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Short apology
Posted 7 years agoI know i've not been active on here besides those journals this past week. I keep meaning to start going through the backlog of submissions that accrued while writing those but whenever I get a moment to just sit down I either have no privacy or I'm not in the mood for it.
It's been a bit of a depressing week, It started out the best I've had in years now, I felt like I was finally moving forwards. Like the trap I'd been stuck in had finally opened and I was released. Now I'm bouncing around between highs and lows in mood faster than I can account for. Silly little things will get me excited but then minutes later I'll crash again. I don't like it it, and I've tried to keep it from showing to the couple of people I have been talking with but I know I'm starting to slip a little there. I've been through this before when I've had strong emotions but it usually wasn't this severe and only lasted a short while.
I'm sure I'll be alright in the end, it's just dealing with it while getting through it that's so tricky. I do thank you all for understanding, I really will try to clear through all the old submissions when I feel I can handle it, even if I might not leave much in the way of comments. I do appreciate all the lovely art that is shared with me.
It's been a bit of a depressing week, It started out the best I've had in years now, I felt like I was finally moving forwards. Like the trap I'd been stuck in had finally opened and I was released. Now I'm bouncing around between highs and lows in mood faster than I can account for. Silly little things will get me excited but then minutes later I'll crash again. I don't like it it, and I've tried to keep it from showing to the couple of people I have been talking with but I know I'm starting to slip a little there. I've been through this before when I've had strong emotions but it usually wasn't this severe and only lasted a short while.
I'm sure I'll be alright in the end, it's just dealing with it while getting through it that's so tricky. I do thank you all for understanding, I really will try to clear through all the old submissions when I feel I can handle it, even if I might not leave much in the way of comments. I do appreciate all the lovely art that is shared with me.
Airing my own dirty laundry - part 3
Posted 7 years agoI'm thinking this will be the last part of this but I'm not really sure. This is the hardest bit because it is the most painful for me, and I know it makes me look like a despicable person.
I also realized one thing I'd lost track of and forgot to mention in the prior piece.
Somewhere in late 2015, when I was starting to get 'J' involved online with some of the intimacy between myself and 'L', I was also pushing on 'J' to step outside their comfort zone. I'd known them for 7 or 8 years at this point. (I think earliest logs were just before christmas of 2007, but those clearly showed that we'd been talking for a while at that point, however I can't find any traces of anything in prior files to pinpoint a date further)
I'd been showing interest in deepening the relationship from typing to actual talking for several years. Along the way 'R' and I had tried to fly her out to meet us once (Since two tickets the other way were twice as expensive). Somewhere along the way we'd also given her money for a mic and webcam, as well as I remember picking up 3 headsets on a sale, one for myself, one for 'R' and one for 'J'. We did struggle to get hers to her, extra customs fees and whatnot, but somehow we managed it.
We also helped her with money for a mic and/or webcam at least once. (I'm thinking twice but I can't really recall if we'd just talked about it or actually did it) But here as we were getting closer, we wanted to get her talking with us. And so I think I might have been a bit emotionally manipulative in the way I got her talking. I know I didn't like doing it, and I still feel so dirty at having done so, it really did improve her life. She was now starting to talk a little in calls in stream, and in calls with her friends. She was connecting more easily with people. And I've asked her several times since then how she feels about it, and she's said that she does enjoy doing so.
For a while, she was calling me nearly every day and I enjoyed that too. it had felt like another big step forward.
.....
Anyway, back to mid 2016.
We'd moved 'S' into the apartment with us. His room wasn't great (one of the baseboard heaters didn't work right) and it was full of a bit of clutter, but it was all his otherwise. Of course, due to the housesitting he wasn't there much of the time, and so I didn't really get to know him any better than I had online. All I really got to experience was some of the trauma and regret he had. I know how scary it is leaving everything you know behind, and how much losing the family you care about can hurt. And I don't blame him for that.
I did my best to offer comfort, to try and be helpful as best I could when they were around, but I felt like I was just muddling things up, inserting myself where I didn't belong. I would say things that I'd later be told were the wrong things to have said due to experiences I hadn't known, or that they felt awkward coming from a 'stranger' like me.
After the two of them were living in the apartment again most of the time I know I started struggling a little bit at school. One class in particular. It wasn't directly their fault, but I know staying up too late to comfort him sometimes when he was really hurting did have a bit of impact. My high school physics class was garbage. it was supposed to be calculus based, but they allowed two non-calculus students in so the teacher attempted to teach it without calculus.
I'm a very science oriented student, I love that sort of thing, but honestly she messed the class up so much that it left all of us confused in the end. And then when I took physics in college I had a professor that was later released for poor performance. Although he clearly knew the topic well, he spoke little to no english and he wouldn't let his TA's write his tests. I think I remember hearing that maybe 20% of the class of 150+ got more than a 50% on his tests because they were so poorly worded that we couldn't figure out what he was asking in any given question. And the 3 TA's were simply not enough to get an answer from when you need it every other question and only have 50 minutes and are in one of those crowded theatre style rooms where they can't even get to you in the middle.
This professor I had now was much better than that, however he was a firm believer that if you know the content well you shouldn't have to think your way through it. I did extremely well on the classwork, but on his tests I could never finish. I felt like my brain was filled with molasses because I was older and required a little more time to work through problems, to then double check that I didn't make a stupid mistake early on. So I never finished his tests, but the parts I did do were mostly correct. Still passed the class but it was close. x.x
It's funny because I was easily the best of the students in my lab period for the class. I grasped the concepts in action right away, I simply took a bit more time to work out the math.
Late in 2015 I'd finally decided on my new sona, and finished fleshing out the details that mattered for her. I'd planned to use some of the stream time my patronage bought to have her worked on, however issues came up for the artist and it kept being delayed. It was pushed back several months before it happened, but this is where Maya was born. And I'd fallen in love with her immediately. She was me, but also very much what I wanted to become. A bit over-exaggerated sure, but that's a little bit of what the furry community is about.
Somewhere in the late spring, shortly before the school year ended, the three of us started sleeping in my bed. I had a large, comfortable king sized bed. It was big enough for three most of the time and I know I really did enjoy the company. However it started growing awkward for me as the two of them grew closer together and I only more distant. 'S' tended to stay up late and sleep in late, and was sometimes still asleep when I had to start sleeping for work.
So, when summer hit and I got a job working overnights at Walmart, I made an executive decision to move into the other bedroom. Mostly it was so I wouldn't disturb anyone with my odd sleep schedule, but a small part of it was because I knew the 'relationship' with 'L' was starting to fall apart. Possibly it was my fault, for not showing that I wanted them enough. I did still care for them, still wished them a good day at work and actually meant it, but their responses kept getting colder and colder. Somewhere along the line they stopped wanting a kiss and a hug, so, I eventually stopped offering. Eventually the only response to even my verbal best wishes was just a grunt. x.x
I do remember a time (although I cannot pin a date on it) where 'L' went into the spare bedroom for a while. At that point nobody was sleeping there but we did have the couch in there. I thought it was odd that they didn't come out a few minutes later, I'd figured they were looking for something in storage at first. When I went in I found them laying on the couch and crying. I tried to offer some comfort. They were saying that 'S' was so clingy they were having a hard time dealing with it, that they were a monster themselves because they couldn't feel any emotion for anyone, and that they missed what we used to have.
I tried my best, and I truly believe that when I told them we could find a way to build back to it, we could have if they'd wanted to.
But after that, it didn't feel like they put in any effort trying, and I simply had no idea what to do. Trying to push affection on them felt like I'd just be hurting 'S'. So nothing really changed. And 'S' was in a lot of pain. They lost a relative near the end of the summer, who was both their only real source of income as well as someone they had been close to and cared for. They were emotionally devastated and neither 'L' nor myself could really offer very much comfort. We tried, but just couldn't do anything.
Over the summer, as I was now working an overnight shift, my schedule lined up almost perfectly with my friend F. She was there for me when I woke up in the evening to talk and spend time together. She was there almost ready for bed while I was on my lunch break, so we'd talk some more. In the morning she was asleep, however that usually gave me time to find something interesting to talk about with her the next day. This is where our bond really started to grow closer. She went from being a friend to being one of the better friends I'd ever had. I knew she was married, but she was so open and friendly that it felt safe trusting her with things that I usually wouldn't tell anyone. And we had so many of the same interests. We just clicked so well.
