Alright, I guess I should post my obligatory post here. Prepare for a novel. Composing in the posting.php box because I'm a daredevil like that.
I'll open with... grew up in rural Ohio, physically isolated from a lot of stuff. Parents raised goats, which cost them a lot of money to do (and my mom was an animal hoarder, making things worse).
I became a hopeless nerd at 3 (that's not a bad thing).
They knew I had problems in kindergarten though, so I got Clonidine shoved down my throat to try to act as a sedative. Didn't work. Or, rather, when I was 5, I had two speeds: yes, and no, and when my speed was no, I was a grumpy motherfucker, worse than when I was at yes speed. I was diagnosed with ADHD-like symptoms, and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Eventually, I was branded Severe Behavior Handicapped.
I recall going to first grade for only a short time, and then getting sent to preschool (but doing first grade level work).
Second grade, I went to for 50 days, then was sent to a public special ed school the next county over. Everyone there was in it for the paycheck, and was a bunch of inbred rednecks. You know it's bad when a second grader is teaching the teachers English.
Third grade, my school district sent me to a private school that had just started specializing in behavior handicaps (branching out from learning disabilities). I ended up staying there through high school.
I think I first started having feelings of worthlessness when I was 10 or 11, and suicidal ideations around that time, too.
Family life was... not great. Especially through my teenage years.
In middle school, I discovered girls. Problem is, a school that specializes in behavior handicaps... the threshold for a girl to get that label is much higher. Upshot is, heavy-duty mental health issues with the few girls there. And, many also had learning disabilities, which I definitely didn't have (I was academically advanced), which made things difficult for me, eventually wanting someone who was an equal intellectually. Speaking of which, my freshman year of high school, I started taking college classes. The funny thing is, because so many of the students around me were (in some cases massively) learning disabled, I didn't really feel that smart. I was surrounded by morons (OK, that's not nice), so I didn't have a perspective of what normal was.
Didn't take long for me to get a massive fear of rejection built up. Even when one girl was practically trying to jump me in class, I was too afraid of rejection. It didn't help that one girl actively decided to try to get me to commit suicide, because she disliked me that much (she was crazy, we'll just leave it at that). It almost worked, too (but everything was timed such that I couldn't even get started on an attempt).
Not long after that (when I was 16), things came to a head with my family life. My dad snapped on me violently, and my mom kicked him out. (Since then, amends have been made, it's all good now.) Overall, this was good, although my mom had severe depression (suicidal ideations and all), combined with compulsive hoarding, and those ran even more unchecked than before, and I had to deal with all that. (I inherited it to an extent, too. And my dad's short fuse to an extent.)
A few other notes before I continue... school life wasn't horrible, there were bullies (and in elementary and middle school, I was fat, and I wear glasses (I was the smart-ass that pointed out that "I have bifocals, so it's not four-eyes, dumbass, it's six-eyes" - I blame my mom's love of horrible puns for that one), but not as bad as many people had it, and by the time I made it to high school, the social structure was such that I wasn't at the top of the social structure, but got along with most everyone. (Because of all the learning disabled students, those that actually understood the school work were usually at least tolerated by those at the lower tiers. The top tier was the kids that played D&D and Magic. Bottom tier was the students that were... well... not really able to function by themselves, next level up was the jocks. I shit you not.) Oh, and regarding physical disabilities, this school was not at all set up to handle them. The only one I saw that would be like what was in Yamaku was epilepsy.
Anyway, after the crazy one tried to get me to suicide, the daughter of my math teacher and the school's executive director was assigned to drive me to work. We became fast friends, but somehow, I didn't fall for her. It was just... easy... to be around her. I was still moping over the crazy one, though... and she took it on herself to get me out of that particular depression. Which was... surprisingly successful. Once that was out of the way, THEN I fell for her. (Didn't hurt that she was quite easy on the eyes.) Problem is, she was seeing someone.
