Porcelain and PTSD

Two things I feel like talking about:

1. I have really, really smooth, white skin, and so when I get even the tiniest of blemishes I feel like they're HUGE and stress over them and touch them all the time. It's a serious problem. I literally have two teeny tiny red dots, not even pimples, one of my cheek and the other near my chin, and I keep flipping out because I know that they're there and I can't do anything about them. It's so sad. I even tried putting some hand sanitizer on them to dry them out. I doubt it'll work.

2. So, I'm looking at PTSD in Hurricane Katrina victims for my psychology paper. I feel like it's a good thing I'm not going into psychology anymore like I used to think about in Louisiana because I would just spend all of my time on PTSD and thinking about how it's almost exactly like my life. It's a problem. But with PTSD and thinking about it and everything, I'm getting little flashbacks all of the time of things that I just forgot or purposefully blocked out of my memory from that year or so after Katrina. Like I just recently remembered about how I had a stalker in the spring of freshmen year. I totally forgot about that until Julie kept reminding me how AC only shows up when I'm there, but I had a guy basically stalk me my freshman year and I'd forgotten until now because I was still in such a haze from Katrina. He came up to me while I was walking home from school and he asked me about my life and I told him I was new to Maryland because of Katrina and everything, and he asked me if I wanted to go see a play or something and I told him no, and we went our separate ways a couple of streets down from my house. Then I went to my house. But about an hour later he shows up at my door, somehow knowing which house is mine all of a sudden, and for some reason I'm hiding (I think my mom already knew he was a creep or something when I first came home and told her about him. I was kinda dazed.) He tells my mom how I told him my entire life story and how I promised him that I was going to go to the play with him. I think he said something else about how we were dating and he'd known me for a while? And I for some reason remember him trying to get inside of my house or something, and my mom just said "No, I think you're mistaken. She declined your offer." and shut the door. I had to have two friends walk me home every day from school after that because I was afraid, and my friends were freaked out too. It was so scary. I'd see him in the hallways and avoid his gaze. I'd purposefully dress in blah ways so that he wouldn't notice me, hoping I'd just fade into the background. I'd avoid him at all costs, even if it meant being late for class or having Mom pick me up from school. I never realized why I felt so creeped out by AC until I remembered this because I do the same thing with AC. I try to avoid him, but it's so hard because he's in one of my classes and I live on campus and there's no real way to get him to not sit with us at dinner because there's only a certain amount of time that I can eat dinner because of my schedule. I constantly dress down, which is partly for comfort but I find myself not ever wearing even slightly low-cut shirts because I don't want him to look at me. I want to just fade into the background, but it's not in my personality. I just wish I had a shield or something. And I would bring it up with my friends (I did tell Julie. She felt badly.) except I don't want to make it this big thing. He doesn't know where I live. He doesn't know where Carlo or Julie live. I'm safe in my room or their rooms. I'm just nervous and jittery and scared everywhere else I go. And I know that AC isn't actually a threat (although sometimes I worry that he's going to shoot up the school one day). He's not violent and he's not a big guy. It's just nice to know that this isn't a completely mean or irrational fear - I've felt incredibly threatened before, and this is just that bleeding through into another part of my life.

I just wish Will were here to protect me and make all of the bad people go away. He'd keep me safe no matter where I was.

Come to think of it, I have been having a lot of flashbacks recently, or at least more than usual. Weird.