Oct.16.09~

Dear Diary~

It's me, your friend, Chloe Zade Greathouse, of West Virginia, writing. 

I'm afraid things aren't much better with the other kids teasing me.  They call me stupid or names like retarded, dummy, idiot, or worse.  It's enough to make me want to kill myself, but what good would that do??

It would be better than having to endure this stupid teasing, day in and day out!  There isn't hardly a day that goes by without one of the kids saying something mean to make me cry!  Oh, why can't Clark do anything to stop the bullies from teasing me, or at least, my teachers??  It's like most people don't even care!!

I can't help it that I can't walk and/or use a wheelchair or have trouble moving or speaking right!  I was born like this; do people think I look like this to get their sympathy?  Well, they're wrong; I wish they could live a day in my shoes; then they'd see just what it's like for me!!  Or for my friend, George!

I finally worked up the courage to ask George, the other kid who is in a wheelchair at my school, to be a friend.  He said yes!!  He has muscular dystrophy; his muscles have gotten weak, so he uses the chair to get around.  He said to me up until he was ten, he could walk on crutches for about five years; then he got worse, so he had to get a wheelchair instead.

I feel sad whenever I see George because his disease is the kind that doesn't get any better over time.  Instead, it gets worse.  It may end up killing him before he even graduates from high school or makes it to college.  He is hoping a cure will be found; so far that hasn't happened.

My sisters Abigayle and Erinn are not helping me any:  they keep winning awards in their sporting games, and my parents keep bragging about them.  Clark has won awards too for his speaking and writing talent; he's also a fine singer. 

What am I?  Chopped liver?? Don't I even matter in my own family??  Why don't I have any special talents?  I'm just a stupid kid in a wheelchair who can't do anything!!!!

It's bad enough I get teased by the kids at school:  do I have to be ignored at home too, by my very own family????

People don't think I have any feelings.  Well, I DO have feelings!  I see them imitating how I move or hear them imitating how I talk or hear them calling me those awful names!  How does it make me feel?  Like nobody even cares for me or wants to be around me because I'm not "like them"!  I come home from school every day in (or near) tears; I am sure my family is sick of hearing me complaining all the time about it!!

Well, what am I supposed to do??  Hold it in, so it eats me alive????

Well, I've made myself cry again, so I am going to go.  I don't know when I am going to write in here again, but I pray that things get better soon, or else I might have to do something drastic to stop this stupid teasing!!!!

Anything's got to be better than having to go through this day in and day out!!!!

~Love, your friend, Chloe Zade.  :(  *tears!*