Dear Neal

Please know that you help me through a lot of dark days. You help me make it through when I don't know how many other options I have left. When I think that no one cares anymore and I don't have any more talent, I can post and get so much positive reviews and reviews giving good advice.

I am not a teenager any more. I've been through many hells in my mind and am proud to say that at 44 I'm still here baby! I write slash because of friends and relatives who are gay, or bisexual. I write that somewhere possibly teenagers or others can read and realize that people who are sexually different are not freaks or geeks. I think it is very sad that this show has at least one star who is an acknowledged homosexual and yet there are people that read it and condemn the open acceptance of slash. I write hurt comfort and I read it because sometimes my mind is not in a very happy place. I get depressed and have suicidal thoughts or I have thoughts of self harm. I have had three stints of inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations and writing fan fiction has stopped many more. Myself and other writers sometimes use writing as therapy, as a healthier alternative then acting on these thoughts against our selves. My therapist told me to write, that there were more people that understood then as didn't. I understand your suicidal thoughts. I felt the same way after losing my mother. I felt the same pain people write on for your and Kate with having my father die in front of me and even though performing CPR being unable to save his life. It is the worst psychological hell you can be in to see someone you love die in front of you and not be able to stop it and never believing inside there really was nothing that you can do. I've seen people in a 'straight jacket' and you are not written anywhere as being ready for a straight jacket. Ultracape has done some awesome stories dealing with the psychological effects on you as has J3nnee and none of them have put you in an unrecoverable state or in intensive psychiatric hospitalization, nor do they portray you as a child. You would be proud of the work of these writers.

I hope Neal, you and Peter are 'whumped' because we have just as much affection for you as the people who write parodys and roast us over hot coals in the name of 'fun and humor". Hurt/Comfort is a long established tradition in fan fiction. It is what fan fiction was built on. I don't know why those that don't like it can't just hit the skip button and not read it, rather then attacking. I don't see why everyone can't just get along. It really hurts deep inside. It makes me question myself as a writer. I feel I belong, but then "Sincerely Neal" comes along and I doubt myself.

Please Neal and Peter, continue to be all muses to all people, regardless of the type of story. Please use your supernatural appeal to keep this fandom open and welcoming for all. Please let us all grow as readers and writers to respect each other and value each other as having an equal right to post and to be read.

A Frustrated, Hurt, and Angry Hurt/Comfort Writer