When school started in the fall, I'd switched from overnights back to days, this time working in Frozen/Dairy. My bosses knew that if I said I knew something I did, so on day 1 they actually had me training a new associate. And honestly she was a pleasure to work with. Another student at my school although a different field, someone I'd have no classes with. Mostly she worked on days I was off so I didn't see her, but the fact that I had her up to par so quickly impressed my boss enough that they kept trying to get me to go into management x.x
However, I'd asked for 15-20 hours a week while I was in school. I figured one weekend day and two 6 hour evenings. Had one week of that before it jumped up to 25ish hours a week. I didn't want to complain, classes were easy the first few weeks. With no money coming in for 'S' and the lack of motivation to do art, I knew I needed the hours. Especially since the place 'L' worked was trimming hours for a while. To the point where I'd be making larger paychecks while in school then they did. And they got paid significantly more than I did.
A few times they had to ask me to cover rent. They did always pay me back (as far as I'm aware, I didn't track it that closely, to be honest). With that going on, I didn't feel I 'could' cut my hours at work, and they increased to about 28 and stayed that way.
In here, an old friend (The artist that I would hang out in her stream, that did Nyr and then Maya for me) somehow ended up in a fight with 'S'. I was told it was over the fact that 'S' advertised for commissions too much in their stream. I'd sort of lost contact with the artist, they had some issues come up in real life and were not around, and then I was dealing with a lot of things. I knew the artist was back, and that I'd enjoyed their company and friendship, but it was pretty much implied that if I went back into their streams while the fight was going on, that would be taking sides against 'S' in the issue.
So I didn't. I stayed away from her. I do think I still had a fair number of hours of work saved up from the past, however I've never tried to claim them and I doubt I ever will. I know I'd been enough of a supporter to have a 25% life time discount with her, but I'll never use it. *Shrugs* For all I know she's made up with 'S' by now and they are friends again. or friends with 'L' still. And I have worked to avoid entangling myself with either of them again.
So, when my friend 'F' started streaming more and more often, I was there. Hanging out with them as they worked, talking about whatever came up. They ended up doing a lot of gift art for me, quite a few things. I almost always threw some money at them for it, close to the cost of a commission (Although with some of the loving detail put in I know I still underpaid x.x)
They drew my Maya so often with their character that I didn't really have much desire to go elsewhere for art, I was happy with the balance. I knew that over the past few months I'd grown extremely fond of 'F', that i'd fallen a bit in love. But it was safe, she was married and I'd never try to break up something like on purpose. So it was safe to let my guard down. We never had any eRPs, although we'd occasionally talk about naughty things mostly as picture ideas or as interests. We were simply good friends.
I think we're in late 2016 now.
Here's where I started to fall apart. I'm sure everyone in the US remembers how heated things were getting, how hate was filling the airwaves. I know I annoyed both 'S' and 'L' by staying up to date on it. I felt I had to. Of the three of us, I was by far the most likely to be harassed and physically hurt for being myself. As it was, I heard tons of hateful and hurtful things on campus. Plenty directed at trans folk. (And all aimed at trans women, nobody ever really discusses trans guys in that fashion it seems). I literally feared for my life after my late class, when I had to walk several blocks off of campus through all the private houses filled with college students. Wouldn't take much, a couple seconds and I could have been kidnapped easily, no witnesses in the dark.
Maybe that was paranoid of me, but that's why I did my best to keep my finger on the pulse of society, as much as I hated doing so, I thought if I was prepared by knowing what was going on, what was being said, maybe I'd spot it getting ugly far enough in advance to change something and avoid it.
When hate won, I broke. I knew I'd seen a lot of bad in humanity, but when someone that lies and cheats and gaslights could get so much power, I just...I had flashbacks to my time with 'R', to how it had felt. I couldn't function. I planned to go back to school a couple days later, to catch up, but I just didn't recover. And so I now felt like more and more of a failure on each passing day. I know neither 'S' nor 'L' really knew how to deal with it, and I didn't either.
At this point, I knew the relationship with 'L' was over. We were just living together as friends now. And this strained even that. I believe I was taken to the hospital once for depression here, but it was voluntary if I stayed and I said no.
This is where my series of dates starts to grow really fuzzy. Some of it all blends in together because it was so unhappy and I didn't want to remember a lot of it. I know it also weakens my argument if I said I wasn't lying on this, I could have some things flipped around, I fully admit that. The events all happened, just maybe the source of some of the pain wasn't what I remember it being.
Somewhere in the fall I'd sort of put myself out on a dating site again. Met one person about 2 hours away that was interesting, that I went to visit twice. I think in october or november of 2016 and again in january of 2017. She was married and poly with two kids. Her husband didn't mind her dating as long as he got to at least watch. *Blushes* I wasn't sure if I wanted to take it that far, but I did like her and want to be friends and I was clear about that.
The first time I spent a weekend there it was very pleasant. We watched movies and talked, had a good time. I helped a bit with her kids, one was an infant and the other had way too much energy.
The second time was much more of the same, however near the end they tried to get me involved in some intimacy. I was very shy and awkward as they made love in front of me while I sat on the couch mostly watching Rick and Morty (What a thing to do it to x.x). I admit physically I was interested in her. She even gently grabbed my hand at one point and placed it on a breast just so that I'd have been involved somehow.
I think maybe if I'd been alone with just her, I could have gotten into it, and it's possible that with enough time I could have built that into tolerance for him watching, I just wasn't ready for that yet.
I know she didn't really like my friend 'F'. I was honest about how I know I cared for 'F' to the level she wanted me to care for her, that maybe it could grow to that, but it would take time.
Eventually this friend cut me out of their life. They couldn't love me with me unable to return their affection the same way, it was too uncomfortable for them.
I know when I got back, 'F' was a bit scared and sad, worried about me. I told her nothing had happened, though. Because besides that one touch nothing had. I hadn't had any real intimacy or been taken advantage of.
..
I'm also not going to reveal everything here. Even though I think I made the right call, out of respect for 'F' I'm going to limit what I say here. I won't ask for permission to speak freely, and I think doing so would just cause her more pain by reopening wounds. And doing so more than I already have wouldn't be just bending rule #1, it'd be breaking it completely. I'm still honoring and respecting those.
Short version is that 'F' started feeling things for me while being unhappy in their situation. All I wanted was for them to make a decision that made them happiest, i'd accept whatever it was. Yes, I ended up hurt, but not because of their decision, but because others were working to influence their decision while I stepped back as much as possible without cutting the friendship completely.
So I ended up in the hospital again. Although the mental health ward I was in was probably good for most people, it had nothing for me. I wasn't allowed the grooming I needed, and so I barely managed to go out of my room even for food. One 'group' therapy session was all I attended. The issues others had were so far removed from my own, I couldn't open up to them. Especially not how I was. Maybe 1 on 1 with the therapist I could have, but I doubt even that.
I eventually was released when it was clear I wasn't a suicide risk. I called 'L' and had them pick me up.
Later on I did get close to suicidal at some more bad news. I was in tears, I really couldn't feel much reason to live anymore. I wanted to just get into my car, drive as far as I could into the middle of nowhere, let it run out of gas and just let myself fall sleep and not wake. I don't know if I was truly serious when I said it (wrote it, really) but 'L' called the cops on me for my protection. They took me to the local hospital, which was much less suited to deal with me.
I didn't have my phone, my keys, even the stupid prosthetics I have to wear because my genetics suck. I felt gross all the time, and the rules they placed on me at the hospital were ridiculous. No in room bathroom at this one, so I just didn't use it until I absolutely had to, at the odd hours when nobody was in the common areas. I couldn't have food in my room so I refused to eat in public. I told them exactly why I was doing so, but they only bent the rules once. For a '3' day hold I was there 6.5 days due to a weekend and then the doctor that had to sign something had already left.
At least 'L' had contacted my mother, who had improved someone over the years and was actually concerned and trying to help me. But the therapist in the ward certainly didn't understand me or my issues. And since 'L' had grabbed all the medications in the bathroom for the cops, they ran drug tests on it all. Some of it had my dead name on it and so I was literally grilled about whose medication I had been stealing (My prior hospital, while supposedly being trans friendly, was very strict about name changes and requirements to do so. It took months to process it even with the doctor that I was seeing pushing on my behalf as well.). Turns out everything was exactly what it said it was.
