, but I’d never kill myself over a break-up, it’s not like that. I don’t know if any of this makes sense, I’ll continue. Sixth Grade. Middle School. Big time. It sucked. So. Much. There were now kids from like 5 Elementary Schools all mingling. 1/5 of them already hate me. Now the rest of them did, and it didn’t take long at all. This is when I first referred to myself as “That Kid” to identify myself. I had Siarra, Blaze (one of the two still with me (yes, that’s his real name)), Jessica (second of the two), Jordan (boyscouts, not school, I’ll have a few sections that mention him), Stephanie (I talk to her every so often), and I suddenly realized that’s it. I didn’t have any other friends. I’ve saved the most influential middle schooler in my life for last, Korrin. I’ll talk about each one of my friends at the time, because they were the basis of what little amount of friends I’ve had over the years.

1

Blaze. We played videogames. We still do. Almost nothing has changed He was my bestie until Jordan took over in highschool. Jessica. I asked her out (I’ll get to my first break-up, give me a second, it’s hard to remember what happened when) twice or three times. She said that she couldn’t each time, then went and dated someone else within a couple weeks each time. I hated her for that, but now she’s one of my three friends today. I’ll get to why I have so little, and the third one soon enough. Stephanie. Quiet. Anime. We worked together recently, and I haven’t really talked to her since I got fired from the job we shared. And then Korrin. She was beautiful. Still is, in my opinion that I’ve even seen her in about a year, but w/e). Only I’d not her these days because her personality went way downhill from then then. Actually, I think her personally HASN’T changed from then, that’s why. Back then she was interesting. (not date back back

I realized that I liked her a lot more than I liked Siarra. But I’d never been in a relationship before, and I didn’t know how one broke up with someone else. Most people at that point hadn’t even had a relationship yet, let alone wanting a second one. I didn’t want to be the one who broke up with Siarra, so I ignored her. I know, dick move. I didn’t hang out anymore, I didn’t do a lot of things I used to do. She broke up with me eventually near the beginning of the sixth grade. She said it was because she was lesbian. What the hell kind of reason is that? Why can’t anyone be honest? I was obviously doing something wrong… on purpose. She could have told me. Oh well. Last I checked she’s dating a Mexican (in Mexico) via phone and internet. Male, of course. Oh well. Now before I liked Korrin to the point of asking her out, I realized I liked Susie a lot too. And Jessica (for the fourth time). I figured something out in my head. I liked almost all the girls I met. Crap, hormones. I went with the most likely thing, and settled (sounds bad, it isn’t) on Korrin. I liked her first and most. I’m gonna skip around now and tell you about Jordan during this time. I’ll end up telling you about him later a bit, because he ended up being my best friend for a very long time. Not anymore, he won’t even answer his phone when it’s me, I’ll get to it. So I’ll go ahead and skip most of my boyscout stories with him and let you know about what I considered then and now as the best boyscout campout ever.

1

So we were driving with the troop out to Viking Lake. It’s the only campground I remember the name of, and for good reason. In the car ride over we all listened to the radio playing stuff like Green Day (I never liked it, but I pretended to so I’d fit in (I’d never do that these days)). When we got out at our spot, we got out and went straight to making tents and such. Some girls came up to me and Jordan (tent partners) and started asking about boy scouts. I should elaborate that there has never been girls at campouts. Never since, never before that campout. So it was a big deal. Now we talked about boring stuff that we did every single month that we camped, but they ate it up. Or pretended to, I don’t know, and I don’t care, I was a pessimist/realist, and still am. So when they went back to their camp, we were stoked, because none of the other troops got to talk to them. We were celebrities in a way. We all went out to explore, and found a football field, a large one with picnic benches off to the side in the middle of the forest. It was odd, but really cool, and we happened to have a football back at camp and one of us got it. I should let you know, I suck at all sports. Like I’m seriously bad. This I know, I’ve played practically all of the major sports at one point or another, most in gym classes. But this day was different. It sounds almost like the end of a football movie where the kid started off not being able to play or something. I made multiple tackles and three touchdowns. That really didn’t make the campout great though, let’s get there. It got dark and we were going back to camp when another boyscout troop came on the field. No, we didn’t play them, they had a dry ice bomb. Yeah. A whole cooler of water, and a large chunk of dry ice. To make a long story short, the cooler vaporized, basically. The Earth-shattering-kaboom was Earth-shattering. It was really really cool. The cooler with the water flew up in the air and it’s really hard to explain the feeling of the BOOM without having been there. It was exhilarating. The best part? Jordan and Kelley, another scout, held me up by my underarms and I limped my way past the other troop’s camp. The leader thought I had been hit by a piece of the cooler and started screaming at his troop, we left, laughing. So it’s pitch dark out now, and me and Jordan start walking around the lake when we come upon a road in the middle of the forest, paved, and we sit down and start talking about Religion, Life, the Universe, Everything. We had more adult conversations then, than I hear adults having now. It wasn’t all vulgar, …not all of it.

