As I read the words I felt like I'd been hit by a sucker punch. The wind was actually knocked outta me, and my eyes bugged out a little. Those words right there, made me wanna cry.

I. Don't. Cry.

Never before had someone phrased what I've never been able to put into words myself. God, this bastard hit it right on the spot! (I mean that, of course, in the fondest way possible. Ya know I love ya', Ghostie!)

All my life, I've felt myself alone. Always. Always been alone. To say I never cared would be a lie. When I was growing up, I used to talk to animals, to the grass, the clouds, the birds, the sky. The only human I had contact with other than my family was a little girl who lived down the street from me named Paty. She was mentally retarded. I really loved that girl; we were always together, her and me. She is the only person who never judged me, never teased me, never hurt me. She was my best friend. I miss her now.

But we moved away from there and I never saw Paty again. The teasing from other kids became harder to tolerate. See, before I was shunned for being a bastard. I had no father, because he preferred a prostitute. The kids around the neighborhood knew this; they teased me incessantly. God-damned cocksuckers. But they didn't know any better, they were kids. Right? And with Paty helping me feed the ants and whispering to the flowers, it wasn't so hard to ignore the snickers that followed us around the playground. New neighborhood, new school, new bullies. There are two in particular that stand out in my memory: Jocabed Valdez and Sergio Salinas. Fuckin' asses, both of 'em. Jocabed was a Jehovah's witness; she was taller than most girls, and heavier too. She hated me the instant that she met me, the new kid in fourth grade. She used to pinch my arms in vain attempts to rip the skin off, it seemed, or she'd punch me. Everyone feared and loathed Jocabed, regardless of the gender. Y'know, she's the reason I came to hate Jehovah's witnesses, or any other religious group of people that come door-to-door looking to convert people. Sergio... he was worse. He was the bully in elementry, and jr. high too. He used to pull my hair, which he claimed looked like rope ("so it shouldn't hurt when I pull it!") and sneeze in my food. He was at least a head taller than me, and weighed twice as much. He didn't hate me though, which is why he never beat my ass to a pulp. In fact, people once told me that he liked me, respected me, because I never caved in to him or Jocabed. Whenever they pinched or punched, I hit back. If he sneezed in my fruit or pudding, I'd spit in it graciously and hand it to him, so neither of us could have it. So he shoved me around and teased me, because in his mind's eye he was being good-natured and friendly. Idiot.

By Jr. High, I was numb. I still talked to ants and fed them bread crumbs, knowing that somewhere, maybe Paty was doing the same thing. I would talk to the blades of grass and apologize for having to step on them when I walked around the playground. Kids began to say I was insane and steered clear of me. It was around this time, in Jr. High, that I begin to discover all my "selves".

Now, I've been multiple since birth, ok? I know that now, and I've come to recognize my eleven personalities individually in childhood memories that go as far back as preschool age. But it was in Jr. High, when I hit puberty, that I finally began to make use of them.

Piojo came in to play during most of my three years in Jr. High. He's the look in my eye that would make people freeze in their tracks when they saw me coming, turn around and hightail it out and away from me. Daisy, a friend of my sister's at the time, used to call Piojo my "Dead Look". For Piojo is a dead man walking; he feels no emotion, nor any physical stimulation to the body, such as cuts, scrapes, bruises. When I was thirteen, I remember Dud once telling me after school that I was an idiot for having taken one white sock and one red sock to school that day. I looked down at my shoes, surprised, for I was sure I'd taken white socks only. Well, one of my socks (the right one), was soaked in blood. My leg was oozing from a deep gash... and I couldn't feel a damn thing. Fuck, I still don't know how I got cut, to this day, but the scar lingers on my skin, just to prove it happened. And that's Piojo for you, shit like this has happened since then, too many times to recount them all.

My other personalities, the frontrunners especially, Grizz, Svl and Ninja began to define themselves as individuals around this time as well. By my senior year in highschool, I was a full-fledged functional multiple system with eleven completely different and distinct alters, male, female, and even weirder shit than that. (Granted, most of us are male.) When Marco was killed in that car accident, we crashed with him. Literally. My whole brain came to a standstill; this was the first real crisis we had to manage on our own since 'Apa left. And this time, there was no 'Ama to run to, just the dark recesses of my brain. I hadn't been diagnosed yet, so when I began to hear distinct voices in my head, I panicked; I thought it was schizophrenia. I started this diary and the-clan diary in an attempt at self-therapy. That went down the shithole. I went into a heavy depression for about a year, until we moved to the house we live in now. I couldn't wait to get out of high school.

My life's changed much since then. I've got a job I love (most of the time, anyway) with coworkers whose company I greatly enjoy. But always, always I keep my distance. That barrier I set up around myself when I was shunned by my peers at the age of five has yet to come down. No one's been able to get past it, to reach the middle where all my alters dwell in relative peace and harmony.

Physically, I am alone. And lately, I don't wanna be alone anymore. Probably because I see that Dud's moved away and got herself a family of her own, and 'Ama and 'Apa are getting old and feeble. In a few years, faster than I can think, my parents will die, and all this house is gonna be for me alone. A three bedroom house, and no one to share it with, other than the damn chihuahua. And even she will probably die before I do. Lately, I've been yearning for... could it be? friends! But I don't got any. They all thought I was insane, remember? And my head spins...

When I first met Aaron, he struck me as just some dude. But as I got to know him, he increasingly reminded me of Marco. I don't think I need to state that I've grown extremely fond of the kid, despite his (many) faults, like showing up drunk to work. He pisses me off, but sometimes I think I can't live without him. Or Zamira either, even though she's a total bitch. Because see, they're the only people outside my family that I mingle with, and so I grow to like them. Granted, I don't really like Zamira, but I do. Make sense? I hate her ass, but she's totally cool. I love to hate her, I guess you could say. Same shit goes with my man Juan, and Art, and even Ruben and Alb�n. I like them all.

Still, Aaron is the one I'm the fondest of. I've mentioned this before, several times, if not on this diary then on the other one, or on the many notebooks I keep as journals. Maybe it's the age thing, or the Marco thing, I dunno. The point is, I really wish I could just bring myself to offer my friendship to the guy, let him at least peek over the damn barrier and let him see all of the me's. But I don't dare, because... well, because it's a fuckin' psychological condition, isn't it? A mental fuckin' disorder. And he'd freak. And he'd bounce. Hell, if my own sister almost did when she found out, what can I expect from a kid like him?

But I'm not crazy, I can promise you that. My multiplicity is just a way of being. I adore all my alters, because they're all me, from the stoic Piojo to the quixotic Polla, to the rampaging Ninja to sweet little Gis. And yet... I feel like this is keeping me from mingling with what I call Outsiders, the Real People outside my head. Not the voices in my Closet, the ones out there, with the eyes and the hair and the sweat and shit. It's just so confusing.

And it's draining me right now. I feel like it's outta control, and it's making shit worse in my life's than it's gotta be. That's why I read Ghost's entry and almost fell over. He typed down what I never thought I thought. That I am alone. And that I really don't want to be.

That I'm miserable.

And this sucks.

Now I'm logging off this shit before I pass out. Multiplicity usually makes me very dizzy. It's just one of the symptoms. I need to sleep this shit off.

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