When I got out, I didn't have a way to contact anyone. So I walked the mile and a half home. Didn't have my keys however I had my wallet and the person in the office was kind enough to let me in even though I looked like shit, I just said I had been in the hospital and didn't want to wait all day for my ride.
'L', 'S', and I, we had long talks over the next few days. How I was making things difficult by not being able to open up. And so I tried, I cried in their arms for hours one night as I tried to bare everything. I..I knew it wasn't going to fix everything, but I thought it was a start. At some point I'd been told that they were thinking of leaving because of me, and I didn't want to lose the only friends i'd had. I know I wasn't the easiest person to be around, but I thought we'd started patching it up.
They told me they wanted to find us a bigger place. Most likely a rental house rather than an apartment. So that 'S' could get a dog. So that we wouldn't live in quite so much clutter. (Some of the clutter was my stuff, a lot of it didn't really have anywhere to go. But equally as much belonged to 'L', lots of craft supplies that they had stopped crafting with for most of why they were together. It was quite a clutter and a little uncomfortable to live in.
After a little while, I reconnected with 'F' online. (Through 'S' I believe) We set some ground rules because we both wanted to keep the friendship, it was one of the best things in my life, and I'm egotistical enough to believe that it was also one of the best in hers at that time. We did not have any private conversations, all of them for a couple weeks had 'S' or 'L' in them as a chaperone, until they both believed that I was not a danger to her, not going to try and take advantage of her or manipulate her. I'd not tried to do so, but I could understand nobody trusting me.
Since some of the drama was rather public and my characters too painful to use, I dropped them all. The few people I contacted that I had previously known me I did tell the truth to, but for the most part it was a clean start. I pulled out an adopt that I'd picked up but never used, and registered things. Then I came across Destiny and she stole a bit of me.
I tried to be her, to be bright and bubbly and happy. To look forward in my life. I know in a short time I'd gotten a ton of art of her, it was trying to soothe the pain I was in. I made quite a few new friends, one of which still has stuck around, the rest all faded with time.
Then out of nowhere I had a bombshell dropped on me. 'L' and 'S' couldn't even tell me themselves, they had to bring in a parent to break the news. They were going to be moving to a smaller apartment and would not renew the lease. I'd already seen the renewal notice (with discount offer) that they had gotten and never passed on to me, but they drop this on me with about 7 days before I had to have a final decision on renewing or not.
I had been starting to really recover. I'd actually sent out a few job applications, and had gotten some interest in me giving more information for a paid internship from a company that was heavily recruiting at my school. I hadn't yet responded, I was working on how to do so when this all hit.
So of course I was depressed. Of course I went into my room to cry. At this point, literally all the college students had housing locked up for the next year, so I knew I wouldn't have much luck there. And the fact that they'd been telling me (even up to the week of this event) that they were looking for a bigger place for us...that hurt me, deeply. I felt like I'd opened up to them, bared some of the most painful things in me, only to have it feel like everything they said was a lie. That we'd worth through it together? a lie. That we'd come out of it stronger? a lie.
Maybe they meant it, but the fact that they'd already found a smaller place and and had it locked in before telling me, that spoke louder than words.
So, I was crying in the bedroom when the cops came back. Same officers as before. I really wasn't suicidal. I was sad, and had a headache so I'd cried myself to sleep for a while, then cried more upon waking up. All the while I was thinking about what I had to do where to go from there. I was afraid I would end up homeless. I didn't want to return to my parents again. And 'L's mother had said they didn't want me to be forced to go back to my parents, but that was really the only option I had. I couldn't afford anything alone
So I was hauled in to the hospital again. No wallet, no keys, not even my prosthetics. They did let me stop and get shoes on at least.
I was in the same room and I literally refused to do anything but stay in my room. For that three days I think I left three or four times to use the restroom, that was it. No food, a little bit of water. *Shrugs* They couldn't help me when they didn't even understand why I refused to do anything. I couldn't present to others in the state I was in. I can't be seen like that, it just shames me so much. Because not only do I feel like trash, at that point I also look like it.
Also, because this was the second time I was in that hospital and they felt they couldn't help, the threats started. If I had the cops called again I would be locked up in some sort of halfway house. A place where I'd have curfew, have to pay rent and pay for my medical care. I'd have a job they picked for me. I'd have no choice of who I lived with and limited/no access to electronics. I'd have no pets. And the people I lived with would most likely be recovering drug addicts. And once I was in it there was no legal way out of it besides finishing the program.
So I spent my 3 days there before they could release me, got out as early as I could. Shaky, they had threatened an IV but never gave it. I walked home half naked carrying a small bag with whatever papers they had given me and a sweatshirt I believe. I then sat outside for about 3 hours waiting for 'L' and 'S' to get back. I'd already lost half my time in which to find a roommate. Now I found they had stopped living in the apartment already, too. When they let me in I immediately saw that 'S's computer was gone.
That computer was half theirs and half mine. When they first moved in I had an old computer I'd built for 'J' in case they had moved in with us, It needed upgrading but it still worked, could run all but the newest games decently at low settings.
However, apparently the power strip I used for it (Belonging to 'L') didn't have a surge protector. We tested it days before they moved in and it was fine. Then a storm and when we tried it after they got there nothing. I felt horrible, and a friend had chipped in for 'S' to move in with us, so they used some of that money to replace a couple things. Half the computer was still my parts.
Thing is, I wouldn't have been mad if they'd asked. I'd probably have said they could have it. But they didn't ask, they just took it. (Along with my nice USB flash drive I'd picked up for school and was letting them borrow to help with the laptop they'd gotten from their father). To me that felt sort of like another knife in the back. After all i'd done to support them, from the lending of rent money, from the fact that 'S' NEVER paid any rent in the year they were there, to helping with food for all of us as I could. All the emotional support I tried to give while they were hurting. They couldn't even 'ask'.
They left shortly after arriving. The next day they came back and picked up 'L's cat, never even gave me a chance to say goodbye. Just gone like that.
My memory is a bit fuzzy here, I was a bit emotional. I know my friend 'F' was moving into base housing with her husband around the same time I was moving so although we were talking, it wasn't very often or very long. I wasn't trying to bother her either, I know I was so busy trying to get everything that was mine sorted out and packed.
My parents offered me two dates for helping to move me out, I chose the closest one. It was so awkward being in the apartment alone. I only had a couple weeks to sort through everything but somehow I managed. Got everything of mine loaded into the trailer when my parents were there, and my mother helped with as much deep cleaning as we could. *Shrugs* We tried, we really did.
....
So, It's mid 2017, I'm now living with my parents.
I'd pretty much had next to no contact with 'L' or 'S' for a while when they contacted my parents. They apparently needed me to sign the check to get the security deposit. Although the lease clearly showed only 'L' as getting the full deposit apparently they cut the check to all 3 of us. I ignored them, passed it along that I wouldn't contest if they forged my signature on it. I just wanted to be done with them. Driving two and a half hours just to sign a stupid check for them wasn't really high on my list.
Eventually, my mother acted as a go-between to get it signed. I had to go to an appointment at the hospital I'd been taken to and my mother was up there since my sister still lives in the area. I signed the check and gave it to my mother, and I was done with them. I didn't want to be involved in their life.
I'd heard from 'F' just once after they moved, just checking if everything was ok. The conversation ended on a positive note, I thought, but then they never responded to me after that. I'd pulled out of the furry community completely, at first due to a lack of time with the move, and then due to a lack of privacy after the fact.
Honestly, I thought that I must have done something to hurt 'F' badly again. We'd patched things up, I was told our friendship was ok as long as it stayed that, but when they vanished I knew I couldn't go searching them out. I'd promised to leave the relationship and contact level up to them to decide. As it was those in their life that were the ones not happy with it.
