Character

When your parents never wanted you, you’re always a burden. Donna’s father traveled abroad in college, to South Korea, where he met a vulnerable woman and knocked her up. Donna’s mother refused to move away from her home, but Donna’s father refused to help raise a child unless they all lived in the United States. Estranged from her family, Donna’s mother packed up and gave birth in a foreign country to a man just as strange. Other than a ring on each finger, the one thing that brought Donna’s parents together was their resentment towards her. To her mother, Donna was fat, lazy, and unintelligent. Donna had to prove why she deserved love from the day she was born. Donna’s father—an early college dropout forced to do physical labor for the rest of his life—became immature and easily provoked. He saw Donna’s existence as an obstacle to happiness, love, and to any room in the house (which he shoved her out of the way to get to).

A substance-abusing father and a depressed, eating disorder-fueled mother trained Donna in the art of performance—learning to react in a way her parents wanted, in a way that would make them temporarily entertained or impressed. Performing also became a method of escapism for Donna, who fully embraced the life of a theater kid. Those who grew up around her in school saw Donna’s interest as bordering on unhealthy obsession. Generally, though, Donna was still well-liked at school, as people were intrigued by a talented, sociable performer who still maintained a relatively "cute, shy girl next door" persona.

Only when people got too close to Donna, or tried a relationship past hooking up with her, did they reveal a side of her that made much more sense considering her home life. Close friends were suddenly thrown to the side and replaced by anyone Donna saw as "cooler". When her friends tried to help her recover and move on, or seek help for her troubles, Donna immediately became aggressive and distant. When her partners felt genuine love for her and expressed concern like no other person had before, Donna dumped them and made it well-known to friend groups that they had to choose between the two. She never understood why she did things that hurt so badly, but her parents encouraged this cycle. They hated seeing healthy relationships that called out their emotional abuse.

A knack for indulging in drugs, burning bridges and garnering a plethora of mental health issues created the woman Donna is today. Despite her many missed days of school, Donna passed multiple high-credit classes and graduated high school with an honors diploma. Her parents had missed nearly every recital, musical, play, speech, and club meeting. But on her graduation day, Donna saw her parents in the stands and felt a sense of pride for the first time in a while. Acts of kindness from parents that should be expected were used by Donna’s parents as leverage or excuses: attend notable events and be excused from any other events for the next four years. Spend time with our daughter and use that particular moment as leverage when she wants help with work or to be driven somewhere.

Donna is still blind to her parents' manipulation. She wants to graduate again, not because she wanted to go to college, but because she yearns for the feeling of someone being proud of her, recognizing the accomplishments she consistently pushes herself over the edge for.

Among her circle of like-minded "friends", Donna got a QR code for Terrasphere. Battling a less than pleasant home life and mental health issues, alongside coursework, had Donna encumbered. Terrasphere felt like a light in the dark for someone who desperately sought methods of escapism in any form possible.