1

So as we talked and sat, and looked at the stars, two of the girls came around the bend talking and saw us and remembered us. They yelled over and sat with us. I don’t remember what we all talked about then, I know it wasn’t smart people stuff, they weren’t smart people. I know that the reason I gave them for sitting on the road was because we were protesting the road service and cruelty against roads by driving on them, I’m pretty sure they believed it. As we walked back to our camps, across from eachother, Jordan with Girl A and I with Girl B in my arm, we passed a picnic bench. The girls ran over and told us to join them. I figured we were about to be killed or something, I really did. As I sat down, the girl who obviously liked me grabbed my shoulders and pulled her face into mine, embracing me in what is known as my first kiss. It wasn’t making out, but it was long and I will always remember it. Always. Vividly. I won’t bother explaining the rest of the campout, I don’t even remember it. I do know, however, the Jordan and Girl A didn’t have as good a time as I did, he kept trying to make out with her. She denied him the rest of his kiss after that. That was the first and last time my sexual adventures surpassed him in any way… well technically… I won’t explain it in my story, sorry. So back to seventh grade. I eventually hung out with Korrin for the first time, Adam was baby-sitting me, and by that I mean he was downstairs doing … Dungeons and Dragons or something nerdy. So Korrin and I were watching something on TV, and by watching I mean not watching, and rather talking to each other and looking into each… nerd. other’s eyes. I ended up moving my hand to her breast (aw yah seventh grade feel up) and of course I had to ruin it by saying, “This is your boob.” Then pointed to the TV, “That is the TV.” and so on until she grabbed my hand and moved it back to her chest. It’s as far as I got until much later, but it was something. God where was I… Well I’ll be completely honest, I don’t remember exactly what I did to be moved schools, but the move made it impossible to date her, and I didn’t see her again until high-school. I think it was a mixture of not doing any homework and never doing what the teachers said that did it. Something like that. They all hated me, and I’m sure they loved it when I was moved from Middle School 1 to Middle School 2. My parents didn’t. This was the second worse grounding I’ve received to date. I didn’t have all the stuff taken, just my books and radio, because that is what mattered to me at the time. It’s pretty much mainly what matters to me now. I did however, have to move 50,

1

count ‘em, 50 bricks from the front driveway, to the back. Then to the front. Then the back again. What the hell?! This was with my hands. I am weak, and at the time I was weaker. That means one, maybe two bricks at a time. I think I had a time limit. I don’t remember. My parents will deny it no matter who I tell, but I know I did it. They bought the bricks for that exact reason, for me to move them. So anyway reason why? To sped. I’m also the new school about anything Jensen. I got moved schools. Do you want to know the real put me in the Special Education program. Yeah. I’m a very, very smart. I’m not conceded, I just am. So at there was a teacher, I don’t even care or remember that happened at that school other than him. Mr.

OH MY GAWD HE’S THE DEVIL. I’m not even kidding. He wore suspenders everyday. Every single day a different color of suspenders. Only truly evil people can do that. He is currently the number one most hated person according to me ever. There was a little room connected to his already little room that bad kids went. I almost never did anything wrong. I was trying. I also spent every day in there. I’m not exaggerating. He had the power to keep me in the tiny, white room with a desk, and he abused it. It was like in third grade, with my tiny, white room with a mattress. I hated it. I hated him. I haven’t seen him since I got out of 8th grade, and I hate him. I still do. I really shortened that part of the story of my life, bad as it was because I can’t think about it, my chest hurts. I hate him so much. Everything I said was an attack to him, every move a move to hurt someone. Which, by the way, I’ve never had any amount of history that has to do with physical violence. I took karate for 6 years, probably 3-4 years at that point, but I’d learned respect, control. Ugh. So we go on to what now? High school? I don’t think it’s time to start that just yet. I want to talk about my medications. I start them at this point, and not at the beginning or the end of my story because it was the move of schools that also got me some meds. It started as a test for ADD or ADHD, for that’s the only reason I could have for being miserable and not caring about a future or grades. But no, I don’t have those things, I have everything else. I don’t know at what time I got each thing, and really they’re all titles, I’m sure I’ve had them forever. Mood Disorder: What the hell