So I retreated further into myself. I'd pretty much lost the only outlet I'd had for many things, so I found a way to just seal and lock it all up away. The longer I went the more I felt the loss. Although I had about 5 people on my contact lists, only one of them was around almost daily. As her living situation worsened I ended up sending her more and more money just to keep the roof over her head. I think over two years I probably gave her about $4000 total (Most of it after my bankruptcy). a tax refund I hadn't filed originally and then a bit from the savings. I was working full time and not spending very much. She was also caring for her mother at the same time, and I just couldn't 'not' help. I know I haven't gotten many breaks in life. But maybe by giving one or two to others I'll have made the world a better place.
I also did get sued over some of my medical debt. That was when I had to declare bankruptcy. It was not a fun process and I'm ashamed to have done so, but I couldn't work with the terms they offered. Even though my job paid decently (Read not minimum wage but only by a few dollars) They wanted it all paid off within a year. Even if I'd worked full time and had no expenses, I still couldn't quite have done that. let alone living expenses.
Luckily my parents had a good lawyer that helped me through it. I know my credit history is now shot, but at least that is gone. It's funny, if they'd just have worked with me to make sure I could afford school without relying on others I'd have actually been able to pay x.x A couple thousand extra would likely have done it. x.x Enough to keep the roof above me without worrying and a small bit of food on the table.
There were some other small things. A friend I'd made as Destiny wanted to be in a picture with me a long time back. They talked with an artist, reserved a spot, and then before they could pay lost their job. So I covered it. Paid my share, their share. Months later the artist contacted me, apparently the friend was asking for a refund and wanting to cancel. The artist had just started a new job and was broke. I lent the artist enough to do the refund. (Even though it was refunding money that I had paid, so technically the artist would have only owed me the refund, but they were worried about a paypal dispute over it if the refund went to me, even if the money could clearly be traced back to me from the other person)
I didn't complain, I accepted the promise that they'd pay me back once they got their first paycheck. Never happened, but it's alright. I'm not really mad at them. I understand how things happen. I just, I'm a bit sad. I go out of my way to help people and things like that happen. I know I get taken advantage of. But I can't stop being me, of wanting to give others chances where I was never given them.
Somewhere shortly after I moved, 'J' used some of her favor points to get an artist to create me a new character. That's where Amaranth came from. I didn't use her for close to a year. After the holidays last year I'd gotten quite depressed and lonely. I knew I needed to try and make some more friends, and I'd hoped that FA would be safe for me. I got lucky, I didn't see anything by 'F' on there in the week or so that I was active. I was afraid both that I'd driven them away from the community, or that they were super active again, getting a lot of art that I'd be trying to hide from. They'd clearly stopped talking to me when we used to talk daily, and I wasn't going to push it.
It didn't happen that time, but I overloaded myself with people. Only one or two stuck around, but it kept me from being so alone, and so although I wasn't on FA, I was still being slightly social.
I carried on like this for months, helping my one close friend with a little bit of money here and there. Usually $20 to $50 at a time. Helping cover mother's medications, or what they were short on rent. They literally made next to nothing and even a couple of hours cut meant not making rent at the new place they'd found to live. x.x I couldn't say no when I could afford it.
Finally, I had my first vacation in September. I took a week off and by some cosmic coincidence my parents were also gone for a week and a half. So I was on FA the whole time. I hadn't seen any traces of 'F' until a week or more, and there's a journal on that. I never stopped thinking about her, about how she was my best friend. I wanted to talk with her nearly every day, to seek her out, but I kept to my promise. After I did see her, though. I knew that since all my old contact information was out of date, maybe she had tried to reach out. I bent the rules, I posted that journal on my old accounts. Not exclusively for her, there were a few other people I missed, but I might not have done it. I honestly didn't expect her to email me last week. She had unwatched the old accounts, so unless someone passed it on to her she would have only seen it by her choice. I mean, I'm watching half the people and I easily miss journals and posts on here x.x
All I wanted was my friend, the person I hung out with again. To talk, to comment on her art and show appreciation for it. I know her life would have changed. I knew her as a friend for 10 months before the event, for 2 or 3 after. That's a little over a year.
I'd then been gone for 18 months. a year and a half.
I..if I was still such a threat after all that time that not only her family hates me but her friends too, when she herself didn't? what could I have possibly done to cause so much pain? I never blamed her for the pain I suffered, nor did I blame anyone else. It all was my fault, for being stupid, for thinking that there's anyone that it's safe to love. I know I'm no prize, that women don't even really look at me when they hear how I am.
Have I really screwed up my best friend's life so badly that nobody can stand me being even a friend on a public facing website? I might have missed some of the most significant events in her life, but it was not really by my choice. If it had been up to me I'd have never left, had been there as her friend the entire time. Even if I could never meet her offline, I'd have been right there at her side online. Still would be, too.
....
So, I know I was a bit rude to my old roommates. I know I had hurt them by sealing off too many of my emotions, from having a hard time opening up. I know that I could have done better by them and I feel guilty about that. To this day I still have dreams with them, mostly normal dreams of doing things together, usually ends up with me begging to go back to how things were. Awake, I don't want that. While I want to live elsewhere, with another friend or two if I could make them, I don't think trying again there would work.
I know I was the cause of a lot of pain in 'F's life. But it wasn't intentional and I tried to do the right thin even at cost to myself. I didn't give all the advice I would have given to another because although I still believe it to be objectively true, it would have sounded quite self serving coming from me. Maybe I did wrong here, and if I did so, please, tell me what I did wrong and how I could make it up? Is giving up my best friend really the only way to make it up? Knowing that doing that also hurts her?
I was wrong to the lady that was interested in me. I wasn't trying to lie to her or lead her on, I was trying to be honest and say I had an open mind, I just didn't know where things would go. I never intended to hurt her, I just...I didn't feel that super deep bond she wanted immediately. It very well could have grown over time, but we didn't have time to find out. And I couldn't promise that it would have.
I was wrong to 'J' again. I know there was some emotional manipulation I was a part of. But I truly believe what little I did was for her own good. She's her own demons she's been facing for years and since I couldn't physically be there with her to help her overcome them, I pushed within what I thought were her actual limits in a way that made me uncomfortable, but I believe it was for her own good. You want to hear that from her? Ask her. She's seen this journal, and I'm sure she's willing to make a throwaway account to respond if she doesn't want to link her identity. And if not, I'd relay it although then you'd have to trust me, which I don't advise.
I've spent the last year and a half of my life in a small bit of living hell of my own making. My parents are almost the exact opposite from me politically, they do their best to talk about it much of the time to try and 'fix' my thinking from what school has corrupted it to (in their opinion) I've no friends offline and I put all my energy in at work, so that when I get home all I do is try to recover. With games or movies, whatever is relaxing.
I've had two birthdays here. They've stopped being something to celebrate, I dread them. They tell me I'm another year closer to being dead, and mark another year with no companionship in my life. I've a couple of friends I do talk with, and to be completely honest, they're the only reasons I keep pushing on anymore. Because they would be sad if I stopped.
I don't have much hope for myself. a trans lesbian at 31, extremely introverted and shy, i've had no luck meeting anyone. And the one or two that I found mildly interesting, turns out they end up being 18. While I see nothing wrong with it myself, I know others might see it as me taking advantage of them, and so I'm extra careful around anyone that feels so young. x.x Especially with those voices from my past still whispering in to my ear those untruths that i've internalized, I'd need them to really push for something before I could truly accept it. And most of them are gone once they hear how old I am or how little prospects I have.
......
So there we have it. I'm sure I've missed events, left people I should have talked about out. Maybe I do misremember things. If so, correct me, please.
I've tried to lay out my skeletons but I know they are not orderly or well maintained. I tried to forget much of this and to move on with my life. But since someone doesn't think i've paid for my crimes yet, here we are, all of it that I can think of.
So, hate me if you will. Think poorly of me if you want. But keep it to yourself unless you are willing to show off your secrets to the world. I might be filled with envy and jealousy deep down, but I do my best to cope and show only love and respect for those in my life. To make the world a happier place than I found it. To live and let live.
I also realized one thing I'd lost track of and forgot to mention in the prior piece.
