School pictures.

Ever since I was a child, I always hated school pictures, both the individual and class ones. Why?

Maybe it's that I hated looking myself 'evolve' from being something cute to repulsively ugly, but I've never been really convinced of that.

It wasn't until a couple of days ago figured out why.

Whenever missing children were being looked for in either the media or when their faces were pictured on things like milk cartons and so forth, they'd always have these smiling faces and so forth. Knowing however that much of the time such missing child's lives often ended tragically and often violently, I think I subconsciously associated those pictures with something really horrible and sad - which is why I hate them so much.

I see a smiling face and knowing they had gone missing and were probably dead - that always made me uncomfortable. For a little while I thought that made me sort of fucked-up, but then today I realized had I not felt that way, I really would be fucked up. Reacting as I have - as weird as it may seem - demonstrates to me at least I'm sane.