Here We Go...

My Story So Far

As of late, I've been really wanting to simply write about myself, my experiences, my life that I've lived thus far.

Y'know, I've learnt a lot over the years. It's been really useful stuff, too. I notice it mostly when people reveal their own difficulties or ineptitudes that I have no issue with myself. Not to say there aren't equal (or more) amounts where the situation is reversed. I've learned a lot, but I have even more to learn yet. I'm only 25, after all.

25... I didn't think I would make it this far. Not one point in my life did I believe I'd ever get here. My family was what I call a "rocknroll" family. We weren't conventional or nuclear in the least. My father wasn't around, his presence only reminded me that he didn't care, didn't value my existence, and the number of his visits were minimal.

My 4 siblings, all older than me, were all from different dads. My mom suffered a lot because of them each in different ways, and then some with my dad as well. My dad was a different suffering, but suffering nonetheless.

My siblings were all jackasses. Harmful and toxic beasts, creating a warzone that was our interfamilial relations. As a child, I described things as "my family feels more like being at war than being a family." I'd see families on TV, even dysfunctional ones, and feel envy. Specifically, I wanted one thing none of us had and would ever have. I wanted something like... a father... or a brother who cared and made it known. I was so angry at my brothers for so long for the shit they pulled. My father wasn't around enough for me to be angry, and my mom took on that anger enough on her own. I just wanted... a supportive male family member. All I had was my mother, I just wanted one more thing. I'd never get it back then... I'd get glimpses of it, however. Moments where my oldest older brother and I would stay up late on the sofa watching fake "found footage" Chupacabra "documentaries." Spending time playing Pokemon Sapphire and Ruby or HG + SS with my youngest older brother. We just... had a good time. I loved that, I truly loved that.

So much of who I am is my brothers. I am a mixture of good pieces of who they are, and bad pieces that have been neutralized. With some queer sprinkled on top, of course, but I'm not interested in that.

Man, the internet... I got online in 2009 technically. That's when my first email address was registered. I vividly remember that moment. Sitting beside my mom as we watched my sister sign up a Yahoo account for me. I remember coming up with the email, I remember telling them the password I wanted. I can remember my mom looking at me. It was... important.

My father gave me my first laptop. A hand-me-down Toshiba he had used previously. I was beside myself with excitement. I had only my DS up until this point, and now things were about to change. I didn't really have a presence online for a while, it took me some time before I interacted with anybody. At first, I did what any child would do; I we on newgrounds and played games. I used my laptop to watch movies and TV shows, to read the wikipedias about my favorite media (which I still often do as another form of enjoying that media), and looked stuff up to prove my brother wrong when we had disagreements.

Once upon a time, I had begrudingly joined Facebook after the world forgot about the amazing site that was Myspace (RIP). I recall when it began and we all, as a family, shittalked Facebook. Hm, not much has changed, huh? Anyway, I had begun playing games on Facebook as well. This would lead me into the RP world as I joined a game that had a strong RP community inside of it. One day, nervously, I joined in. I had only heard "Role Play" in the sexual context before, so I stayed back and observed for a while to make sure it wasn't anything weird before I threw my hat into the ring. The characters and stories, I still remember them, I still have the characters.

One day, and I don't remember when, I was looking at my new DSI XL. I noticed... Flipnote Hatena. I connected...

A world opened up before me, a world of green menues and funny little frogs, and ART. Flipnote Hatena was something else...

I wasn't there for very long, I was late to the party. But the time I spent there meant and still means the world to me. This would be the biggest way I interacted online, a pivotal moment in my life, and how I ended up being as happy as I am today. But the journey was a difficult one... things so unclear... hm...

I began drawing and taking it seriously on Flipnote Hatena. I drew inspiration from someone named Icey. Much to my surprise, they were one of the first people I became friends with there. We, along with a handful of other cool folks who I loved to bits, all became good friends. I brought them into my RP Facebook group, but we quickly decided we needed a different space. I created the Trusted Drawing Group. The TDG (which we never called it back then, but I think is nice now) was a place for trusted folks to share artwork and personal life stuff. I ran the group, and it was smooth sailing. During this time, I also joined DeviantArt. I don't remember the origins of making an account, but I did get to it. This only began because I saw Icey's work on Flipnote Hatena, and wanted to also draw like they did...

On DeviantArt, I met a lot of cool people. I knew how to find the good ones. I don't... really remember it at all, but somehow I met a user who I ended up calling "Lou" (that is not even remotely his name, but I refuse to address that.) Lou was drawing up a little series he wanted to make, and I somehow ended up being a part of that... alongside a very special someone. I don't remember meeting him either, all I remember is one day he wasn't there, and the next day we were all in my drawing group talking about how he and I were basically the same person and how we should date. We were somewhere around 13/14 when we met online. The bisexual british kid charmed the asexual american like CRAZY, and vice versa. I recently saw a video I had sent to him a long time ago, it stunned me how charming I was, how direct I was.