Somewhere in late 2015, when I was starting to get 'J' involved online with some of the intimacy between myself and 'L', I was also pushing on 'J' to step outside their comfort zone. I'd known them for 7 or 8 years at this point. (I think earliest logs were just before christmas of 2007, but those clearly showed that we'd been talking for a while at that point, however I can't find any traces of anything in prior files to pinpoint a date further)
I'd been showing interest in deepening the relationship from typing to actual talking for several years. Along the way 'R' and I had tried to fly her out to meet us once (Since two tickets the other way were twice as expensive). Somewhere along the way we'd also given her money for a mic and webcam, as well as I remember picking up 3 headsets on a sale, one for myself, one for 'R' and one for 'J'. We did struggle to get hers to her, extra customs fees and whatnot, but somehow we managed it.
We also helped her with money for a mic and/or webcam at least once. (I'm thinking twice but I can't really recall if we'd just talked about it or actually did it) But here as we were getting closer, we wanted to get her talking with us. And so I think I might have been a bit emotionally manipulative in the way I got her talking. I know I didn't like doing it, and I still feel so dirty at having done so, it really did improve her life. She was now starting to talk a little in calls in stream, and in calls with her friends. She was connecting more easily with people. And I've asked her several times since then how she feels about it, and she's said that she does enjoy doing so.
For a while, she was calling me nearly every day and I enjoyed that too. it had felt like another big step forward.
.....
Anyway, back to mid 2016.
We'd moved 'S' into the apartment with us. His room wasn't great (one of the baseboard heaters didn't work right) and it was full of a bit of clutter, but it was all his otherwise. Of course, due to the housesitting he wasn't there much of the time, and so I didn't really get to know him any better than I had online. All I really got to experience was some of the trauma and regret he had. I know how scary it is leaving everything you know behind, and how much losing the family you care about can hurt. And I don't blame him for that.
I did my best to offer comfort, to try and be helpful as best I could when they were around, but I felt like I was just muddling things up, inserting myself where I didn't belong. I would say things that I'd later be told were the wrong things to have said due to experiences I hadn't known, or that they felt awkward coming from a 'stranger' like me.
After the two of them were living in the apartment again most of the time I know I started struggling a little bit at school. One class in particular. It wasn't directly their fault, but I know staying up too late to comfort him sometimes when he was really hurting did have a bit of impact. My high school physics class was garbage. it was supposed to be calculus based, but they allowed two non-calculus students in so the teacher attempted to teach it without calculus.
I'm a very science oriented student, I love that sort of thing, but honestly she messed the class up so much that it left all of us confused in the end. And then when I took physics in college I had a professor that was later released for poor performance. Although he clearly knew the topic well, he spoke little to no english and he wouldn't let his TA's write his tests. I think I remember hearing that maybe 20% of the class of 150+ got more than a 50% on his tests because they were so poorly worded that we couldn't figure out what he was asking in any given question. And the 3 TA's were simply not enough to get an answer from when you need it every other question and only have 50 minutes and are in one of those crowded theatre style rooms where they can't even get to you in the middle.
This professor I had now was much better than that, however he was a firm believer that if you know the content well you shouldn't have to think your way through it. I did extremely well on the classwork, but on his tests I could never finish. I felt like my brain was filled with molasses because I was older and required a little more time to work through problems, to then double check that I didn't make a stupid mistake early on. So I never finished his tests, but the parts I did do were mostly correct. Still passed the class but it was close. x.x
It's funny because I was easily the best of the students in my lab period for the class. I grasped the concepts in action right away, I simply took a bit more time to work out the math.
Late in 2015 I'd finally decided on my new sona, and finished fleshing out the details that mattered for her. I'd planned to use some of the stream time my patronage bought to have her worked on, however issues came up for the artist and it kept being delayed. It was pushed back several months before it happened, but this is where Maya was born. And I'd fallen in love with her immediately. She was me, but also very much what I wanted to become. A bit over-exaggerated sure, but that's a little bit of what the furry community is about.
Somewhere in the late spring, shortly before the school year ended, the three of us started sleeping in my bed. I had a large, comfortable king sized bed. It was big enough for three most of the time and I know I really did enjoy the company. However it started growing awkward for me as the two of them grew closer together and I only more distant. 'S' tended to stay up late and sleep in late, and was sometimes still asleep when I had to start sleeping for work.
So, when summer hit and I got a job working overnights at Walmart, I made an executive decision to move into the other bedroom. Mostly it was so I wouldn't disturb anyone with my odd sleep schedule, but a small part of it was because I knew the 'relationship' with 'L' was starting to fall apart. Possibly it was my fault, for not showing that I wanted them enough. I did still care for them, still wished them a good day at work and actually meant it, but their responses kept getting colder and colder. Somewhere along the line they stopped wanting a kiss and a hug, so, I eventually stopped offering. Eventually the only response to even my verbal best wishes was just a grunt. x.x
I do remember a time (although I cannot pin a date on it) where 'L' went into the spare bedroom for a while. At that point nobody was sleeping there but we did have the couch in there. I thought it was odd that they didn't come out a few minutes later, I'd figured they were looking for something in storage at first. When I went in I found them laying on the couch and crying. I tried to offer some comfort. They were saying that 'S' was so clingy they were having a hard time dealing with it, that they were a monster themselves because they couldn't feel any emotion for anyone, and that they missed what we used to have.
I tried my best, and I truly believe that when I told them we could find a way to build back to it, we could have if they'd wanted to.
But after that, it didn't feel like they put in any effort trying, and I simply had no idea what to do. Trying to push affection on them felt like I'd just be hurting 'S'. So nothing really changed. And 'S' was in a lot of pain. They lost a relative near the end of the summer, who was both their only real source of income as well as someone they had been close to and cared for. They were emotionally devastated and neither 'L' nor myself could really offer very much comfort. We tried, but just couldn't do anything.
Over the summer, as I was now working an overnight shift, my schedule lined up almost perfectly with my friend F. She was there for me when I woke up in the evening to talk and spend time together. She was there almost ready for bed while I was on my lunch break, so we'd talk some more. In the morning she was asleep, however that usually gave me time to find something interesting to talk about with her the next day. This is where our bond really started to grow closer. She went from being a friend to being one of the better friends I'd ever had. I knew she was married, but she was so open and friendly that it felt safe trusting her with things that I usually wouldn't tell anyone. And we had so many of the same interests. We just clicked so well.
When school started in the fall, I'd switched from overnights back to days, this time working in Frozen/Dairy. My bosses knew that if I said I knew something I did, so on day 1 they actually had me training a new associate. And honestly she was a pleasure to work with. Another student at my school although a different field, someone I'd have no classes with. Mostly she worked on days I was off so I didn't see her, but the fact that I had her up to par so quickly impressed my boss enough that they kept trying to get me to go into management x.x
However, I'd asked for 15-20 hours a week while I was in school. I figured one weekend day and two 6 hour evenings. Had one week of that before it jumped up to 25ish hours a week. I didn't want to complain, classes were easy the first few weeks. With no money coming in for 'S' and the lack of motivation to do art, I knew I needed the hours. Especially since the place 'L' worked was trimming hours for a while. To the point where I'd be making larger paychecks while in school then they did. And they got paid significantly more than I did.
A few times they had to ask me to cover rent. They did always pay me back (as far as I'm aware, I didn't track it that closely, to be honest). With that going on, I didn't feel I 'could' cut my hours at work, and they increased to about 28 and stayed that way.
In here, an old friend (The artist that I would hang out in her stream, that did Nyr and then Maya for me) somehow ended up in a fight with 'S'. I was told it was over the fact that 'S' advertised for commissions too much in their stream. I'd sort of lost contact with the artist, they had some issues come up in real life and were not around, and then I was dealing with a lot of things. I knew the artist was back, and that I'd enjoyed their company and friendship, but it was pretty much implied that if I went back into their streams while the fight was going on, that would be taking sides against 'S' in the issue.
So I didn't. I stayed away from her. I do think I still had a fair number of hours of work saved up from the past, however I've never tried to claim them and I doubt I ever will. I know I'd been enough of a supporter to have a 25% life time discount with her, but I'll never use it. *Shrugs* For all I know she's made up with 'S' by now and they are friends again. or friends with 'L' still. And I have worked to avoid entangling myself with either of them again.
