Broken. That is what I am, or was. Lashes cover my heart and mind. Deep marks that aren’t visible unless provoked. In certain situations involving other people, the anxiety and anticipation builds up; I start to cry from the stress alone. You see trust is a thing people like me lack. People like me being victims of a certain kind of abuse which betrays all trust between a father and his daughter.

Years have passed, the scars in my head reopen at every challenge I face. From simple things like school, to when I am told to that I have no worth or value. When the vivid memories dance through my head, I stare off and everything in life that could be happy disappears leaving only things that worsen my pain. But that’s just the mind.

My heart is far more worn, the scars on it leave nothing visible. It makes me uncaring. I have mastered the art of deception and I use it daily, because when I’m expected to care I don’t. The barriers block any sort of kindness that could possibly still exist in me after all that has happened. I pull people in to satisfy the thirst that is my loneliness, then push them out the moment I get bored – or worse – when I start to care.

I’ve learned that scars lead to more scars. An endless cycle of being beaten and battered until the point where the scars become visible. When my childhood was destroyed, so was I, and I still am being obliterated at this moment. We are born to die and dying is what I do every day when another person tells me that it gets better when they have no possible way of understanding exactly what I feel without becoming me. I have no family that I can trust with anything. They expect me to stay strong for them, and when I wobble and take a step to the side to avoid an unpleasant climb, I am scolded for losing my way. I am told that choosing my own path is incorrect. I have to heal, but only if I choose to revive myself using methods that would suppress everything I am.

So, to put it simply, I have scars because I was hurt by the person I trusted most. My remaining family doesn’t approve of my lifestyle. I am controlled by the power the government gives to my parents, and I’m forced to abide by their will. I am a disappointment. My own mother feels like she’s lost a child because I chose my own religion. But hey, it isn’t all bad.

When I was forced to grow up before most people even did their homework on their own, I learned how the world works. How there will always be the people who wrong you, there will always be people who have differing views. But those things do not define you. You are yourself. I am me. Pursue your happiness in a way that will not cause harm to others. Enjoy the simple pleasures in life, and don’t give up on what you believe in. Don’t give up. Giving up is cowardly. “The real courage is in living and suffering for what you believe” (Christopher Paolini, Eragon). I stumbled upon that quote just today, and its significance to me is tremendous. Even if it is that you believe you can’t get through it, never give up. With my life and my story I intend to spend every second I have working on achieving my dream of happiness. Isn’t it crazy though, crazy that I have to go through all that just to know something that should be common sense?