act like you're not dying, it would suprise you, how easy it is to ignore your crying

I remember a sharp pain in my stomach, sort of a twisting feeling, like something has hooked me right behind the belly button and pulled and twisted. I am in a classroom and the teacher is passing out a test, it's algebra, the student next to me leans over and whispers some snide remark, I laugh and reply with a suitably sarcastic response. The hook in my stomach now feels like it is being pulled up towards my chest. My expression does not change. The hook is pulled down again and twisted some. I finish the first problem on the test. The twisting continues. I finish the third, the fourth, the fifth. Some one asks out loud for the answer to the second question, I say it out loud and laugh as the teacher scolds me. It has now become impossible to sit comfortably. Almost to the last question. I feel like I'm going to vomit. I finish the test first, and walk up to put it on the teachers desk, I walk back to my desk and sit down. The hook seems to have ripped my stomach out of my back, at least I can't feel it anymore. I passed the test without one wrong answer. I've sat through that experience many times. My expression never changes, no one would ever know I was in pain. I have lived my life that way, the inside is the only part of me that resembles humanity. The expression on my face is ever changing, always what is expected of me. Angst, idiocy. I show people only what they want to see, I let them believe whatever they want to believe of me. I hate doing this, I hate living this lie but I don't know how to stop it. I no longer know how to be myself anywhere but on paper. I'm so afraid they will laugh at me, that things will change and they will lose their respect for me. The thing I am most afraid of is that if I showed myself to them, I showed them how voulnerable I am, that they wouldn't care. They would go on hurting me like they did before, this time with the knowledge that they are. I know that is how they will react, I know these people, they do not care.