1

does that even mean? that, but it doesn’t Teenager. I know that when I talk about the

That I’m a teenager. Depression: I’ll give them take a doctor to figure out that I’m sad. PS: Bi-Polar Disorder came later, and I’ll get to it hospital. I did, however, always think I had it.

Multiple pills in the morning, more at night. Every day. I am firmly against medications for mental disorders. I always have been. Wanna know why? I just am. The only way I’ve been able to describe it is: Are you straight? Why? You were born that way? Well I was born against meds for your brain. I’ll take meds for thinks like pain, if I have pain, I know that it’ll fix the pain after some time, no questions asked. I’ve taken depression meds since 7th grade, I’m no better. I’m worse. I hate taking pills. They suck. I’ve gotten so used to taking them that the five in the morning I take now (less than at first) I take without water. I just go for it. Nobody should be able to do that, you shouldn’t have to take pills for nothing and nobody, unless you think you actually need them of course. Okay. 8th grade was eh. Nothing really bad (other than Mr. Jensen) happened. Maybe I’m blocking something from my memory… surely something bad happened to me. Could it be a year went by without anything major? Holy crap. I guess I could put in here that I joined the nerd’s group, and people continued to bully me. You might want me to define bullying in this case and I’ll explain. I was called names, “Fag.” “Fatty.” This one is because the meds made me gain a very large amount of weight fairly quickly. I’ve not lost all of it yet. Not yet, but I have lost a great amount that I gained. I was called stupid, but that was wrong because back at school 1, I took a Duke University offered test for the top 10 smart kids in the school, and I got a 21 out of 36, which is higher than the average high-schooler (higher than my mom got in high-school). Anyway, basically all the generic stuff, pushing, laughing, shoving, pointing, whispering, rumoring. I got it all. Everyday there was something, minor or somewhat major, it happened. I think it’s time to start the next section of my life. Freshman Year. Now, remember the whole “schools feed into a bigger one, everyone learns to hate me” thing? Now try it for a school of 2600 kids in which I’ve come from the two main schools that feed into it, both of which figured out how to hate me. Now it’s 4 grades worth of bullies. I only use the word “Bullies” because if I said “Assholes” all the time, you’d be bothered, I’m sure. So now I’m at High School #1. Yes, there will be a #2 at the very end of my story here. So I can honestly say that high school has

1

sucked, good or finally already

but nothing super duper happened the first two years. Nothing bad. I guess at the time, Jordan was the good part, we were in the same school, and became best friends very quickly. We pretty much were, but whatever.

I liked sophomore year only because Jordan was suspended for getting a blowjob in the band room during school. This will always make me laugh. I’m kinda rushing through this because everything that really truly sucks about high school is my Junior and Senior years. I haven’t yet finished my senior year, but man am I close. So back to nothing happening, I do happen to have stories of school during this time, like how I found all the people from middle school who were neutral with me and became friends with them. Sort of. I’ll say it now so I don’t forget, when I transfer schools later in this story, they all start to ignore me. On purpose. They think it’s funny, I think I have 3 friends now. Continuing… I can think of three tales off-hand, but those aren’t major to life, just good stories. Ask me, and I’m sure I’ll tell you. Junior year. The time when stuff happened. Most of it. The most hurtful to me. I present to you the idea of Mallory. I’ll tell you the reality in a bit. The idea: She is very cute. I use that word, get over it, she was funny, she knew about videogames, she knew about computers, things that meant alot to me. The idea of her was great, but not yet perfect. What made her perfect were her actions. The first day I met her, she sat at my lunch table to and my friends (friends as in people I was sitting with have a choice, I sat there everyday). I think that one of known her. She didn’t have friends, she does now because stole all my friends, you’re welcome. eat with me who didn’t us may have of me. You

Sorry, let me go on, she sat by me, and I said to Jordan, hold my hands as we walk down the halls, people will think it’s gross because everyone here is homophobic. Mallory offered to do it instead, although to be fair Jordan would have done it. So the first day I meet her, she holds my hand… why couldn’t of things worked out? So day after day after that we held hands through the hallways, locked arms, things that people who date do. I didn’t dare ask her out because, for one, I had a horrible self-confidence, and was worried of losing her as a friend, as all my friends up to this point had scorned me except the bastards I talked about earlier. (the two that I have today that I had in 2nd grade took a break from being my friends at this point).

