Dear Journal,

          God, this is so stupid. Well, let me start off by saying that my name is Kurt Hummel. I am from Lima, Ohio. I am 17 years old. I really don’t want to be doing this but my therapist said it was a good idea to keep a journal jotting down my good times and bad times. I’ve never really done this stuff before. I don’t really see how talking to myself through a piece of paper will make me feel better. However, for the sake of my dad not worrying about me as much….I will see how this works out for me. At this point I’m willing to try anything that could possibly make me feel better.

          Maybe I should tell you my main problem: my sexuality. I’m gay. I really hope you aren’t a homophobic journal. But in this town I really wouldn’t be surprised if inanimate objects were just as homophobic as some of the assholes in school. Growing up I’ve always been made fun of. You see, I’ve never really liked what normal guys like. I HATE SPORTS!!! I don’t think about sleeping girls all the time….boys are a different story. I like boys. I’ve always liked boys. I’ve liked boys since I was 6 years old watching “Dirty Dancing” and promising myself that Patrick Swayze and I would be married someday. (R.I.P. my love!!!!) Don’t get me wrong, girls are great! Sharing gossip with girls is basically what I live for. I just can’t find myself attracted to any of them. I wish I could just be normal and like girls…..it’s hard living a life when you hate yourself so damn much.

          My dad found out I was gay when he accidently walked in on me staring at shirtless guys on the computer. I couldn’t think of an excuse quickly on my feet so, I just told him the truth. He wasn’t surprised at all. SHOCKER! (Can you hear my sarcasm?) I’m way too flamboyant for a boy. I like doing moisturizer routines, okay? I like wearing nice clothes. I didn’t know that was a sin. Apparently, in my dad’s eyes it is. He didn’t deal with it very well at first, despite always knowing. I guess hearing me actually saying that I was gay sort of surprised him. He changed around me. He looked at me as if he never knew what to say to me. That’s alright. I’m used to people looking at me like I’m not even a human. Regardless, he still loved me and he still wanted me to be happy. I can’t blame him for not knowing how to act around me. I don’t even know who I am anymore sometimes.

          The day dad realized that he needed to be there for me no matter what was the day he found me unconscious on the bathroom floor after having taken a ton of pills….I tried to kill myself. I’ll get to why a little bit later. But long story short, he called 911, they came, got me to the hospital, and flushed out my system before the medication could do some real damage to me. I was so angry he saved me….I just wanted everything to be done. I was done with everything. I still am sometimes…..but seeing the hurt in his eyes once I woke up….it broke my heart. I just wasn’t used to people caring for me, you know? That’s when I promised him I’d do anything I possibly could to get better and that I’d try to find ways to be happy.

          You’re probably wondering why I tried to kill myself, aren’t you? Well, you are my journal and it doesn’t matter what you want to know or not; I am going to tell you anyways! It all started freshman year. The bullying got a lot worse during high school. God, I sound like a cliché gay guy. I guess I sort of am, aren’t I? Pathetic little faggot being bullied by the jocks? Being thrown into dumpsters? Thrown against lockers? Being raped by the most popular jock in school? Yeah, that isn’t very stereotypical. David Karofsky. The shittiest excuse of a human being you’ll ever meet. He’s the most popular guy at school, which I don’t understand, considering he treats everybody like crap. He started bullying me my freshman year. He was a sophomore. It’s been going on up until this year (I’m a junior now) when he decided to kick it up a notch….he…pulled me into a janitors closet one day when I was leaving glee club late and he…kissed me. It wasn’t some chaste kiss either. It was a full blown make out type of kiss and he kept trying to get closer to me and I tried to get away but he was so damn strong. I went home and threw up multiple times in the toilet. I didn’t go to school the next day because I was so scared. I eventually had to go back to school the next week and it happened again…but it kept getting worse….it happened all the time but he got more and more sexual each time. Eventually he had his dick up my ass without even prepping me right. I felt like I was being torn apart from the inside out. When he was finished with me (he didn’t even use a condom!!!) he spat at me and walked out of the closet. That’s when I lost all feeling of self worth. That’s when I knew that I was a piece of shit and that I had no reason to even be around anymore.

