مرحبا ستيمت Hello Steemit!

Hi, Steemit!

My name is Dan. I grew up in West Texas, but moved to Oregon after high school in 1996. I was adopted along with 7 other kids by good Christian parents who had one son already.

I love them, but we didn't connect well. I was born three months premature and held in an incubator which I assume impacted my ability to develop healthy connections with others. I used to be terrified of people, but it's going away with age.

I dropped out of High School and ran away from home. Due to the trouble of my youth, I never went to college and have remained poor. I am a hard worker, though and support my partner and our fur kid who I call Cat.

Most of my siblings have done my parents proud. My youngest brother was even in the NFL. I have another brother in solitary confinement indefinitely back home in a Texas prison. He's got about 30 more years.

I joined steemit about a month ago and thought at first it would be best to remain anonymous.

I joined because I want to blog my way back to mental health after living as a recluse for most of my adult life. I never set out to be cut off from the world.

I'm in a domestically violent partnership with someone who does not have the ability to empathize with others. He's insanely cruel and doesn't allow me to have friends in "real life," or go many places alone, or even feed the cat. I've almost lost hope of escaping.

One of my earlier posts was about why I don't just leave for good. It is absolutely insane not to.Figuring it out is what I hope to achieve here and taking bold action to reclaim my life.

We met when I was 21 and he was 25.

Today's his birthday. He's 44! I accidentally woke him up cutting empty pages from two of my books to have paper. I was going to make him a Birthday card, but he was so hateful about being woke up. (See previous post about feeding the Cat. Rofl)

So I made the Steemit sign first. And then I'll make his card. Hahaha. I can't help but love him.

I decided to introduce myself "for real," today, because I've got this one life and I am tired of hiding. I don't think I have a chance if i can't even put together a blog and sign my name to it.

My two main interests besides singing karaoke online (it's more fun in person! ) are making what I hope are funny Youtube videos, and learning Arabic from my best chat friend Fatma in Tunisia. She messaged me one day for help with English in exchange for help with Arabic and suddenly it's been five years that we've been chatting near daily. One goal I have is to sing Arabic songs.

I still have so much vocabulary to learn!

I also want to open an Emergency Room available to anyone regardless of money in any sort of mental crisis. That's my life goal.

Thank you so much and may you enjoy today!
Dan