1

We hung out at Jordan’s once and I had my hand in the waist of her pants the whole time, nothing sexual going on, just the contact she allowed was something far beyond the normal, don’t touch me, don’t look at me vibes I got from everyone else. I kissed her on the neck one day, later, no big deal. I was madly, madly in love. You don’t have any idea how easy it would have been for me to fall in love at that point, with all the crap that had happened to me, and then someone who got me, someone who was perfect? Oh my I loved her. To be honest, I think I still do. Actually, I don’t think so, I do. She was my first true love, the other girls before meant little in comparison. In fact, I forgot to mention I had a 1 month relationship in the beginning of Freshman year. The reason I don’t mention this is because I asked her out as a joke. That seems bad, but I was certain she’d know it was a joke, but she said yes, so I went with it. She broke up with me because she was two years older than me. Oh well. But back to Mallory, whom I had named Mal-Pal or Muffin. D’awww, right? Now you might wonder what could have possibly of happened. Here’s the reality of Mallory: She was in a relationship and had been for the past few YEARS with someone years older than her in TEXAS. Yeah. What the hell. She led me on like nobody has ever done since… wait that’s a lie. But she let me on hardcore and when I found out, I confronted her, and by that I mean I said something like “You’re going to have to chose between me and him, I feel like a cheater, and he’d be pissed.” and she didn’t choose him OR me. That would have been easier, she remained neutral, and I was so mentally broken that I ended up telling her that I couldn’t be her friend, the girl who knew me so well, the girl I spent hours at a time talking to on AIM or Facebook or anywhere else, the perfect girl, the one of few friends. I told her that we couldn’t be friends. I messed up everything that was good in my life with those few words. I said them over the internet, because I’ll admit that the hardest thing I’ve every done in my life was just that. I typed it up, hit enter, uninstalled AIM, because I had it installed just for her, I blocked her on Facebook and I went upstairs to my mothers room, where she was napping, and I cried. A lot. I cried more then than I had in combination the past few years. I’ve never been trusting of anyone after that. I still will find myself thinking of her before our part (because I’ve seen her often since, but it’s just weird) and I’ll cry myself to sleep. I could have a great day, hear one of my friends (bastards) say Mallory called them or something and I’ll get tight-chested.

1

I hate can’t stand write this, and wouldn’t

myself for loving her long after she hated me. I honestly it. She’ll never see this note, so I don’t care that I and really I don’t think she’d believe it. She hates me trust it. What did I do to deserve hate? Well

I’m ranting now, you get the point. Now I’m going to back up to right before Mallory came into my life and left so quickly. This is the story of the mental hospital. Yeah. I was in one. I’ve not been telling it, but I’ve been suicidal since I moved schools. Like really feeling that way. I mentioned that I felt that way first in third grade, but it grew over the years. One day I cracked. My parents were grounding me for one reason or the other. Personally I think they find something I did wrong and they realize they need something done for them chore-wise, so they ground me instead of letting it go. But I’m the kid, so of course I think that. So they were having me move tubs of stuff (I dont’ know what) up and down the stairs. The bricks come to mind, because that’s the same thing they were doing. Go up, go down, go up, go down. Plus I’m sure the boxes were heavy, just sayin’. I eventually got so upset with the work I was given, I went into my room, grabbed the phone and called my dad. I hadn’t been visiting my dad due to an angry outburst by him that got me pushed into a wall and a weedwacker turned on and held up to my face. Can you tell why he doesn’t show up much in this story? I hate him. He doesn’t deserve a space, like I said. I’m going out of order. Back to calling my dad. I was sobbing and pleading with him to call the police because I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’d kill myself, and don’t you believe for one second, reader, that I wouldn’t have. I would have in a heart-beat. He didn’t believe me. He didn’t listen to his own son, he just yelled about not calling him more often, he didn’t care one bit. I hung up on him, which got his attention, because he called back by the time I went downstairs to confront my mom or step-dad about it. She answered, hung up, called the police, and soon enough, there they were, for the 7th time. Literally. I’ve threatened it before, but was counterthreatened by my parents about it, but the police always came, because I always called. Those times always ended in my being scared by my mom into saying I was lying for attention… bullshit.

