Among the entries of the main journal, “another”, every so often there’s a snapshot of normal life, seen happening to other people.
At 1900 (7), KJ, my younger brother by a year (making him 16), comes on the computer to chat, read up stuff about WWE, and play various games. He comes off anywhere between 9pm and 2230.
I found that Charlie has OCD and ADD, and we laughed a lot about fading out of people’s words, just before the actual bell for “lunch”.
Reading these, especially that last one, hit something home for me: What I was going through was not ordinary. Other people didn’t go through a slow decline of their self-esteem. Their world view didn’t become more and more toxic as time went on. They didn’t have the issues I had. They weren’t experiencing abuse.