So, when my friend 'F' started streaming more and more often, I was there. Hanging out with them as they worked, talking about whatever came up. They ended up doing a lot of gift art for me, quite a few things. I almost always threw some money at them for it, close to the cost of a commission (Although with some of the loving detail put in I know I still underpaid x.x)
They drew my Maya so often with their character that I didn't really have much desire to go elsewhere for art, I was happy with the balance. I knew that over the past few months I'd grown extremely fond of 'F', that i'd fallen a bit in love. But it was safe, she was married and I'd never try to break up something like on purpose. So it was safe to let my guard down. We never had any eRPs, although we'd occasionally talk about naughty things mostly as picture ideas or as interests. We were simply good friends.
I think we're in late 2016 now.
Here's where I started to fall apart. I'm sure everyone in the US remembers how heated things were getting, how hate was filling the airwaves. I know I annoyed both 'S' and 'L' by staying up to date on it. I felt I had to. Of the three of us, I was by far the most likely to be harassed and physically hurt for being myself. As it was, I heard tons of hateful and hurtful things on campus. Plenty directed at trans folk. (And all aimed at trans women, nobody ever really discusses trans guys in that fashion it seems). I literally feared for my life after my late class, when I had to walk several blocks off of campus through all the private houses filled with college students. Wouldn't take much, a couple seconds and I could have been kidnapped easily, no witnesses in the dark.
Maybe that was paranoid of me, but that's why I did my best to keep my finger on the pulse of society, as much as I hated doing so, I thought if I was prepared by knowing what was going on, what was being said, maybe I'd spot it getting ugly far enough in advance to change something and avoid it.
When hate won, I broke. I knew I'd seen a lot of bad in humanity, but when someone that lies and cheats and gaslights could get so much power, I just...I had flashbacks to my time with 'R', to how it had felt. I couldn't function. I planned to go back to school a couple days later, to catch up, but I just didn't recover. And so I now felt like more and more of a failure on each passing day. I know neither 'S' nor 'L' really knew how to deal with it, and I didn't either.
At this point, I knew the relationship with 'L' was over. We were just living together as friends now. And this strained even that. I believe I was taken to the hospital once for depression here, but it was voluntary if I stayed and I said no.
This is where my series of dates starts to grow really fuzzy. Some of it all blends in together because it was so unhappy and I didn't want to remember a lot of it. I know it also weakens my argument if I said I wasn't lying on this, I could have some things flipped around, I fully admit that. The events all happened, just maybe the source of some of the pain wasn't what I remember it being.
Somewhere in the fall I'd sort of put myself out on a dating site again. Met one person about 2 hours away that was interesting, that I went to visit twice. I think in october or november of 2016 and again in january of 2017. She was married and poly with two kids. Her husband didn't mind her dating as long as he got to at least watch. *Blushes* I wasn't sure if I wanted to take it that far, but I did like her and want to be friends and I was clear about that.
The first time I spent a weekend there it was very pleasant. We watched movies and talked, had a good time. I helped a bit with her kids, one was an infant and the other had way too much energy.
The second time was much more of the same, however near the end they tried to get me involved in some intimacy. I was very shy and awkward as they made love in front of me while I sat on the couch mostly watching Rick and Morty (What a thing to do it to x.x). I admit physically I was interested in her. She even gently grabbed my hand at one point and placed it on a breast just so that I'd have been involved somehow.
I think maybe if I'd been alone with just her, I could have gotten into it, and it's possible that with enough time I could have built that into tolerance for him watching, I just wasn't ready for that yet.
I know she didn't really like my friend 'F'. I was honest about how I know I cared for 'F' to the level she wanted me to care for her, that maybe it could grow to that, but it would take time.
Eventually this friend cut me out of their life. They couldn't love me with me unable to return their affection the same way, it was too uncomfortable for them.
I know when I got back, 'F' was a bit scared and sad, worried about me. I told her nothing had happened, though. Because besides that one touch nothing had. I hadn't had any real intimacy or been taken advantage of.
..
I'm also not going to reveal everything here. Even though I think I made the right call, out of respect for 'F' I'm going to limit what I say here. I won't ask for permission to speak freely, and I think doing so would just cause her more pain by reopening wounds. And doing so more than I already have wouldn't be just bending rule #1, it'd be breaking it completely. I'm still honoring and respecting those.
Short version is that 'F' started feeling things for me while being unhappy in their situation. All I wanted was for them to make a decision that made them happiest, i'd accept whatever it was. Yes, I ended up hurt, but not because of their decision, but because others were working to influence their decision while I stepped back as much as possible without cutting the friendship completely.
So I ended up in the hospital again. Although the mental health ward I was in was probably good for most people, it had nothing for me. I wasn't allowed the grooming I needed, and so I barely managed to go out of my room even for food. One 'group' therapy session was all I attended. The issues others had were so far removed from my own, I couldn't open up to them. Especially not how I was. Maybe 1 on 1 with the therapist I could have, but I doubt even that.
I eventually was released when it was clear I wasn't a suicide risk. I called 'L' and had them pick me up.
Later on I did get close to suicidal at some more bad news. I was in tears, I really couldn't feel much reason to live anymore. I wanted to just get into my car, drive as far as I could into the middle of nowhere, let it run out of gas and just let myself fall sleep and not wake. I don't know if I was truly serious when I said it (wrote it, really) but 'L' called the cops on me for my protection. They took me to the local hospital, which was much less suited to deal with me.
I didn't have my phone, my keys, even the stupid prosthetics I have to wear because my genetics suck. I felt gross all the time, and the rules they placed on me at the hospital were ridiculous. No in room bathroom at this one, so I just didn't use it until I absolutely had to, at the odd hours when nobody was in the common areas. I couldn't have food in my room so I refused to eat in public. I told them exactly why I was doing so, but they only bent the rules once. For a '3' day hold I was there 6.5 days due to a weekend and then the doctor that had to sign something had already left.
At least 'L' had contacted my mother, who had improved someone over the years and was actually concerned and trying to help me. But the therapist in the ward certainly didn't understand me or my issues. And since 'L' had grabbed all the medications in the bathroom for the cops, they ran drug tests on it all. Some of it had my dead name on it and so I was literally grilled about whose medication I had been stealing (My prior hospital, while supposedly being trans friendly, was very strict about name changes and requirements to do so. It took months to process it even with the doctor that I was seeing pushing on my behalf as well.). Turns out everything was exactly what it said it was.
When I got out, I didn't have a way to contact anyone. So I walked the mile and a half home. Didn't have my keys however I had my wallet and the person in the office was kind enough to let me in even though I looked like shit, I just said I had been in the hospital and didn't want to wait all day for my ride.
'L', 'S', and I, we had long talks over the next few days. How I was making things difficult by not being able to open up. And so I tried, I cried in their arms for hours one night as I tried to bare everything. I..I knew it wasn't going to fix everything, but I thought it was a start. At some point I'd been told that they were thinking of leaving because of me, and I didn't want to lose the only friends i'd had. I know I wasn't the easiest person to be around, but I thought we'd started patching it up.
They told me they wanted to find us a bigger place. Most likely a rental house rather than an apartment. So that 'S' could get a dog. So that we wouldn't live in quite so much clutter. (Some of the clutter was my stuff, a lot of it didn't really have anywhere to go. But equally as much belonged to 'L', lots of craft supplies that they had stopped crafting with for most of why they were together. It was quite a clutter and a little uncomfortable to live in.
After a little while, I reconnected with 'F' online. (Through 'S' I believe) We set some ground rules because we both wanted to keep the friendship, it was one of the best things in my life, and I'm egotistical enough to believe that it was also one of the best in hers at that time. We did not have any private conversations, all of them for a couple weeks had 'S' or 'L' in them as a chaperone, until they both believed that I was not a danger to her, not going to try and take advantage of her or manipulate her. I'd not tried to do so, but I could understand nobody trusting me.
Since some of the drama was rather public and my characters too painful to use, I dropped them all. The few people I contacted that I had previously known me I did tell the truth to, but for the most part it was a clean start. I pulled out an adopt that I'd picked up but never used, and registered things. Then I came across Destiny and she stole a bit of me.
I tried to be her, to be bright and bubbly and happy. To look forward in my life. I know in a short time I'd gotten a ton of art of her, it was trying to soothe the pain I was in. I made quite a few new friends, one of which still has stuck around, the rest all faded with time.
Then out of nowhere I had a bombshell dropped on me. 'L' and 'S' couldn't even tell me themselves, they had to bring in a parent to break the news. They were going to be moving to a smaller apartment and would not renew the lease. I'd already seen the renewal notice (with discount offer) that they had gotten and never passed on to me, but they drop this on me with about 7 days before I had to have a final decision on renewing or not.