1

So they’re here again, and my dad shows up a bit later, for he lives close and my mom called him after she called the police. When it was established that I’d just love to go to the hospital for a few nights, they wanted to know if they had to drive me in cuffs, or if my parents would drive me. My dad had this to say, “I will not drive him. I don’t know if he’ll try to escape the car and run in front of a train or something.” Holy crap, you don’t know how much that hurt me. The worse thing? My mom only agreed to do it after the cops mentioned that I wouldn’t be able to leave until after a much longer stay if I went with them. Momma needs a chore boy as soon as possible, so she drove me. We got there, checked in, and found out that actually we’d need to go to the next state over, so there we went, my dad not joining. He had more important things to do, apparently. My mom and I sat in a room there for a while, me just sobbing and whimpering. I looked her dead in the eye and told her that she is a horrible mother and that I hated her. I stand by what I said, never have I meant something so much. She made to look like she didn’t care, but I know it affected her, and I say it should! I know I said more about her not caring, but much like her, at this point I don’t care. What matters is what you know. I could go about how the hospital worked, but I have this to share instead, a day in the life of the mental hospital:

I wake up, yawning. I didn’t get sleep last night. I haven’t gotten to sleep much since I got here. It would help if they didn’t come in during the night to check up on me. But you get what you ask for sometimes and this is what I asked for. Getting out of the rubbercovered bed, and pulling off my fishnet blanket, I shiver on over to my “closet”. I put it in quotes because this closet is actually a glorified cubby-hole. After grabbing out one of my three outfits, I make my was across the chilled, linoleum floor to the bathroom. I open the door- well actually I slide the curtain away. There is no door to my bathroom/shower area. Just a curtain to protect me from their eyes. I’m met with an off-green tiled room, devoid of sharp corners, that contains a shower behind a curtain, a mirror, and a toilet without toilet paper. I walk in and go about brushing my teeth with my finger (no toothbrushes allowed), and washing my face with foam soap (no bars of soap allowed). They’ll eventually make me shower, but I don’t feel like it right now. I dress, then make my way out of my cell- I mean my room. I can feel the warmer, softer floor of carpet underneath my feet. I feel it more-so because they don’t allow shoes here, they don’t seem to allow anything. The smell of two things strikes me immediately from

1

leaving my living quarters, the smell of a sterile environment, and the smell of food. I’m glad, food is good, I mean, I’ll be forced to eat it, but I still like it. I can’t remember what I asked for the day before, all the days I’ve been here are running together. I grab an apple juice and my tray and I sit down. There are other kids here. Not all of them are the ones from yesterday, and not all the kids from yesterday are here again. They come and go in the middle of the night, just like I did. One day, I’ll be able to leave against common knowledge of the other kids, but it isn’t today. It isn’t this week even, but I don’t know that yet. I won’t know until I’m leaving. I sit with the boys at the boys table. There are a couple of girls at the girls table. They separate us so we don’t go about kissing each other, or more likely, worse than that. I understand it, I guess, I just do what they say so everything stays friendly. The last kid to fight with one of them was gone the next day, I’m not willing to bet he was just let go. The eating-room is also the tai-chi-room is also the living-room is also the we-do-everything-in-this-room. This is mainly because there are the rooms we “sleep” in, the living-room, their section (we aren’t allowed in), and the door out. Those are the only landmarks I’ve been living with, and will have to live with. After we are all done eating, and sitting waiting for others to eat, we are allowed some free-time. I walk to the beige cabinets and I open one up. A wave of colors and one particular smell assault me. For one, the smell of crayons. There is a large box of crayons and if you’ve ever owned one of those, you know the smell I then smelled. The colors is another thing. There are board-games for children, toys for children, everything for children. Things for children are colorful, and the rest of the establishment is not. I grab a deck of cards, red, ornate. I’ve grabbed this deck for quite a few days now, and I set up a game of solitaire, just like I’ve done for hours on end. It is lunch time when I stop playing cards. I won one of the games in the entire time I’ve been here. Smells come and go with the lunch hour, and I’m back to cards. There are no lessons today, no doctor visits, just a free day for me to play more than 12 straight hours of solitaire. It’s all I have here in this poorly lit, sanitary, cold, hell-hole. That was written already, so it’s in a different perspective, IE: Mine. But I literally wrote that two days ago, so I’m not gonna let it go to waste. At least I’m honest. In fact I have another one of those later. Copy-pasting is so much easier than re-living that place again.

