Dear Heath — It is my humble opinion after reading your work that you are suffering from past memory overload, and believe me, I know the feeling (I am 69 and have lived quite a bit of the life you describe, in the places you mention and do not really describe, but very long ago). Please don’t leave, and don’t stop writing. But do, perhaps, stop being your own worst critic. What you write is definitely not worthless. It might be stream of thought and unedited, but not worthless or stupid or any of the definitions you just used. Just take a little more time. Write it out in a rush with all your heart, then put it away for a few days/weeks/a month. Then follow Mark Twain’s advice — “Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.”