What is in a name… mine was thought of as a combination of thinking how I would react when it was called in anger and the plausibility of children my age making fun of me for it. My name is Gabriella Alicia Gonzales and I am very different than most people my age… for starters I am currently thirty years old and in college but I am still living with family. Even though they hate me cause I'm different, I push forward and try my hardest to act like nothing is wrong and be the best me I can be. In the twenty-five years I've been able to remember on this dying earth, I've struggled to survive and even though my mother has been there for me at every corner… it's always been a challenge to learn new things the traditional way. Therefore, I struggle to be what I strive to be… normal.

Every day I challenge myself to be smarter than I was yesterday. This way of thinking has led me to be smarter than most of my family as their jobs are mediocre at best but when I shot for a permeant job I go for something better than what they had and something that will keep me challenged and not bored outta my skull. Therefore, I'm a tutor at the college I go to and I write rough drafts of college papers for students but I make sure its in their words in the end. I have a zero-plagiarism tolerance and I make the students sign a waiver to make sure they both pay the fee and do their part of the work. Yet as I do this to earn ends meet at the end of the month… I don't know why I bother.

I have a very sharp mind and can think very quickly, but I can not understand social boundaries and settings. I am socially autistic though I do not have the most typical autistic traits but I believe I am autistic because the symptoms and how I am are just more than coincidental. Life for me is always difficult and there is never an easy day. Sometimes I have to resort to unorthodox methods to get students to teach and half the time it never goes over well. I get weird stares like I'm a freak and should be in a cage. In freaks me out and I never like to be the center of attention. Its just weird for me to try something that makes me have to be in the spotlight. Plus I hate taking risks that could possible get me into trouble. Like my name suggests I am a talker and its mostly due to my nerves getting the better of me. Another thing about me is that I'm Aromatic with Bisexual tendencies… that means I like both genders and I have a low sexual drive but can still feel love in some ways.

Ever since I was young I've been bullied and called names. I've always wanted the world to know my name… but not as gabby the bossy gossiper…. It hurt. The rumors that the children would spread about me, were hurtful and slanderous. My family was never really supportive of me, save for my own mother who was actually very supportive and over protective of me to some degree. Most of the time my family can be quite abusive and neglectful of me… I've bore witness to this on several occasions when I was at a family gathering and I had a panic attack. Did the family try to help my mother in comforting me like they would the other children if it was them in trouble? No, the just complained that I was being a drama queen and was just doing it for attention… Why would a ten-year-old child cry and act frightful for no apparent reason other than they are desperately frightened by something, or in this case someone, and are scared shitless?! *sigh* This is just stupid… my family never cared for me cause I caused so much misery for my mother by just being born.

My mother had a difficult time getting pregnant and when she finally did… the baby usually died in the womb. Determined to have a baby, my mother finally had me… baby number seven out of what would be nine attempts. Though mom was on a lot of medicine when she had me and I developed so many mental disorders as a result, I believe her determination was the key trait that drives me to be a better person and not just for me but for my mother too. That reasoning is how my mother and I are a great team at taking care of each other. We may fight and say mean things to each other sometimes but we will always defend each other and always back each other up no matter what.

My childhood was also a difficult time for me as well. Most of my childhood from the ages of four years old to eight years old, were spent with me taking care of my mother. Mom was mostly sick with an incurable disease called lupus. Lupus is an auto immune disease that has your white blood cells attack your healthy cells and organs as if it was a foreign substance, thus causing a lot of pain and sometime organ failures. Yet my mother was no quitter and she was strong… "we are Latinas, so we are just built differently", is how my grandma always put it. To this day I still quote the words my grandmother said when she was around. She was my rock in a stormy sea of pain and sorrow… she always gave good advice and acknowledged the pain I went through as something really and that I should never be ashamed of being who I really am.

I write these things about my grandmother and I know only those who are truly apart of my family will know who I really am… I write under a pen name so I have protection against those in the family circle who have done nothing but harm to me. This book is my memoire about how my life has been and all about how I've lived to the age I am… and especially how the people in my life has treated me. The dates will be provided as well as times if I can remember them well enough.