1

So you have it now, my back. I’ve been suicidal to me, but would I let myself you’re reading this and you first expulsion.

stay at the mental hospital. I’ve not gone be sure, it’s a constant state of mind for go back there? No. So don’t freak out if know me, I’m “Fine” as it gets. Now to my

I won’t go into this in huge detail, but it’s hard to explain if you don’t have some previous knowledge that I can’t give you via text. So the kids at lunch were talking about the Nervous Game, otherwise known as the Awkward Game, or the Uncomfortable Game. I turned to the girl next to me and said, “Do you want to play the firetruck game?” She asked what it was and I told her that it was the same as what they were playing (if you don’t know, I’ll explain it in a second) but when you were supposed to say “Stop” you instead say “Red Light”. She agreed. Now the game is that you take your hand, put it on the other person’s knee and you feel up their leg until they get bothered and tell you to stop. This was different, this was the FireTruckGame where you say “Red Light”. I got half way up her leg before she said it (loser, I’ve never lost these games) and I moved swiftly up her thigh almost into, but not quite into her crotch. She freaked out a bit, but didn’t seem to care, everyone thought it was funny. Her best friend didn’t (bible-thumper). She told on me and got me expelled for sexual harassment and assault. Great end of Junior year. I spent the rest of the year in an alternative program where I met my current best friend, Sadie. PS: I’m in love with her now, I’ll get to it, don’t you worry. In this school you just sit there all day in front of a computer and do nearly no work and get credits. Really easy, really boring. Me and Sadie hung out alot after that, and we got to know each other. I might have fallen for her then if I wasn’t currently caught by Mallory. And don’t worry folks, I fall in love with someone ELSE before Sadie. I’m a sucker for love, I’m a sucker for misery. So I get to come back to my school the next year, my senior year. Time for a fresh start. Time to get expelled again. It just occurred to me that I fall in love with people in alternative schools twothirds of the time. Just thought you’d like to know. So back at school, still High School #1, it’s lunch time, senior year. Not even a month through my senior year, this happens. I’m outside of my classroom, having eaten lunch already, and I await the class to join us. As they come back, one at a time, I offer high-fives to them for no real reason.

1

They all decline or fake it, but the last guy high-five, and I point to him and say these exact remember to wear a black hat on Wednesday, so … you dots in there are because I realized making a reference in school is a bad idea.

gives me a great words, “Hey man, know.” The three school shooting

Turns out I should have thought about that earlier. After a lot of crap, my parents manning-up for once and fighting the school system, it all comes down to if I hadn’t said what day I “planned to shoot up the school” I would have had 3 days of suspension. But I said Wednesday, that’s the thing. Goddamnit that just sucks. I went back to the same alt school and I asked my mom to transfer me schools, she did. While at the alt school again, with different kids, I met Julia. We talked and a very Mallory-esque thing happened with her and I. I was much less trusting of myself though, so I didn’t get as attached, but attached I was I eventually asked her out. Good job me. On the other hand, she said no, and why you ask? Because she didn’t want to someday be my exgirlfriend… that is the worst…. ugh. I was very upset, but I straightfaced it, and she could tell it was killing me, and she started crying herself. It was an awful day for me, I haven’t talked to her in a while, things just got so awkward, I couldn’t do it anymore. I forgot to mention two girlfriends this time… I’ve only had four total, but I just skipped the most recent two. In a nutshell, I wasn’t in love with either, maybe felt like it for one, the other one broke up with me after 1780 messages back and forth on Facebook (not a made up number), and I broke up with the other one because she’s a nut. She screaming next day. the other went to homecoming with me and left 10 minutes later that “everyone here is so shitty!” I broke up with her the First time I’ve done that, breaking up with the girl, not way around. So now I’m at High School #2.

The first day of High School #2, there was a school shooting. After I got in trouble for making a reference to one. God. Damn. It. On top of that I’ve fallen in love with Sadie from earlier, and I know that I’ll never be with her. She’s going to read this. She’ll be the first person I’m sending this to after it’s all edited. I know that I’ll never be with you, Sadie. You like a different kind of person. I’d love to be your friend, but I’m not going to ever ask you out again. I couldn’t deal with that kind of pain.

