I had developed other fears. For example, at one time I became afraid of the number thirteen. While doing exercises, I sometimes thought what if I had done a certain workout thirteen times? Because of this thought, I began to do that particular exercise again about ten times, so that there was no chance of getting to the number thirteen. I am glad to say that I quickly got rid myself from that ridiculous phobia.

There is one more thing that I went looking for on the Internet – more than candid photos of naked girls and women. I was interested to see what was hidden in the erotic films shown on television. Additionally, I wanted to see how sexual intercourse occurs. At heart I still hoped that I would have a girlfriend, and this knowledge would be useful to me. I think you already understood that I also began to masturbate very often, looking at porn photos.

Separately, it should be noted that there was a time when I questioned whether masturbation was harmful to health. But all that I found on the Internet was the articles of doctors who claimed that masturbation is not only not harmful, but also beneficial. With this information, I continued to lead my usual way of life – in the end, I liked the feelings that I experienced while masturbating, and I liked to look at beautiful female bodies, available “absolutely free” in a couple of mouse clicks.

As for school, I continued to skip it. The problems were not only with school. I stopped going to college for preparatory lectures, because during the first lecture, the teacher asked everyone to read aloud the text in turns, and I had great difficulties with that. The awkward looks and whispers of my young peers also could not in any way help me not stammer. In the eleventh grade my speech hesitations reached climax – I began to repeat one syllable and could not utter a single word, which once amused so much the girl who asked me to become her boyfriend a year ago. I do not know if she was ashamed for once wishing to be my girlfriend, or she was just the only one from the whole class who found it funny to hear my speech cramps and the twitching of my speech apparatus. What I can say is that for the first time I had to write the answer on a piece of paper in a room adjacent to the biology class. And it was the eleventh grade – the time when all other people actively fell in love and had fun spending their days with friends and loved ones with whom they calmly talked on various topics. As you probably know from what I wrote earlier, deep down I also wanted to experience all these joys of life.

I was not at all happy with who I was in my life. There was a moment in the ninth grade when, while walking with three classmates down the street after school, the new strong guy in our class started jokingly twisting my hand, as he usually did with all students, showing off his strength. My long-time classmate immediately exclaimed that the guy should stop doing this, as I stuttered. At that moment, I felt that I did not want people to think so of me as of a disabled person to whom they make concessions. My friend wanted to do what’s best, since he did not see what was happening in my inner world, but in fact my self-esteem and confidence shook once again at that hour.

Another similar incident also happened in the ninth grade. Then I had fun and laughed with other classmates in anticipation of the next lesson. Apparently, our teacher did not like our laughter, and of all the people she made a remark to me, saying that I too became noisy, like the others. The fact is that I would not mind being like others, and at times I considered myself the same as others. But, nevertheless, the fun came to an end… for a while.