A Sad Story (IR 9 - #5, End of 1st Diary)

While reading about Alice in Denver, I was very moved by Alice's friend's story. Alice meets Doris at the health clinic that she is at. They quickly become friends, and Doris decides to let Alice stay at her tiny apartment with her. Doris quickly opens up to Alice about all of the troubles and sorrows in her life. I was extremely moved by Doris' story; it touched me and made me really sad. First of all, Doris is only 14 years old and she lives on her own in an apartment. Both Alice and Doris become very sick because of the impoverished conditions they're living in. They don't have enough food, and Alice is going through withdrawal. She really wants to do more drugs, but she can't find any. I feel really bad for Alice because I think that she really does want to get better, but she can't because she's so caught up in everything and she doesn't know who to go to for support. Doris decides to open up to Alice and that's when I was really moved. As it turns out, Doris was sexually and physically abused by her foster father and other members of her foster family which is why she ran away. This really upsets me because this probably happened to so many foster children back then because there weren't extremely intense background checks like there are now. Doris was expecting them to be a good family, but they only ended up hurting her. That really upsets me. She's so young and she's living all by herself in terrible conditions. Doris and Alice decide to leave and hitch-hike. They end up getting a ride with a truck driver but he is abusive to Doris. This just breaks my heart because the poor girl has already been through so much. She really can't trust anyone. I was just moved by this whole section in general because Alice starts doing drugs again and gets in the wrong crowd once more. At the end of her first diary she finally decides to go home and live with her parents again. She thinks when she grows up she wants to help children like herself. Alice decides that she has two choices. She can either commit suicide or spend the rest of her life helping others. I was moved by the fact that she's not going to take "the easy way out," and she's ready to spend the rest of her days making her wrongs right.