1

The first time was bad enough. Maybe if you pulled a Mallory and hated me, I’d be okay with that. No. I wouldn’t. But in comparison with being hopelessly attached to someone who I mean very little to in comparison? Torture. I hate myself for typing this but I’ve always hated myself, so there’s nothing different, just me falling in love with that which I’ll never have. I love you Sadie, don’t mistake that. More than I loved Julia, more than I’ve loved Mallory, even. I think it might be the truth, and you saw how much I liked her, I love you so much, but I can’t do this thing where I pretend it’s okay to sit back and watch you. Oh god none of this is about my life anymore, no, that’s wrong, right now Sadie is my life, so it’s right to say what I’m saying, even if it’s just so not right for me. Sadie, please, I beg of you, tell me, lie to me even that you love someone else, that way I can just give up. I won’t stop loving, no, that would be too easy, but you’d crush me to the point of not being so attached. Crush me, Sadie. *Sigh* There is one thing I’ll leave you with, and it’s to show you how my family life is going these days. This was written on my Tumblr on January 11th, entitled, “What I did Yesterday.” Here you go:

I’ll spare you everything up until about 4:00pm. My mother got home (and hour earlier than usual) and yelled my name. I was in my room, and I was perfectly okay with letting her either give up on calling me, or actually come upstairs if she really wanted to say something, so I remained in my bed. She yelled, then screamed my name, then preceded to come upstairs to my room. The threw my door open and asked me why I was still in bed. I told her that I just got here and that I’ve been awake for fucking four days straight now. She said (and when I say that I mean she yelled) that I had chores to do, and to do them. You should know that it’s a rule in my house to have things done by five o’clock. I reminded her of this, she told me to do it NOW. I said, “no.” and went back to sleeping, she called me a lazy fucking pile of shit and slammed my door so hard that everything hanging upon my walls fell off, and a few piles of my books toppled over. I figured that if that’s how I’m going to be treated when I haven’t even done anything wrong yet, I’d just not do the chores, they were folding clothes and shoveling the deck, which I assumed could be

1

done later. I was awoken at five o’clock by my step-dad. He threw a chunk of snow at my fucking head. I asked him as politely as possible, “What the fuck?!” To which he went on at the top of his lungs how I was to go do my chores now, and he started walking away. I said something to the effect of, “No, you threw a fucking snowball at me, no way.” So he came in and spent a good five minutes yelling, again at the top of his lungs, about how I’m worthless, I’m lazy, and that he’s kicking me out of the house, no really, get the fuck out of my house right now, motherfucker. So I got up and started walking to the door, agitated, when my mom, who had obviously overheard what he was going on about, got in my way. She told me that I wasn’t leaving, I told her that indeed I was by grabbing her shoulders and tossing her so hard out of the way that she fell onto the ground. My step-dad had followed me downstairs to make sure I left, but apparently now I was supposed to stay. Yeah right. I started to open the door when he grabbed me by the shoulders, yelling at me to get out of the doorway. I grabbed the door and told him to take his fucking hands off of me, so he pulled with all his weight, yelling, “Get out of the fucking door you fucking fat-ass, I swear to God if you don’t I’ll make sure you can’t move for a fucking week.” I’m pretty sure that’s an exact quote, or close enough. I yelled so loud back that I really wouldn’t have recognized it as my voice, saying that I’ll get out if he lets go of me, he said that he’d let go of me if I got out of the door, and back and forth until he let go. During the tug of war, my coat ripped, I’m moderately upset about this. Then he got into my face and screamed some more, and pushed me into the closet, I pushed him off of me, to which he threw me so hard into the wall, there’s now a foot-wide hole in it, and I’m pretty sure that’s why my thumbnail is currently cracked and black from an internal bruise. He let me know that I’d be paying for it, and I told him to fuck off. I don’t even remember why, but he eventually left me with my mom. I was breathing so hard I couldn’t think straight, and I was shaking and sobbing. I told my mom that either everyone calms the fuck down, or she takes me back - yes, back - to the mental hospital, or I’m going to kill myself. I think that when I told her such things previously, she didn’t believe me. She sure as hell believed me then, so she took me into the office to talk about it. By talk about it, I mean a good 5 hour argument in which the following was said to me: “You’re ruining our family.” “Everything is