 Things were... really good. So, naturally, this is when the going gets tough.

Life began to get difficult. We were struggling to make ends meet, homelessness was on the horizon. I started to talk to someone in the drawing group that I didn't really know.

I think the way I see it is like a solar system. The folks I met on Hatena and Deviantart were all the planets closest to the middle, and then there were some dwarfs on the edge. There were two who I rarely spoke to. Emma, who I never knew much about, and Thunder. Thunder and I began talking.

I never realized it until later, just how bad things were even from the start. TDG became restless as I began to ignore everyone to talk to Thunder. I was sucked in and locked away in this person's mind. It was so... intoxicating. I was stuck, and I never saw it coming. "The Burning Down" occured in april, I believe. When I started to block my friends after months of Thunder constantly saying "tell them to piss off," "I've always thought they were weird," about each of them everytime I would bring them up. We were stupid kids, so I'd be unreasonable to say it was intentional, but it was still manipulation. We left.

I went to a different account I had made a while prior, and we continued talking.

One thing I refused to let go of even for them, however, was my obscene british boy. He was always so good to me. Always tried to do right by me, always loved me, and I him. Getting rid of him would be harder than that. But Thunder kept trying. See, we had previously been in a VERY brief relationship. Our crushing on one another was public knowledge and we flirted constantly, it was just in our nature when we were around one another. So, when I ran away with Thunder, they saw him as a threat. They voiced as much to me at the time. I tried to ignore it, dismiss it.

We continued things this way as I became homeless, as I lost everything, the familiarity of home and my belongings. I was stripped of so much of the stability people don't really give much thought to. That people would later dismiss as "it's just stuff," completely missing the issue in that it wasn't the STUFF, but the familiarity and sense of home and belonging and memories tied to that STUFF. I felt so... alien. Out of place. I'm still recovering.

Thunder and I were together for 8 years. They made me... miserable, in the long run. I had moments of positive emotion, but it felt as though as soon as I talked too much about how doing things like playing games with them meant a whole lot to me, we'd never do it again. It was a struggle to be happy with them. I FOUGHT for it. Love is easy...

Years, years later. I had left my british friend off and on, I had tried to kill myself here and there, I had been medicated and drugged and unmedicated and then drugged some more. I had the value in my life dismissed and ignored, I had my sense of self world ripped down and my bodily autonomy removed. I had my best friend die... and then my new best friend left me as well... I felt the world crumbling around me and I was powerless to stop it. My mind began to waver, before crumbling as well, as I lost my mind into a world of psychosis. I've learnt in retrospect that I've been struggling with Psychotic Depression the entire time. I suffered audible, visual, and sensory hallucinations as well as full on delusions. I eventually believed my british friend and I had some kind of argument, or he had said something cruel to me that hurt. So I left... but some part of my mind recognized that it wasn't true, maybe. Or I knew the level of value I had on our friendship meant there was a reason not to leave, so I still kept a thin tie to him. I knew he would always be there...

For a brief time, after the final straw where Thunder explicitly made me feel extremely unloved and undervalued, I left them. They elluded that talking to me was second choice, or last resort, and I was immediately fed up. I didn't even respond, I just... left. I spent a month on my own, and I felt my mind starting to recover. I felt like I had worth again.

But then he texted me again... he kept making me feel like things had changed. Things would be different, better, we would Be Better. I had Hope. False hope... things slowly went back to normal, and I reverted back to my horrid state. The hallucinations worsened. I felt hands reaching up out of the ground and gripping my ankles. I felt the presence of a being, I felt them lay on my legs, I felt their weight and their felt-like skin, I saw them... a comforting demon.

Thunder began sexually harassing me, and I hadn't the self worth to stop it.

It got worse, it got worse...

But it would end.

They cheated on me, went and slept with some (seemingly) random guy. They got tired of me, my struggles. I was so close to having to marry them, and everything in my body was screaming at me not to for so many years prior. They told me, in far too much detail, what they did. Why? Why rub it in my face the betrayal you have proven capable of?

Capability means everything to me... and you were capable of shattering me in such a heartless way. I should have left them in that moment, and they gave me opportunity. I now believe this was the hope, that I would end things. I did not. I was too lost, too broken, I saw no way out, I didn't believe I deserved any way out. I took it.

They dumped me a month later, I would guess. I knew it was coming, I was prepared. That being said, I still cried. I cried hysterically, screaming and wailing in agony before returing to feeling empty, and then feeling my heart break again. A loop.

