[josscrowcroft]

From the comments here I suspect that not many read to the end, and so may have judged the story before reading these closing words:

"Publishing this was hard but it felt like my only option. For years I have not been living my life, I have been delaying it. Five years ago I paused my life and now it's time to choose between play or stop. I'm pressing play. The world pushed me and instead of pushing back I hid, now I'm pushing back. I'm determined to be myself no matter the consequences.

I know that facing what I am and facing the world is really going to hurt, but I now know that I can survive it. I know that eventually all pain fades away and you're left with only scars. I know that no matter how shitty my emotions tell me things are, that it's not actually that bad. I'll come out the other side no matter what. I'm going to step once more into the fray, come whatever may.

[...]

For now, I'm going to;

Get Out.

Live.

Grow.

Change.

Fight The Urge To Fade."

[argonaut]

I thought that the ending actually ruined the essay. It felt like an anomaly, a self-contradiction. His entire life story is one of how it has always been impossible to reprogram who he is, and here he is, at the end, declaring how he's going to "fight the urge to fade," and change himself, trying to change himself into something that is very clearly antithetical to who he is at every level of his personality.

[omegant]

If eventually he is able to simply live and forget about how attack life, he´ll do nicely. If he obsesses about how he is struggling and how he is not fitting.. he may end in an infinite loop and going nowhere. I hope he succeeds.