At the same time, my math teacher became the head of IT, and they ended up hiring me (this was my senior year) as the actual tech that would be doing everything hands on for all of the computers in the school.
Right now, I'm going to link to a Hanako POV Hanako x OC fanfic I wrote the other day, rather than rewrite things AGAIN:
http://ks.renai.us/viewtopic.php?p=182584#p182584
So, I wrote that fic as a self-insert... but I self-inserted as Hanako, not the OC.
I'll go ahead and quote what I posted in that thread.
bhtooefr wrote:I didn't say that there wasn't a self-insert, or that Satoru Mutou wasn't an insert, just that he wasn't a self-insert. I wrote Hanako as a self-insert (well, gender-flipped to fit the character, and I added some of her specific anxieties, and removed my suicidal ideations, and left out some of the wangst).
Lilly was inserted as a pastiche of my friends that were mainly on IRC, back then. And, it was more like Monty Python YouTube clips, not DVDs, but DVDs would be more Lilly's style.
Satoru was a gender-flipped version of a former love interest of mine. (For a mental image... Her personality was like... Akira (complete with resentment of Catholic parents), with a shot of drunk!Hanako, and a small sprinkling of Rin. And she was built like Emi. Green eyes, too.)
I left quite a bit out about her career (by the end, she was actually one of the accountants, and no longer the librarian), though, because it frankly would've been harder to believe. The suspiciously specific car model in the driving scenes... yep, she had a grey Mazda3, and yes, I drove it (and got my license in it) before her boyfriend did. And, her father was the main science/math teacher (and head of IT, which I left out - in other words, Mutou would've been Hanako's boss, too, if I expanded on that). And, her mother was the director of the whole school. Basically, the two people I reported to were her parents. Yes, I was colossally stupid.
Speaking of which, Hanako's career didn't start
exactly like mine, but I had to make her getting hired believable, and felt that Mutou would be the best way to do it.
And, the school in question was a private school that specialized in learning disabilities, behavioral handicaps, and mental health.
It wasn't as nice as Yamaku. (And, wasn't a boarding school.) But, still was a helpful school for me. I was diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and "ADHD-like symptoms" when I was 7, and labeled as Severe Behavior Handicapped, so that's why I was sent there. Closest thing I've got to a physical disability is a lazy right eye, so I'm about 20/120 in that eye. (IIRC, Hanako is sometimes portrayed as having reduced vision in her right eye (due to fire damage, not genetics like in my case), so I have that in common with her. No scarring other than a scar on my palm, though.) 20/15 in the left, though, so it all balances out.
Basically, this was a few experiments. I wanted to see if I could get through writing that without triggering the old suicidal ideations or any other bad feelings, and passed with flying colors. Looks like 5 years has done me good. And, I wanted to see if I could write a good Hanako. I'm assuming from the lack of comments along the lines of "yuo wrote mai waifu OOC", and the speculation about how the story continues, that I at least didn't butcher it too badly. Which is interesting, that I can tweak my own experiences and make a believable Hanako.
And, yes, I hate kids. Not as much as Hanako would, though, as she has specific grievances against them, whereas my grievances are more general.
I really did leave quite a bit out, because it didn't fit Hanako's character, or would be too hard to explain in the story. (She was the librarian, volleyball coach, and gofer at first... and then she swapped the gofer and librarian roles for being the accountant. Nepotism yay!)
Most of my "friends" were slowly deserting me because they couldn't deal with my issues. They never completely abandoned me, but when all I could talk about was my wangst about this woman... yeah. I got banned from a forum or two and an IRC channel or two, tried to build new social circles, never really fit into some of them, fit into some well. Managed to rebuild most of the bridges that were burned by my wangst, though, after I got over her.
