(open to page 65... do exercises 1-30 for tomorrow... write an essay... clean your room... go to...)

The commands and words just flew by me undetected like a light breeze barely brushing past my hair. I wanted to get away, go away, do something to escape the world that entrapped me. I felt smothered and troubled and angry. Too much to do, no time to do it in.

One year ago I started noticing the demands put on me. They had never seemed to be there when I was younger, so why were they showing up now?

(be an adult... act proper... come home early... get your work done... act your age... do a...)

They wouldn't stop. They were always there. I remember thinking back when I was a child. What worries did I have then? My parents were still together, we were well off, we were happy. Mom would come in my room at night and ask "Do you want me to read you a story?" "Yes!" I would eagerly reply. I loved to be read to. Dad often asked, "Do you want to play catch?" "Absolutely!" I always answered. I loved doing anything with Dad. I was Daddy's little girl.

Then my parents got divorced. I wasn't Daddy's little girl anymore. I had to move in with Mom and see Dad only on weekends. It wasn't the same anymore. Nothing was the same, everything changed. I had a different life and that was the hardest thing for me to accept.



(wash up... that's wrong... go to your room... where's your homework?... you're slacking!...)

One thing piled onto another and another. The weight on my shoulders was so great, almost unbearable. Night after night I cried myself to sleep. Day after day I walked around like a zombie, never fully awake, never fully asleep.

It seemed that everyone was moving on and leaving me behind. Busy with work and school, Mom never noticed any change in me. As a matter-of-fact, no one did. They thought my actions were a normal reaction to the divorce.

They were wrong. Something was wrong in me, in my head. Maybe the divorce triggered it, I don't know. I broke down, I do know that. The events that followed my breakdown altered the rest of my life.

(Sit there ... Run ... Move ... Go ... Stop ... Start ... YES ... NO!)

Pressure. The pressure on me seemed to build to a point teetering on insanity. Still no one noticed, no one knew, no one cared. My life became one monotonous motion. Get up, go to school, go home, go to bed. Sometimes I wouldn't get up. I walked through school completely oblivious to my surroundings. Sometimes I didn't sleep.

I finally reached the point of no return. Words said to me were a blur, nothing made sense, especially my life. I was swept into a world of make-believe, a world where nothing went wrong.

I finally decided to stay in this world of make-believe, this world of the dead. I took a full bottle of sleeping pills and just closed my eyes. The only thing is, I woke up. I found myself in a hospital room. I've been here for the past five months. It seemed my mother did notice and care.

My world of make-believe is almost gone. Sometimes I still find myself there, but lucky for me, those times are less frequent. n