@Autumn - I loved reading your post. I had to come back a few days later and read it again. You clearly have gone through a lot in your life and I am glad to see you are a stronger and more confident person for the experience. We all get swept up in our emotions at times and I think it is great to be able to vent. You were kind of strong but personally I think that is okay. You are who you are and you should be able to express yourself. The people who respect you will understand and the rest don't matter.
Remember the quote: Never apologize. Your friends don't need it and your enemies don't care.
I don't take that quote completely literally but there is an important message in it. You are amazing and an inspiration.
@ Traci - I kind of understand where you are coming from but I think there is more to it. You are probably right that the people who need to read it won't and even if they did they won't change. But on the other hand I personally think that even it does not make a difference to them it is healing to be able to put your feelings out there and be able to shout out what you really feel and are dying to say. You will piss off some people and you will attract some. The people you annoy are the ones you clearly would never have liked and you saved yourself some time in repelling them early. The ones you attract are the ones who were always likely to like you but never might have if you didn't open up your mouth and show yourself for who you are. I believe that in some zen way life has a way of healing itself as long as you are open and honest to yourself and about yourself. I am a lot older than either of you and looking back on my life I find that I always eventually regretted putting out a false or partial image of myself because "that is what was expected". Any gain I made was temporary and any loss I made was deep and lasting.
I will admit that in Autumns position I probably would not have written what she did. But that mostly reflects my lack of courage rather than any fault on her part. And it is hard to criticize someone for being braver than myself - especially when what they say really rings true. Autumn has spoken out not only for herself but also everyone else who really feels like those things need to be said but never had the courage to do so themselves. Courage isn't for everyone but those who do have it make the world a better place for everyone else. Which is just the way I feel about the armed forces.
Thats all for now, I don't want to compete with Autumn for the length of my post. But it definitely is less colorful...
