![alt text](https://s31.postimg.org/o36sam7d7/1934697_1061698283868904_699501729702913655_n.jpg)
_this is my scar from my self-inflicted wound. year: 2004 
This is the scar as it looks today. It takes up most of the width of my forearm._

## I’ve taken enormous risks in life and have been through radical transformations starting at age 17. 

I suddenly became rich then quickly after realized that wealth alone could not make me happy.I transformed again into a “normie” college student where novelty became my best friend. I studied so many disparate topics, so my mind became properly stimulated. And I was making plenty of art despite not being in art school. Art like this:

https://youtu.be/IOG0aKvAYf4?list=PL3E0A0903B3CB6BB2

However, I was having vivid hallucinations and troubles with boys (as usual). I began the intense study of my own mind and sought the source of my hallucinations. I also went sleepwalking and hallucinating at the same time and I had one experience that shook up my consciousness. I had episodes of paranoia and social anxiety. I began using drugs to control my moods and generally experimenting with anything that reduced my negative and toxic thoughts. I met my best friend there, a genius writer named Daphne. She introduced me to Bukowski.

## After I got my degree in Japanese, I worked in shitty factories in Arizona where the big boss abused his workers. 

I dabbled in creative pursuits always. I lived with my best friend. Then I began living with a man in the Arizona desert in my twenties and studying ants and photography. I briefly considered becoming a myrmecologist.
My boyfriend came from the Lazy Boner Ranch and was an ex heroin addict. He was stylish and eccentric. He came from an incredibly wealthy family and lived off that wealth but he did nothing to create money. He was on methadone and instead of wanting to fuck me, all he wanted to do was read books. His left arm was dead and he always kept it concealed in his pants pocket. It was injured in a motorcycle accident.

His sexuality was as shriveled as his dead arm. He’d been high for so many years and he wanted to learn everything he’d missed for the last ten. Whenever I begged him for sex at night he said, “you know me, I just want to read.”
I had to leave him so I devised a plan to work as an English teacher in Japan. I reinvented my life again.
And I transformed again, 9 months later when I self-destructed in Japan. 

# My breakdown was caused by self-loathing, fear of public speaking and insane perfectionistic tendencies. I became deaf, lost 30 pounds and had to be flown to the US to recover at my parents home.

I reinvented again. I took daily 3 hour walks in the woods by myself and created over 300 handmade postcards that were surreal. I slowly regained my health and then found work in a bookstore and museum. I moved in with 4 German students.

I found a drinking buddy who was a genius, he composed music in three different styles, drew, and was amazing in a lot of ways. But he drank too much and got angry.

We were stupid and used to cut ourselves for fun when we got drunk together. One night when we were drinking I took it too far and sliced open my arm real deep. I have habit of wanting to outdo others and in this respect I’m sort of masculine. I hate to lose or be mediocre in any way. He immediately wrapped it and prevented me from bleeding to death. At the hospital the surgeon asked me how this happened. I told him that I was employed by the circus and one of the knives I was throwing had landed in my arm. He noticed the other cuts on my ankle and wrists and said, “You’re right-handed.” He scrawled down a number on a piece of paper and told me to call it when I got sober. Later I did call. It was a psych ward. I slammed down the phone fast.

After this close call with death, I never cut myself again. I only did it a tiny bit as a teenager and then with my friend later on so I wasn’t addicted to it. And I don't recommend it to anyone.

One time my drinking buddy and I tried to make out. I remember him taking off his shirt and straddling me. We kissed and then stopped. He admitted that it wasn’t a good idea and we should just be friends. I think I was in love with him but I knew he didn’t feel the same way so I faked my feelings in order to remain friends with him. He had a charismatic personality which I lacked. He was bold, shameless. I was still shy.

Many years later, he moved to China, then to NY, got hired by the Nation as a writer then had a fiancé. He decided one day to quit drinking. As he walked down the sidewalk in NYC, he had a seizure, fell down onto the sidewalk which split his head open. He got traumatic brain injury and today is in the slow recovery process. 

I really need to visit him again. I saw him once at a rehab facility, and I have to admit, I felt really sad and depressed to see my friend, as he had become a stranger I no longer recognized. I know some people recover from TBI. I  have been negligent in visiting him, however, I am a weak person and I easily get shattered internally. I have trouble keeping my shit together and easily get thrust into a pit of dark, debilitating emotions when confronted by tragedy. It’s not easy for me even to be alive.

Many years later I became a graphic artist at a sticker factory in Kansas. I was a perfectionist and got many raises. My hand began hurting real bad. I developed carpal tunnel. During breaks, I frequently would look out into a Kansas field and squint my eyes to such a degree that it looked the ocean to me. I did this all the time, pretending to be at the beach.

Then I moved to San Diego. I got rid of all my material possessions and experienced true happiness while floating in the sea. I got a job at Modern Postcard. I still suffered from some nagging darkness in my mind, though. i could never figure out where it was coming from and why.

# At my job, I remember distinctly pressing my stomach area into my desk every day which caused me intense physical pain. it became a compulsion. I couldn’t stop. 

## Also, I became obsessed with a young Asian man who didn’t like me. It hurt really bad, him not liking me the way I liked him. It made me crazy with lust. Unrequited lust. It can eat you up.

I often would run to the bathroom to cry for reasons I never understood. 

The darkness crept out during my work hours.

At Modern Postcard, I walked around with so much potential but no one could see it. My job was tedious and boring. I had so much more, my imagination to offer. No one took it. I had originally applied to be an artist at MP, but no slots were available, so I took a job as a Prespress technician. 

When I passed by the Art Department, I felt a deep pang of envy and dismay. I viewed the people who had made it into the Art Department as superior to myself. 

During my lunch breaks at Modern Postcard, I would go explore the surrounding woods. Unbelievably, one day I found a waterfall and created a secret sanctuary there. I put a blank book near the waterfall for people to sign who found it and I attached a pen to the book. I found an abandoned homeless encampment there, too. I dreamed about bringing that boy who didn’t like me to my secret waterfall sanctuary and making out with him. Instead, I kept returning to it alone, every day checking to see if anyone had found the secret book.

# More radical transformations occurred.

I’m leaving these parts out because they are too traumatic.

Now I’m a single mother. I was destitute in 2013. I learned how to sell cars, make money then I self-published my first book, Un-Crap Your Life. 2 months ago, I was hired as a writer for the Interesting Engineering website. I just received my first payment. I am in the next radical phase of life. Writing and reading are my true loves. I’m addicted to learning and novelty so being a writer allows me to live fully.

Rich, poor, sick, healthy, self-destructive, happy, content, and now I’m in the most amazing transformation of my life: a quest for long-lasting freedom and the outpouring of ideas.

And now that I just made $12,000 in one month on Steemit, I am really beginning to realize just how deep and beautiful my rabbit hole is becoming. It's going to be really difficult to explain all this to my friends from the Matrix-world. I think the chasm might be bridged once my next book comes out. I may finally be able to just write it instead of pimping my talents, getting cheated out of the rewards (in the other world) that I obviously deserve with my hard work (I work 7 days per week. I feel guilty if I don't produce a lot each day. The past panic of being a broke parent has created this overly vigilant work ethic).

Your future choice/chance is near.
Sign up for it.
 You'll soon understand what I'm talking about: 
http://www.stellabelle.net/sign-up/