          I started cutting. I would cut everywhere. My arms, my thighs, even my neck has scars on it. Nobody ever noticed because I wear so many layers. Then, one day this boy in glee club with me named Blaine was helping me stack song books on the shelf when my sleeve slid up on my arm, revealing some of my cuts. He looked at me as if he had just seen a ghost. He asked me if we could get coffee after school, which I agreed to. I was kind of glad having somebody to walk with so that Karofsky couldn’t come out of nowhere, you know? I honestly have no clue why Blaine even gave a damn about me….we have never even talked before. Yet, he still had me tell him what was going on. I don’t know why but I felt as though I could open up to the boy. I told him everything. Every single thing Karofsky had done to me. We ended up going back to his car because I didn’t want to have a breakdown in the coffee shop. He held my hand the entire way through as I told the story.

          Blaine told me that I needed to tell somebody and that I was too beautiful for something like that to happen to me. I was taken back by the sincerity that I saw in his eyes. Nobody had ever told me anything flattering before in my entire life. It was the first time I felt like maybe things would be okay. Blaine and I have been best friends ever since. We get coffee all the time. Karofsky can never get to me because I am always driving home with Blaine after school now. He listens to me talk about the latest fashion and I listen to him talk about his dates with his boyfriend Sebastian. It’s nice having a gay friend to talk to. I mean, my glee friends are all nice company but he is the only person that sort of understands. He used to be bullied, too. Not to my extent but he got beat up once, which I hate imagining Blaine beat up….hes way too special for that.

          Anyways, one day I decided to finally tell somebody about what Karofsky did to me. Blaine went with me when I went to principal Figgins. I told him that Karofsky had kissed me and forced it on me. I didn’t tell him about the rape. I’ll never be able to tell anybody else that….some things are just better left unsaid. The next day my dad, David’s dad, David, and I had a meeting with Figgins in his office. Long story short, Karofsky got expelled and I was finally feeling safe.

          I should have known it was too good to be true. Two weeks later I got notice that David was coming back to school…that they couldn’t legally expel him because there wasn’t actual evidence that he had done anything wrong to me….it was just my word against his. That’s when I just sort of stopped for a second and evaluated my life. And to be honest…I didn’t want to live it anymore. So, I went home, grabbed some of my dad’s sleeping pills, and took them. I can’t even remember how many there were. I just remember laying down and slowly losing myself. The next thing I remember was waking up in a hospital with an IV in my arm. Apparently it was pumping vitamins in me so that my body could get strong again. I honestly felt like shit.

          As soon as I woke up, my dad started crying. Then he started yelling. He yelled at me so much about how much I had hurt him. I didn’t even notice Blaine was in the room until he tried calming my dad down. I guess Blaine was the one that told my dad he thought something was wrong when I didn’t go home with him after glee. I also missed about 12 calls from him. At this point I was still just pissed off that I had woken up. I didn’t want to wake up. I wanted to be dead.

          Things finally started getting better after a couple of days in the hospital. Dad told me that I would be homeschooled and that I would never have to see Karofsky again at that damn school. Blaine came every day. God, he’s such a nice guy. What I liked about him visiting was that he didn’t push me to talk about any of the heavy stuff. We just talked about the same stuff as usual. He even brought me the newest issue of Vogue. I asked him a lot about himself and Sebastian. It was a good distraction. He seemed like he really liked Sebastian. Sebastian was undoubtedly attractive and he treated Blaine well. He still does. They’ll probably end up getting married or something. That’s good. I really want Blaine to be happy.

          My body started getting stronger and I was eventually was able to go home as long as I was kept under close care. Once you try killing yourself once, everybody just surrounds you and doesn’t even give you room to breathe. I completely understand why. It just would have been a lot easier if they had let me just die. I started seeing a therapist a few days after I got home. She’s really nice. Her name is Dr. Pillsbury. She told me that it’s natural to feel resentful toward the people who didn’t let you die, but that I need to accept the fact that I was saved for a reason. Now, I don’t really know about that. I don’t see a lot of good things in my life. Blaine. That’s it. Nobody else cares about me. None of the glee kids even visited me once when I was in the hospital. They haven’t visited me since ive gotten home either. That’s alright. I’m not really worth visiting anyways.

          So, this is where I am now. Dr. Pillsbury requested that I make a journal and share my story. Jot down the good and the bad so that I could go back through it later and see how “strong” I am for overcoming all of my obstacles. I don’t really see how this is going to help me honestly. I just need to find something that can help me…that can help me maybe understand why I was saved and why I hadn’t just died. If there is such thing as fate, I’d like to know what my fate is, and if this journal is going to help me, then I’ll take a shot at it.

Sincerely,

Kurt Hummel