I cannot draw myself. I am afraid to. In fact, I'm afraid all the time. Everything scares me. My face never shows it. My face rarely ever shows emotion. I hide what I feel. I don't know why. I guess, somehow, I never learned how to express emotion so I just keep it all bottled up.
   I've been through fear and depression, but I hid it until I could cry alone. I live through pain every day, but usually no one knows it because I will not complain to get attention. I hate attention. Sometimes I absolutely  despise myself because at times I hide my emotion so well I don't even know what I'm feeling. I become apathetic and end up hating myself even more because I cannot feel, let alone respond to something the way I should. I force a response, something I think might be accepted as real.
   In truth, I am only certain of one emotion. When I am happy I know I am happy and I can actually show it. I've only learned how to be happy in the last year or so. Not that I wasn't happy before, but it wasn't real, not in the way it is now. It was just never realized, a passing fancy. Happiness now is something I feel daily. Even when I have a bad day I can recognize my happy moments. And when I'm happy it's such a rush!
   My face shows my happiness. No one has to tell me to smile anymore.

(Our journal assignment was to draw a self-portrait and use that to describe ourselves, express what we do or don't like about ourselves, just somehow open up a window into who we are.)