I had been starting to really recover. I'd actually sent out a few job applications, and had gotten some interest in me giving more information for a paid internship from a company that was heavily recruiting at my school. I hadn't yet responded, I was working on how to do so when this all hit.
So of course I was depressed. Of course I went into my room to cry. At this point, literally all the college students had housing locked up for the next year, so I knew I wouldn't have much luck there. And the fact that they'd been telling me (even up to the week of this event) that they were looking for a bigger place for us...that hurt me, deeply. I felt like I'd opened up to them, bared some of the most painful things in me, only to have it feel like everything they said was a lie. That we'd worth through it together? a lie. That we'd come out of it stronger? a lie.
Maybe they meant it, but the fact that they'd already found a smaller place and and had it locked in before telling me, that spoke louder than words.
So, I was crying in the bedroom when the cops came back. Same officers as before. I really wasn't suicidal. I was sad, and had a headache so I'd cried myself to sleep for a while, then cried more upon waking up. All the while I was thinking about what I had to do where to go from there. I was afraid I would end up homeless. I didn't want to return to my parents again. And 'L's mother had said they didn't want me to be forced to go back to my parents, but that was really the only option I had. I couldn't afford anything alone
So I was hauled in to the hospital again. No wallet, no keys, not even my prosthetics. They did let me stop and get shoes on at least.
I was in the same room and I literally refused to do anything but stay in my room. For that three days I think I left three or four times to use the restroom, that was it. No food, a little bit of water. *Shrugs* They couldn't help me when they didn't even understand why I refused to do anything. I couldn't present to others in the state I was in. I can't be seen like that, it just shames me so much. Because not only do I feel like trash, at that point I also look like it.
Also, because this was the second time I was in that hospital and they felt they couldn't help, the threats started. If I had the cops called again I would be locked up in some sort of halfway house. A place where I'd have curfew, have to pay rent and pay for my medical care. I'd have a job they picked for me. I'd have no choice of who I lived with and limited/no access to electronics. I'd have no pets. And the people I lived with would most likely be recovering drug addicts. And once I was in it there was no legal way out of it besides finishing the program.
So I spent my 3 days there before they could release me, got out as early as I could. Shaky, they had threatened an IV but never gave it. I walked home half naked carrying a small bag with whatever papers they had given me and a sweatshirt I believe. I then sat outside for about 3 hours waiting for 'L' and 'S' to get back. I'd already lost half my time in which to find a roommate. Now I found they had stopped living in the apartment already, too. When they let me in I immediately saw that 'S's computer was gone.
That computer was half theirs and half mine. When they first moved in I had an old computer I'd built for 'J' in case they had moved in with us, It needed upgrading but it still worked, could run all but the newest games decently at low settings.
However, apparently the power strip I used for it (Belonging to 'L') didn't have a surge protector. We tested it days before they moved in and it was fine. Then a storm and when we tried it after they got there nothing. I felt horrible, and a friend had chipped in for 'S' to move in with us, so they used some of that money to replace a couple things. Half the computer was still my parts.
Thing is, I wouldn't have been mad if they'd asked. I'd probably have said they could have it. But they didn't ask, they just took it. (Along with my nice USB flash drive I'd picked up for school and was letting them borrow to help with the laptop they'd gotten from their father). To me that felt sort of like another knife in the back. After all i'd done to support them, from the lending of rent money, from the fact that 'S' NEVER paid any rent in the year they were there, to helping with food for all of us as I could. All the emotional support I tried to give while they were hurting. They couldn't even 'ask'.
They left shortly after arriving. The next day they came back and picked up 'L's cat, never even gave me a chance to say goodbye. Just gone like that.
My memory is a bit fuzzy here, I was a bit emotional. I know my friend 'F' was moving into base housing with her husband around the same time I was moving so although we were talking, it wasn't very often or very long. I wasn't trying to bother her either, I know I was so busy trying to get everything that was mine sorted out and packed.
My parents offered me two dates for helping to move me out, I chose the closest one. It was so awkward being in the apartment alone. I only had a couple weeks to sort through everything but somehow I managed. Got everything of mine loaded into the trailer when my parents were there, and my mother helped with as much deep cleaning as we could. *Shrugs* We tried, we really did.
....
So, It's mid 2017, I'm now living with my parents.
I'd pretty much had next to no contact with 'L' or 'S' for a while when they contacted my parents. They apparently needed me to sign the check to get the security deposit. Although the lease clearly showed only 'L' as getting the full deposit apparently they cut the check to all 3 of us. I ignored them, passed it along that I wouldn't contest if they forged my signature on it. I just wanted to be done with them. Driving two and a half hours just to sign a stupid check for them wasn't really high on my list.
Eventually, my mother acted as a go-between to get it signed. I had to go to an appointment at the hospital I'd been taken to and my mother was up there since my sister still lives in the area. I signed the check and gave it to my mother, and I was done with them. I didn't want to be involved in their life.
I'd heard from 'F' just once after they moved, just checking if everything was ok. The conversation ended on a positive note, I thought, but then they never responded to me after that. I'd pulled out of the furry community completely, at first due to a lack of time with the move, and then due to a lack of privacy after the fact.
Honestly, I thought that I must have done something to hurt 'F' badly again. We'd patched things up, I was told our friendship was ok as long as it stayed that, but when they vanished I knew I couldn't go searching them out. I'd promised to leave the relationship and contact level up to them to decide. As it was those in their life that were the ones not happy with it.
So I retreated further into myself. I'd pretty much lost the only outlet I'd had for many things, so I found a way to just seal and lock it all up away. The longer I went the more I felt the loss. Although I had about 5 people on my contact lists, only one of them was around almost daily. As her living situation worsened I ended up sending her more and more money just to keep the roof over her head. I think over two years I probably gave her about $4000 total (Most of it after my bankruptcy). a tax refund I hadn't filed originally and then a bit from the savings. I was working full time and not spending very much. She was also caring for her mother at the same time, and I just couldn't 'not' help. I know I haven't gotten many breaks in life. But maybe by giving one or two to others I'll have made the world a better place.
I also did get sued over some of my medical debt. That was when I had to declare bankruptcy. It was not a fun process and I'm ashamed to have done so, but I couldn't work with the terms they offered. Even though my job paid decently (Read not minimum wage but only by a few dollars) They wanted it all paid off within a year. Even if I'd worked full time and had no expenses, I still couldn't quite have done that. let alone living expenses.
Luckily my parents had a good lawyer that helped me through it. I know my credit history is now shot, but at least that is gone. It's funny, if they'd just have worked with me to make sure I could afford school without relying on others I'd have actually been able to pay x.x A couple thousand extra would likely have done it. x.x Enough to keep the roof above me without worrying and a small bit of food on the table.
There were some other small things. A friend I'd made as Destiny wanted to be in a picture with me a long time back. They talked with an artist, reserved a spot, and then before they could pay lost their job. So I covered it. Paid my share, their share. Months later the artist contacted me, apparently the friend was asking for a refund and wanting to cancel. The artist had just started a new job and was broke. I lent the artist enough to do the refund. (Even though it was refunding money that I had paid, so technically the artist would have only owed me the refund, but they were worried about a paypal dispute over it if the refund went to me, even if the money could clearly be traced back to me from the other person)
I didn't complain, I accepted the promise that they'd pay me back once they got their first paycheck. Never happened, but it's alright. I'm not really mad at them. I understand how things happen. I just, I'm a bit sad. I go out of my way to help people and things like that happen. I know I get taken advantage of. But I can't stop being me, of wanting to give others chances where I was never given them.
Somewhere shortly after I moved, 'J' used some of her favor points to get an artist to create me a new character. That's where Amaranth came from. I didn't use her for close to a year. After the holidays last year I'd gotten quite depressed and lonely. I knew I needed to try and make some more friends, and I'd hoped that FA would be safe for me. I got lucky, I didn't see anything by 'F' on there in the week or so that I was active. I was afraid both that I'd driven them away from the community, or that they were super active again, getting a lot of art that I'd be trying to hide from. They'd clearly stopped talking to me when we used to talk daily, and I wasn't going to push it.
