Hi, I'm the founder of Literocity!

In late 2009, I founded a group that served as the predecessor to this forum. I fostered an incredible community that grew for two years. There were lots of active members that joined in on discussions, but older members started leaving soon after. Quite a few of them have stuck around till' this day, but since losing half my active community, I'd been troubled by the threat of the whole thing simply... disintegrating.

 I didn't have the time to do anything about it though, school was grinding hours away with homework, and family obligations only lessened time available. I got the stomach flu one day, though, and managed to roll out the forum you see before you in a day. That's not how, or why this community actually began, though.

The first thing I remember is waking up on colorful striped sheets. I knew it was my room, but I couldn't remember how I knew. I knew my family and my age, and the TV in the corner, and the train rug, and the dressers, and the routine, and everything... But I still didn't remember how I learned it all. It was the product of infantile amnesia, and it left me silent for two years.

To adequately describe how this all happened, I have to start with the beginning, with my father, because that's all he has now, my beginning. He met my mother in Kentucky, but they later moved and he worked as an airport operator, but I know little else about his past. He was an alcoholic and drove me to and from a bar when I was four. He'd give me some quarters and usher me away to a small arcade area tucked away in a corner. My mother knew about this and fought him over it when they shared custody of me. The police was called once, and I was given executive decision when my father objected to my mother taking me to her 'friends' house for a night. When I was five, my mother had won the custody battle that she incited and I only had to deal with my father on weekends. My mother had a short fuse(Still does) and barely any time to 'mom' me, but there was something my father was missing. Maybe it was love, maybe it was  a little bit of his humanity, or maybe it was freedom. We had a strict schedule in his house, and I couldn't step outside without a chaperon. He ended up retaking majority custody when he accused her of being an unfit parent. 

When I was six or seven, he began complaining about chronic headaches. He'd be brought to tears(and his knees) in fits of debilitating pain. Eventually he went to the hospital and got diagnosed with Leukemia. He consistently went to get chemo done, and we consistently accompanied him, even my mother supporting him in the end. When I asked if he was going to make it, there was no reassurance on his part, all he told me was that his illness was rare and he was special because of it. He lost his hair and entered remission a few months later, making a remarkable recovery. 

Still weak in more ways than one, he decided to go on vacation to Louisville to meet some family friends. They lived in a trailer, and they looked it. When we returned home, he got a severe cough and soon developed pneumonia, later falling into a three month coma. Two and a half months in, that brown haired, brown eyed eight year old told my mother the future "He's going to die, he's not going to make it" She gently denied it. He suffocated in our living room hooked to a respirator two weeks later, right next to our resident nurse.

At the funeral, I took more interest in the club sandwiches they had on a platter in a downstairs buffet than the rest of the event. I only gave the box that held my likeness a thoughtless glance. I didn't care, and quite frankly, I don't care now either. I mourned the calico cat we had to euthanize three years later, but not him, not it. People offered their empty regards. Distant relatives, friends of the family... They didn't know me, it was just a courtesy. It was expected, those actions are just invoked by death. You find their family and apologize for the greatest blessing that ever befell the son. His house was sold along with most of the contents, placed in a bank account I could only access at the age of 18, as detailed in his will. He ended up screwing us over beyond the grave, but it was better than the alternative.

My mother was living with a 'friend' of hers after her and my father divorced. I was five when she moved. He was Italian, and brutal at that, which is why we later moved out. He was a single father and had a daughter named Jenna, likely seven or eight years older than me. She had a portly figure, was ironically a competitive swimmer, and taught me how to blow my first bubble with Bubble Yum sitting in her car. 

The violence from her father wasn't subtle though, not even in the beginning. My brother had Dance Dance Revolution in the basement and he played it loud enough to hear on the first floor once. Suffice to say, he left the basement with bruises. As if that wasn't enough, he slammed my brother against a door when he intervened during a heated argument between him and my mother. He left cracks in the pantry. Once, when I was coming upstairs on a weekend, he held his hand out of Jenna's room off the balcony. I didn't notice in time and was grabbed, thrown onto the ground and screamed at for something. We left the house toting a raised middle finger, our clothes, and what furniture of ours we could salvage.

We moved to a ratty one story home and I began the process of elementary school hopping. The first switch was the worst. In third grade I was stuck in a classroom in what I likened to a basement at the time. We'd go down a hall dimly lit with bluish lamps to our classroom, which was the same situation. It smelled like a basement and didn't have any windows. The teacher wasn't much better, about as cold as the concrete outside the room. I'm not sure how long I stayed there learning nothing, but the next time I switched schools, I was completely unprepared for half the curriculum, which effectively butchered my performance in third grade. At some point I ended up back in my original elementary school.

