I honestly feel like I want to die at least once a day.

I was already chronically depressed before this happened. The relationship was such an intensely joyful thing and life knowing it won't continue feels so empty and cold... I don't know if there's enough left to keep me going. I want to quit. My family are being assholes but they're never going to recognize it, and I will inexplicably shoulder the blame of supposedly ruining people's lives just by being myself and catching the wrong feelings for "the wrong girl" - not wrong to me of course, but that's just the way they stubbornly see it, and will continue to see it no matter what, I fear. She's too young, she's my niece, I'm a pedophile, it's inappropriate for us to see each other: the end.

The worst part is, my intentions were pure: she almost certainly felt the same way, and yet, I was never going to let anything illegal happen; I feel that I was in fact handling the situation the morally right way by not betraying my relationship with her which clearly meant a lot to both of us, but not betraying her parents either via not allowing it to cross into illegal territory - i.e. not letting it become sexual even though she seemed to want it to make it that way. In my view, this was a case where our two souls met and we felt a bond and it just meant so much that chemistry began to develop. It was true love.

The inability of anyone of authority to appreciate the true nature of what was happening and, instead, the effort to conveniently sweep the events under the rug and force us apart despite any negative consequences that could impact us both; the dehumanizing refusal to view us each as individuals first rather than our respective ages/demographics; the opportunistic utilization of my sexual orientation as means to oppress any meaningful conversation as they claim to reel in shock from revelations that I could be "one of them"; the subsequent painting of the situation as inappropriate on the whole and the tarnishing of our memories with retrospective fear-mongering and hate rhetoric; the consequential redaction of moral support from the family I depended on... and the fact that it could all, just as easily, and with exponentially less suffering, be a simple non-issue....

And, lastly, their insistence on keeping us both in the dark and powerless as they claim to be evaluating and coming to terms with what happened, pretending to be devising a way to prevent further romantic development (which really is just a secondary matter that comes down to closer supervision of our interactions), when really they don't give a fuck about the relationship and would rather just not confront any of it....

But their utter neglect of the truth - to discover and to know the truth, and evaluate based on the truth - is the most morally repugnant element to all of this. If they're right, let them be right - but at least let them have the courtesy to openly approach this and discuss it rather than purposely ignoring every other possibility in favor of my baseless moral condemnation, very convenient for them but totally uncalled-for if they would stop only for one minute to think about the kind of person I am. And let her be a part of the discussion, because how she actually feels should matter most. No harm, no foul. That's the way it should be. But they will do their best to write over history.

This is the way of adults which I utterly loath: to effectively erase a beautiful thing - or, to be generous, what may prove to have been a beautiful thing - and use their status to oppress whatever the truth may have been and manhandle two essentially defenseless individuals into creating a reality that makes THEM feel less awkward, even to the detriment of those directly involved in the thing. Accusations abound of moral failure, but the real moral failure here is the assumption that you know what's right to do when operating based on a picture that you're intentionally rendering incomplete.

And by the way, forcing someone's love to be interpreted as sinister is how you create a sinister person. Not to say I am one, but, as I said: I honestly feel like I want to die at least once a day. There isn't much left for me to lose. The last thing I want to do is cause anyone pain, and yet, my instincts scream at me to retaliate.

This is my greatest nightmare come to life. It's not the most potent, extreme version of it, so yes, it could be a lot worse.

But it's in definitely in the ballpark of living nightmare.

I no longer have faith in love after this. I no longer have a drive to be a person anyone else can respect, because apparently even a most respectful person attracted to minors is subhuman, by reasoning that nobody seems able to adequately explain without resorting to non-logic, or emotionally-charged statements about oversimplified notions that you want to force-feel as universal even though everything you believed that lead you to making those statements has already been contradicted by an unfolding reality you desperately want to try and undo - but you can only do more harm.

So it comes down to how much you believe in me. And if you don't believe in me, then I don't believe in me either.

Contemplating.