I also might not have gotten across that she was kinda my Lilly (with me being in the Hanako position, not the Hisao position), despite that not really being in her personality. Yeah, that relationship wasn't healthy. It was quite deep, though - she's the closest friend I've ever had, and I regret being unable to control my feelings and losing that. (It's in my past, though, and I definitely want it to remain in my past.) And, I didn't resent her treatment of me, even though at the end I realized it was horribly unhealthy (that's something I could've played with in the fic, with Hanako actually resenting it).
And because it wasn't in Hanako's character, I left out the suicidal ideations entirely. What I didn't mention was, when "Hanako" decided that "she" needed to leave "Yamaku", I was || close to killing myself. Couldn't go through with it. Ended up getting into counseling the next week, and got diagnosed with situational depression. To their credit, they actually gave me the job back for a couple months (it was a VERY rash decision) while I cleaned everything up and tried looking for a job. That also meant that I was laid off (they redefined my position's role to something I wasn't qualified for, officially), not quit, so I was eligible for unemployment.
And I might've actually gotten Hanako's condition over the top with the whole stuttering like crazy confession scene and totally butchering the confession, but that scene is almost verbatim with my memories of what actually happened. Canon Hanako is actually far LESS anxious than I am about relationships. (Then again, I can reliably function without having a panic attack in most non-relationship contexts.)
It took me basically a year to get over her, though, including an episode that caused the cops to come and threaten to arrest me if they didn't take me to the ER, cost me $50 when I was unemployed, the fuckers. I took a couple odd jobs in that year, but mainly ran on savings then unemployment. There were times where I wouldn't actually talk to anyone but basic greetings and the monthly appointments with my shrink, for months at a time.
Ended up meeting someone online, traveled across the country via Greyhound (ugh, NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN) to see her, nothing happened (that's one thing, my fear of rejection means that women lose interest and are sometimes creeped out by me before I can take the many months to work up to a confession), and eventually lost that connection mostly. Met someone else online, she in a roundabout way rejected me (to her credit, before I could admit any interest), and ended up backing away from me.
Got steady employment, pays the bills. Managed to numb myself to the whole loneliness thing - honestly, feeling the pain and rejection I've felt before, I'd rather be lonely than have that happen again. I won't say that I'm happy, but I'm not really sad. Either that, or I hit the Allie Brosh
I FEEL NOTHING stage of depression - I've certainly got other signs of depression, like a lack of motivation to do a lot of things, plus the whole severe anxiety issues thing. I should probably see a shrink about that, and maybe be open to medication this time around, but the problem is finding the motivation to do that.
One weird thing I noticed, and this was actually before I fully dulled myself... my mom passed away almost 3 years ago, and I felt a lot less about it than I thought I would. Then again, I was kinda expecting her to suicide randomly. What actually did it was, not making it to 60 due to heart failure runs in that side of my family. And, remember, grew up with an animal hoard... when you grow up around livestock, death is just something that happens, and you don't have time to mourn it much (well, my mom did, but she always insisted on doing things the hard way).
And then I found Katawa Shoujo.
Between Hanako and Emi's routes, all of that shit got ripped right back to the surface. That was fucking painful. I lost tons of sleep over it all, too. But, time had healed a lot of the wounds. And, something compelled me to start writing fanfic. But, I was terrified of writing Hanako POV, fearing it'd put me in the state of mind that led me closest to suicide... so I decided to go Rambo and confront my emotions straight on. That's what resulted in that "Hanako" fic that was really about me. I actually managed to recall all of those memories without feeling any kind of deep sorrow like I had before.
tl;dr: Grew up relatively poor with crazy parents, got the crazy, became quite nerdy as a toddler, got sent to special schools early on, was apparently smarter than average, found one that worked but was nearly a sausagefest with just a few crazy girls, developed a fear of rejection, fear of rejection caused me to miss the few opportunities I had, had a catastrophic failure with someone, hit rock bottom, came back up, found Katawa Shoujo, all of the feels, wrote a fanfic intentionally trying to trigger the worst reactions in myself that I could just to see if I could, no such reaction
