In The beginning...

I love how AP and SW and all these lovely websited are interconnected. Why bother getting yourself a twitter or xanga or blog or whatever when all the outlets you need are right here.
Allow me to introduce myself.
My name is Elise &%#%&*#$^^. That means I don't want to give my last name. I am 17 years old and live in a state in the US. That means I don't want to reveal my location.
I figured since no one I know uses Journal I might as well express my whole self to get it out of the way, and not just describe the self that everyone sees.
I have a history of mental illness and self injury. I have been working through my ailments through therapy and plenty of medications. That doesn't mean that I am emo or goth or whatever people say. It means that I was born less-than-perfect, but still have human dignity. My mother is manic-depressive with bipolar tendancies, and living under her roof has been quite a struggle. That means that I have had to distance myself from her so she can't break me, for I am fragile and easily shattered. My father is a neat freak and often out of the loop when it comes to my health. He is what is called an "enabler", meaning that many of the times my mother enters an "episode", he often backs down, leaving the alpha female (in this case, my mother) to destroy everything in her path literally, physically, mentally and emotionally. Despite this, he is often gentle and less violent than my mother. My bother lives in South Korea and has interited my mother's temper and my father's cleanliness, however; he acts just like a big brother should. Finally, I have an identical twin sister who shares the burden of mental illness with me. She is my best friend. She often recieves the bulk of my mother's abuse because she is also bipolar. This means that when those two forces (in this case, my mohter and sister) collide, an explosion of hateful words and belittlement on both sides occur.
Now that I have gotten through with my family, I am coming back to myself.
I enjoy reading, writing, and sleeping, cheifly. My other interests include art, Japanese culture, movies, TV, urban ledgens, music (mostly alternative, rock and some hardcore) the Occoult (to study, not practice), the supernatural, and independence. I am a practicing Christian, though I was born Catholic. At the curch I used to attend as a child, several priests were areseted for stealing money from the donation box, sleeping with prostiutes, and child molestation. I was inadvertently involved with those 2 priests because one married my parents and the other presided when I recieved my first communion. The reason I don't consider myself Roman Catholic is because I am slightly liberal in my religious beliefs and find the rules of Catholicism to be constricting and stale. Nevertheless, my belief in God and my faith are of utmost priority in life - they get me through the times when I feel most alone and abused.
I participate in many activities in my school. I maintain a solid 3.6 average and have enrolled in Hornors and Advanced Placement courses and I enjoy pushing and challenging myself to reach higher and higher in the course of my life in every aspect. I have many friends at my school and I am very happy there.
That wasn't the case in grammar school. There, I was mercilessly bullied and teased. I had terrible corrdination, no skill in sports, and a severly introverted demeanor. I am still introverted to this day, but not as much I was was in grammar school. I went to a Catholic grammar school in an upper middle class neighborhood with many of its students financially endowed. This means that in the eyes of my classmates, I was an outcast. The memories of the grammar school days are located in a box in my brain that I try not to uncover in thought or conversation.
Going back further, I used to live in a bad neighborhood. the neighbors next door were drug dealers and suppliers of both drugs and alcohol to underaged residents. I could never play outside alone due to the dealings that went down on my street. I lived by a cemetary, which was my only safe refuge, and I would take my bike there and spend the afternoon with my sister and father. My father would often play with my sister and I in the alley behind my house, which was located nest to the train tracks. I have fond memories of playing with my father when I was young. He would always let my sister and I win at every game, and he was very involved in teaching us various sports, which of course I never did well in. I used to have lovely neighbors behind my house, but they moved to Arkansas and I still keep in touch. In addition, my backyard contained a rather large swimming pool which I enjoyed very much. My room was woodpaneled, despite my efforts to corrdinate the color pink and my obsession with Barbie paraphernalia, which outgre my Barney and friends fad. I also went to a Catholic school in my old hometown, the one that contained the corrupt priests. The school there was nice and I had little friends like litte kids do. This was back in the time childhood when everyone was your friend.
Nowadays I spend my time dreaming of a future of endless possibilities and forgetting a past which left me emotionally scarred.
Thanks for reading. Ignore the misspellings please, for it is late and I am sick.