I had kept my british lad in eyesight for a short while prior. I kept him on Twitter, not really speaking to him often, just seeing him in passing. But after I was dumped, messaging him was one of the first things I did. We couldn't find it, but I could swear I had send him a tweet apologizing for my abandoning him over the years, for my behavior and the stress I brought to the table when I was around because of my depression (which Thunder had credited partially for the breakup, so I thus felt inclined to apologize for profusely.) He, of course, didn't care. He was as kind as ever, and we fixed things. It was a slow return, he had a new world far away from mine. New friends, a girlfriend, a job, a life that I hadn't seen any amount of yet.

Things crumbled for him, however. Early 2023, he lost it all too. When he told me he was dumped, I thought to myself "it's time to get into friend mode." He's so sentimental, he's so loving and connected to people, this wouldn't be easy. There's no way this would be easy for him. I wanted to be there for him. It was quite slow going at first, but later in the year we would really connect again. Through his pain and breakup trauma, we found our former stride and dynamic. I had previously noticed my old world crush coming back for him, but it was very old and would eventually go away. But then, as we got closer, I noticed feelings crop back up. Different this time, but there. I didn't want them, though, I rejected them. I didn't want a relationship, let alone was this even remotely the time.

2024, several months of Season 2 of our friendship, we began really ramping up the gay. January, Febuary, March, things just kept on getting more and more intense. I started keeping a journal (The Gay Panic Journal) to document my feelings and work through them. Trying to get away from them while he kept generating more.

May 10th, he finally decided to pose a serious question. "Do you want to try?"

He means a lot to me, he has for 11+ years, ever since I can remember. It's HIM, the first guy to really reach my heart and intentionally so! My best friend...

He went to bed and I stayed up for another 4 hours doing nothing but panicking and thinking. I dug through all of my notes about him and my feelings about him, trying to rationalize my way to an answer... I didn't want to be frivolous with this. That would be disrespectful towards him, towards us. I wanted to put my all into my answer to him. But something finally clicked at some point... why couldn't I just say "no" first thing? Why did I have any doubt? I spent so long teaching myself to listen to my gut reactions, much like I should have with Thunder.

I told him, despite my general disinterest in romantic relationships, he would be my only exception.

He always was, as it turns out, I found interactions of my saying so back in the day when we were kids. He really is special to me, I suppose...

It's only been four months so far as of the time I'm writing this. It feels like so much longer, so many more laughs and moments of feeling love for this man. It feels... correct. This feels like, I guess, the way it should be right now. I love him...

I have been in housing for two years, finally out of homelessness. I'm aiming to keep it that way.

I haven't had any hallucinations, delusions, or episodes in two years. I've maintained my sanity, I've learned strategies to prevent myself from losing it.

I've been off drugs for over a year. I'm less... ashamed of myself.

I've found my old TDG friends, most of them anyway, and smoothed things over with them. None of them have held it against me so far. They're good folks... I'm really happy I had known them, even if we aren't so familiar anymore. Still trying to hunt down some of them. I miss Squirrel, things aren't complete without her.

I've become someone new, someone from the foundations of who I once was. I've been relearning who I am, what matters to me. My life is going in the right direction. I'm happy, I love these elements of my life. I'm going to find my home someday. Someday I'll feel like I'm home again, and I'll be able to feel complete again. I want my world back, the one I built and then tore down so needlessly, so horribly.

I never truly cared for such things, but my boyfriend has managed to become another exception in that I could see myself marrying him someday. It hit me one day after a call with him, how I could see that happening, how I'd be... happy to do so, should the moment call for it.

Hmm...

Update: Home

My job has finally ended here where I am now. I'm relieved. Not only that, but the place I'm about to move into is... better than anywhere else I've ever lived before. A proper house. It's old and run down, but it's nothing some love can't fix. When I stepped into the living room, seeing the tall windows and sliding glass doors that lead into the rest of the house, I felt I could cry if I were alone. To think I could be living in that place... it's a dream come true. It felt... safe. I've lived in unsafe conditions for so long, living in places with no stability. No opportunity to relax because it'll all be yanked out from under me soon. But here? It's different. Nowhere has really been home for many years, only shelter. But this house... it could be home to me. I could actually sleep well again.

I frequently wonder, as someone dating someone who lives in another country, where I might end up. Should our relationship be sucessful, what then? I would want to live over there... but I also don't know how easy it would be to leave this house behind after I've lived there. I guess, ultimately, I'd be willing to sacrifice it should I have another stable future lined up for me elsewhere. I will have my time in that house, to care for it and look after it as it will care for and look after me, and then I will depart. I suppose we'll find out.

I've decided to add markers whenever I update this. I may only do it rarely, and I might begin scheduling an update every 6 months or so, but I think it would be nice to organize this in future.