1

your fault.” “You are an awful son.” I’m sure some other bad things were said, but here’s the one that will always stick with me: In response to talking about how I wanted to kill myself, she said, “If that’s what’s causing all this, then kill yourself. I don’t care anymore.” I started half crying half laughing at this point, looking, I’m sure, very insane, and I said to her, “I hope to God you always remember that you said that. I hope it kills you inside knowing that it’s one of the last things you said to your son.” And the argument went on, always about how I’m at fault, how I ruin things, et cetera. Then I went to bed. All I I’ve never been so depressed in up killing myself anytime soon, considering it anymore, but if note. want right now is to talk to someone. my life. I hate myself. If I ever end and don’t be alarmed, because I’m not I do, I want this to be my suicide

I want you all (and sure, right now “you all” is two people, one I don’t know) to see that this is what I put up with. I deal with shit like this all the time. I am not happy. I am not the “Schafer” you all know. The one you all think you know. I’m an actor and a liar, and I’m good at both of those things, which is why 99.9% of the people who ‘know’ me don’t know me. I don’t know what to do. I’m lost. Nobody will answer their fucking phone. I need somebody, but as it seems, nobody needs me. Nobody really wants me for that matter. My parents don’t, my mom even tried to kick me out during the argument, but I let her know that I’m only 17 and there’s nothing she can do, legally, which she responded that she can always send me back to the hospital. That’s her solution. Were she to do that, I wouldn’t graduate from highschool. She knows that. She’s the one who brought it to attention. She doesn’t care about me. Nobody does. Or at least, if they do, they don’t fucking show it. And there you have it. My life as I’ve lived it. I hope you know more about me, I also hope you treat me differently. I’m sure you will. Just please don’t make my life worse than it is. I mean, you’d have to try, but if you’re someone important to me… or Sadie, basically, you have that ability. I’m sorry I had to put what I did, but I honestly feel like I had to. It’ll save us both much grief. Signing off 3 hours after he started writing this, Nicholas Benjamin Schafer.

1

Two days after writing the previous paper…

I just started to cry. It wasn’t like I always end up crying, but this was different. I cried honest tears of joy. I don’t think I have ever done this, in fact I can tell you that I haven’t beyond a shadow of a doubt. I’m still tearing up, the feeling is fading, but not gone. Happiness. I haven’t been happy, truly happy, in years. Since third grade maybe. When it all started. Writing my life’s story was not meant to be anything but something to vent my anger and depression with. It’s changed everything. Mallory, from the story, plus most of my old friends that I discussed had been ignoring me all came over yesterday. I don’t know how it all came to happen, but I have a strong feeling it was Mallory’s doing. When they all came over like this, it made me happy. Not as a state of mind, but as a current emotion. I talked to Sadie about the note, at first freaking out, thinking she’d do what everyone else does to me. I thought she’d leave me like Mallory had after I f’d things up, how Alli had after I messed things up (not in the story, but important to me), like Julia after I made things awkward between us, like Jordan after I trolled him too hard with Zach (I think it has to do with that, he might just be an ass). But I came back later and apologized. I know Sadie wouldn’t hate me for the note, it was how I feel, and she resects that. I respect her for staying with me. When I came to the conclusion that she still wanted to be my friend after everything, it made me happier, but still not a state of mind. It was when I called Mallory today to let her know that I appreciate what she did for me, for showing up, for talking to me again, for so many things that I couldn’t get out of my mouth in time before I choked up, which I did. That was me being happy for the first time as a state of mind. Things are changing for me, and for once in a good way. My old friends are coming back, I just spent the night at Blaze’s house. I called Mallory (or really anybody) and she answered, but not only that we had a conversation and talked about plans to hang out sometime. It’s been so long. Sadie still talks to me, and I still love her, but now I’ve accepted that it won’t work out, and my heart can rest. Writing this is making the crying thing worse, but it feels so good. I don’t think you have any idea. It feels. So. Good. But it’s not just the ‘real world’ that does these things for me. It’s the support of you guys out there in internet land. It’s my tumblr followers who read my story and sent me messages about how sorry they were for me. It’s my Kongregate friends who all read the story long before anyone else saw it and gave me feedback and support. It’s all of you that have made this happen for me, true happiness. I love you all, each and every one of you that’s helped me through my tough times into my softer ones. I might be able to laugh now and not have to force it. That’s a feeling I never thought I’d have.