If you've read the previous four chapters, please read all of this as well :) It's mostly an author's note, but there is a small section of a story in there as well. :)

Wow. Just wow. It's been almost a year since I posted the first chapter of this. It's amazing how much a single person can change in a year's time, agreed? I think so. I mean, I went from innocent little 15 year old girl who was still trying to deal with the shitty emotional wreck left behind by her step-mother, to an almost 17 year old young woman who's still trying to untangle the emotional knot left behind by 11 years of abuse

….

Okay, I take it back, people don't change that much in a year ^.^

But seriously, I was surprised by a lot of things when I went back and read through this story, not only by the immaturity of my author's notes, but to the writing itself, which isn't good, in all reality, and truly doesn't show as much emotion and horror that surrounds a child abuse victim. I've noticed that people don't see how much it affects the psyche of a child to be told from the age of three that your not able to love, or that everything bad is your fault. Being hit for no reason as well seems to bypass witnesses of abuse victims. They think, "yeah, the child got hit. It's bad, sure, the child is hurt," but they don't seem to realize how long it will stay with a person, child or not.

I didn't even realize this until it's been a little over two years since I screamed bloody murder at my step-mom and ran away from her house, never to talk to her again. See, yeah. Once or twice on the street while she was in her car, but the last words I said to her were, "No! I don't want to hear you telling me I'm a horrible person! I'm not!"

I was such an adorable 14 year old, don't you agree?

Anyway, that's not the point. See, even as an abuse victim, I didn't see half of my own physical reactions, and I didn't know a lot of things about depression and what not until after I tried to kill myself with sleeping pills and ended up in a mental hospital for Thanksgiving -.- Fun week...

And the thing is, most people don't know. They see what's on the outside, the people's shell, and they think that's what goes on in their head. So I figured, why not use this as an excuse to explain a few things, as well as show through some good old fashioned rewriting the story. In a different way, of course.

But first, a part of the story that's very important; PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Now, I know what you're thinking, "PTSD? Isn't that some disorder people in the military get?" You would be correct. Kinda. Anyone can get PTSD after a very traumatic experience, whether it be a car crash, a death of a family member, abuse, war, etc. When you have PTSD, you tend to be hypersensitive to things like sound, touch, words, and even people. A lot of times you have anxiety and depression, nightmares about what happened, constant. For me, this comes out in my shaking. I shake all the time, sometimes uncontrollably, others as if I'm having a sugar rush. It also shows every time I flinch. If someone comes near me, if I hear a loud noise, an item comes near me, someone raises their voice, I flinch as if I'm going to be hit. I know they won't hurt me, and that nothing bad's going to happen, but I still think it will.

Mikan doesn't have this so much in this story because she's in the middle of her abusive situation, but another character does; Yuka, Mikan's mother.

Particularly in Crazyanimelover's fic, but even in mine, Yuka is made out to be a villain, a person who you can't feel sorry for, but that's because it was from Mikan's POV. I think it would be interesting to see this story written from Yuka's POV. She's suffered as well; her husband was killed right before her eyes as he tried to save her child. If that's not traumatic, I don't know what is. So the first scene I'm going to write is from Yuka's POV. Surprising, I know. But it may show a bit of her psyche, and help people realize; mother's don't hurt their children for no reason.

"Why would you hit Mikan?"

My brain consisted of nothing but scattered thoughts when my therapist asked me this, but the question brought me back to reality, drawing my attention away from the fluttering birds outside the window. No matter how wonderful their chirps sounded to my ears, and their colorful feathers appeared to my eyes, the question seemed overpowering, deadly, almost.

"Why would you hit Mikan?"

A good question. Why would I hit my own daughter, my flesh and blood, my baby girl. She did nothing wrong. Never. Perfect grades, didn't raise her voice against me, kept the house clean, cooked meals... the daughter all of my "friends" wanted.

"Yuka?"

Slowly, my eyes traveled to my therapist. Tired eyes. Just moving them made me feel as though liquid lead covered the lids. Liquid lead... lids... Those words tugged forward a memory I tried to forget a long time ago. Forcing Mikan to sit in a room with walls freshly painted, next to the can lacking it's lid. I stood by the window and watched her attempt to cover her nose with her ragged pink dress. It made me sick to my stomach just thinking about it.

"How could I have done that to her?" I whispered, curling my legs to my chest, a single tear threatening to form in my eye.

"What did you say?" My therapist leaned forward eagerly, her hand shaking almost excitedly at my revelation. No doubt she heard what I said; I didn't feel like repeating myself.

"I miss the outdoors," I said, though the lie seemed quite obvious, even to me. It sounded nothing like what I muttered before. The therapist let out a sigh and leaned back against her chair.

"Yuka, you know that you'll never get out of here if you don't cooperate with us," she warned, "I know you want to leave here; all of our patients do, but you're going to have to talk to us about what you did to your daughter. It's why you're in here, after all." Ah yes, why they placed me in a mental hospital. A place for crazy people. I guess that makes me crazy.

A sudden movement outside caught my eye; a young couple, walking through the park with laughter showing in every way possible. It reminded me of home. Of happiness. Of him.

"I still dream about him you know." Despite my shaking voice, I didn't miss a beat. After all, I just told this story yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that; every day since coming to this clinic. "The dream starts out nice. We're on a date, before Mikan was born, eating ice cream together, laughing, having fun. Then she's there, cradled in his arm, asleep. I'm jealous. He's different with her than he is with me, but jealous of my own baby? That's not fair to the child." I laughed at this point, giggling like a mad woman, and the story changed slightly, "The rest of the dream makes me angry. She's older now, five, and wanting ice cream. I want to scream at her that ice cream is what adults eat, and that only he and I can eat it; it's special to us. But that would upset him.

"So instead I let her hand go. On purpose. I let it go on purpose you know. But I didn't know she would run off after the truck. I didn't know she was going to be so stupid and run into the street! Then there's blood. Blood. Blood, blood! Everywhere I look there's blood, and he's laying on the ground, drenched in it. I want to scream. Oh how I want to scream, but Mikan's hands are at my throat, and she's smiling. She wants me dead! I know she wants me dead! How can she not want me dead?"

The therapist wanted to know why I hit Mikan? To protect myself! If I didn't do it, she would kill me. Just like she did to him.

As they dragged me out of the room, screaming, kicking, sobbing, I managed to add, "She killed him! She killed my love! She's not my baby, not my daughter! She... she... she killed him!"

Even to this day, I don't believe it.

Eerie, isn't it.

So, starting in a few days, I'm going to be rewriting this story, not for you guys, but for me. You can read it if you want, review if you please, but just know; I'm doing this as a kind of closure for myself, but it's a fanfic that's going to help me with my writing style. So, please enjoy (if you read), and I hope you guys will see some insight to the world of abuse.