Late 2007, I dealt with my first day of middle school. As first semester progressed, bullies took attention of the quiet kid that ate lunch alone and tried making friends with his teachers more than his peers. As it turns out, three of them lived on my street, and all of them lived in my neighborhood. I'd get jumped on a daily basis by one of the three, but I don't remember how the last one was a bully, all I know is that he was at the time.

His name was Ryan.

Ryan was what you'd expect from a bully, he was tall and menacing, and already had stubble in the 8th grade. He smelled reeked of tobacco, to boot. Thing is, he didn't smoke, I knew he didn't smoke. I found the source of the stench shortly before I left. His grandmother answered the door when we went to confront him... But she wasn't his grandmother, she just looked like it. She was his mother, but she was a chain smoker. The front door did little to contain the smoke that bellowed out like breath on a cold day even before it creaked open. The home was foreclosed on a few years later, and soon condemned. 

Against the advice of basically everyone I knew, I invited him to my going away party when my mother married and decided to move for me. It was symbolic, and maybe even poetic. I didn't expect anything from him except for a few missing slices of pizza, but he ended up thanking me for it... and apologizing. It felt really good to know he appreciated it, and even now I still feel like it was worth it.

That semester scarred me more than most of my academic life(But not permanently). I lost my ability to trust people but gained something valuable through my experiences later on. My new middle school was hell too, but I never got beaten up again. Instead it was verbal abuse. I could handle that, in fact, at this point I was versed in rhetorics. I could humiliate people with their own insults, but normally didn't care enough to. It was only around 9th grade that I realized I had a skill past my academic prowess. 

My suffering attuned such that I was sensitive to the pain of others. I was able to counsel people. I prevented a suicide and was even the reason for some of my newfound friends to stop cutting. I brought people out of depression, though occasionally ephemerally with about ten minutes of whittling, I haven't failed yet. I credit this ability to not only my choices during that first semester, but the person I forgave. 

In 10th grade, there was a bird incapacitated by hypothermia in our school's courtyard. While other people were poking it with sticks, I decided to intervene. I picked it up gently after it tried inching away, it didn't struggle after that. I didn't say a word. I just asked myself, why did they think that was OK? It was depraved. I was nearly in tears not because people were clearly disgusted by my holding it or the fact that essentially everyone who had lunch that period could see this apparent spectacle. I saw the sheer apathy of that crowd. I asked them how they'd feel as the bird dead still, and barely breathing in my hands.

I just cupped it in my chilled hands trying to warm it in front of a quarter of the school until one of the janitorial staff approached me and said she had birds at home and could help it. I didn't believe her, but I knew I couldn't do it myself. That was the first and last time I ever voluntarily met with the school psychologist, after washing my hands, of course. 

Now, I'm socially adept. I plan to enter the field of bioengineering, but still reserve my power of counselling. I enjoy many luxuries now and money is an abundant commodity. My mother is a Real Estate agent now and her income may surpass $100,000 this year. I look forward to school everyday because I know I have a future, a good sense of humor, and good friends to stand by me later on. This is probably the first year that I spent more time socializing than I have doing work at school. Luckily, I can keep up now.

And now someone with hope renders me speechless.
Bless you senpai.

Jesus, don't tell me you just read that whole thing. If you did, then only Taeron knows more about me than you do, at least on the internet. ; 3

I read the whole thing..quite a story you got there,rayblon. From what you previously told me, I knew bits and pieces compared to this post. How did you manage to go through all that and stay strong at the same time?

I'm not actually sure.

It may just be that I was desensitized to physical pain at a young age(My father always had a belt handy), and likened emotional pain to it. I didn't think as much when I was young.

About eight or nine years ago I picked out my cat, Sonny. When I saw that kitten in the shelter, I knew he was the one. Something I always forget is that he was orphaned at birth. I don't confide in him, but there's just something special between him and I(Don't get the wrong idea here). He helped, but I think it was books that were my saving grace. They were an escape. In the latter years, this book club helped.

My dad (and grandfather) is gentle,but firm. My siblings and I used to get the occasional spank and time-out. Never a belt/whip/etc. Currently,books are my escape. They always have been - but especially now.

You should tell the world of your struggle, we may be able to help. :3

I knew that was coming..

But I still know more than you.BAM

Srsly doe, I wanna help but u got to be comfortable with our community.

I-I b-bet that's wrong! I b-bet that i-is a f-f-form of seduction!

what in the actual heck..

Wow chuzzie. Wow.

I care about our crew, is that a crime bro?

Apparently.

You should make that thread though.

I did. Read it ;-; I was kinda hesitant to post it...