It didn't happen that time, but I overloaded myself with people. Only one or two stuck around, but it kept me from being so alone, and so although I wasn't on FA, I was still being slightly social.
I carried on like this for months, helping my one close friend with a little bit of money here and there. Usually $20 to $50 at a time. Helping cover mother's medications, or what they were short on rent. They literally made next to nothing and even a couple of hours cut meant not making rent at the new place they'd found to live. x.x I couldn't say no when I could afford it.
Finally, I had my first vacation in September. I took a week off and by some cosmic coincidence my parents were also gone for a week and a half. So I was on FA the whole time. I hadn't seen any traces of 'F' until a week or more, and there's a journal on that. I never stopped thinking about her, about how she was my best friend. I wanted to talk with her nearly every day, to seek her out, but I kept to my promise. After I did see her, though. I knew that since all my old contact information was out of date, maybe she had tried to reach out. I bent the rules, I posted that journal on my old accounts. Not exclusively for her, there were a few other people I missed, but I might not have done it. I honestly didn't expect her to email me last week. She had unwatched the old accounts, so unless someone passed it on to her she would have only seen it by her choice. I mean, I'm watching half the people and I easily miss journals and posts on here x.x
All I wanted was my friend, the person I hung out with again. To talk, to comment on her art and show appreciation for it. I know her life would have changed. I knew her as a friend for 10 months before the event, for 2 or 3 after. That's a little over a year.
I'd then been gone for 18 months. a year and a half.
I..if I was still such a threat after all that time that not only her family hates me but her friends too, when she herself didn't? what could I have possibly done to cause so much pain? I never blamed her for the pain I suffered, nor did I blame anyone else. It all was my fault, for being stupid, for thinking that there's anyone that it's safe to love. I know I'm no prize, that women don't even really look at me when they hear how I am.
Have I really screwed up my best friend's life so badly that nobody can stand me being even a friend on a public facing website? I might have missed some of the most significant events in her life, but it was not really by my choice. If it had been up to me I'd have never left, had been there as her friend the entire time. Even if I could never meet her offline, I'd have been right there at her side online. Still would be, too.
....
So, I know I was a bit rude to my old roommates. I know I had hurt them by sealing off too many of my emotions, from having a hard time opening up. I know that I could have done better by them and I feel guilty about that. To this day I still have dreams with them, mostly normal dreams of doing things together, usually ends up with me begging to go back to how things were. Awake, I don't want that. While I want to live elsewhere, with another friend or two if I could make them, I don't think trying again there would work.
I know I was the cause of a lot of pain in 'F's life. But it wasn't intentional and I tried to do the right thin even at cost to myself. I didn't give all the advice I would have given to another because although I still believe it to be objectively true, it would have sounded quite self serving coming from me. Maybe I did wrong here, and if I did so, please, tell me what I did wrong and how I could make it up? Is giving up my best friend really the only way to make it up? Knowing that doing that also hurts her?
I was wrong to the lady that was interested in me. I wasn't trying to lie to her or lead her on, I was trying to be honest and say I had an open mind, I just didn't know where things would go. I never intended to hurt her, I just...I didn't feel that super deep bond she wanted immediately. It very well could have grown over time, but we didn't have time to find out. And I couldn't promise that it would have.
I was wrong to 'J' again. I know there was some emotional manipulation I was a part of. But I truly believe what little I did was for her own good. She's her own demons she's been facing for years and since I couldn't physically be there with her to help her overcome them, I pushed within what I thought were her actual limits in a way that made me uncomfortable, but I believe it was for her own good. You want to hear that from her? Ask her. She's seen this journal, and I'm sure she's willing to make a throwaway account to respond if she doesn't want to link her identity. And if not, I'd relay it although then you'd have to trust me, which I don't advise.
I've spent the last year and a half of my life in a small bit of living hell of my own making. My parents are almost the exact opposite from me politically, they do their best to talk about it much of the time to try and 'fix' my thinking from what school has corrupted it to (in their opinion) I've no friends offline and I put all my energy in at work, so that when I get home all I do is try to recover. With games or movies, whatever is relaxing.
I've had two birthdays here. They've stopped being something to celebrate, I dread them. They tell me I'm another year closer to being dead, and mark another year with no companionship in my life. I've a couple of friends I do talk with, and to be completely honest, they're the only reasons I keep pushing on anymore. Because they would be sad if I stopped.
I don't have much hope for myself. a trans lesbian at 31, extremely introverted and shy, i've had no luck meeting anyone. And the one or two that I found mildly interesting, turns out they end up being 18. While I see nothing wrong with it myself, I know others might see it as me taking advantage of them, and so I'm extra careful around anyone that feels so young. x.x Especially with those voices from my past still whispering in to my ear those untruths that i've internalized, I'd need them to really push for something before I could truly accept it. And most of them are gone once they hear how old I am or how little prospects I have.
......
So there we have it. I'm sure I've missed events, left people I should have talked about out. Maybe I do misremember things. If so, correct me, please.
I've tried to lay out my skeletons but I know they are not orderly or well maintained. I tried to forget much of this and to move on with my life. But since someone doesn't think i've paid for my crimes yet, here we are, all of it that I can think of.
So, hate me if you will. Think poorly of me if you want. But keep it to yourself unless you are willing to show off your secrets to the world. I might be filled with envy and jealousy deep down, but I do my best to cope and show only love and respect for those in my life. To make the world a happier place than I found it. To live and let live.
Airing my own dirty laundry - part 2
Posted 7 years agoSo, where did I leave off? About the time I moved back out of Arizona I believe. Sorry if there's a little overlap.
After my sister's wedding and the offer to move back home, I know things were going to change in my life. Although at that point 'R' didn't request my messenger logs or anything very often (I don't remember exactly when they stopped, the relationship sort of started going different ways as they found others to spend time with online and offline (on vacations the last year or so). However one thing they did continued right up until the end. They were 'very' good at gaslighting me. They'd hold an argument with me on the stupidest topics or issues, and no matter how clearly I remembered it or even if I had proof, I was always wrong and they would convince me of that.
I still have issues trusting my memory to this day from it. x.x It doesn't help that I get so lonely I hold conversations in my head with friends when nobody is around, I sometimes start to believe i've told them the things that were just in my head as those conversations go on and on, on whatever topic I'm thinking. So I already seem forgetful when I mention something and then realize I'd never told the person in reality.
And when you are being gaslighted and you depend upon the person doing it, they can easily make it into an issue of trust. That you don't trust them, that you are always attacking them for being wrong. x.x They can make you in to the aggressor in that situation when you really are the victim. I can't estimate how often this was done, from the inside it wasn't something you really saw. You felt it and it felt like you were in the right, but then doesn't any argument you make in good faith feel that way? Anyway x.x
In the last month I was there, I started putting myself on a bunch of online dating sites. Mostly furry related. I'd never had luck doing so, however it was worth a shot. Wasn't actually hoping to get lucky, was just hoping to find a friend in the same geographical area. Someone that I could visit maybe once a month to get me out of the house. While I did know of two furries living in the big city (50,000 people) near where I was moving to, one of them was very anti trans and the other lived with them. Not really safe people for me to want to know.
Surprisingly I did find someone, a recent college graduate we'll call 'L'. Turns out they were house sitting about an hour and a half away but they otherwise lived nearby. We hit it off immediately, and shortly after I'd moved in we arranged a bit of a 'date'. It wasn't formal, we'd just gone to see the Desolation of Smaug together which had recently released. Ended up at 'their' house later that night, and was pretty much my first time with anyone not physically male at the time *Blushes darkly.* They identified as genderqueer. I can tell you it likely wasn't anything spectacular for me, and I doubt it was for them either. I certainly had no skill as any sort of lover. We hadn't really prepared for it, we just had hit it off pretty well and were enjoying each other's company.
Second date was on new years eve, I remember being at their house again, sitting on the living room couch, snuggling (I think during movies) and then realizing just how late it was when we heard the fireworks go off.
*Blushes* We never officially started dating, we just sort of became a couple to those we knew. The second time they started house sitting for the same person, I actually got to come visit them for a week. It was very exciting. For a week I was living in a big house in the middle of the country. Privacy in nearly every direction. Probably could have gone outside naked except for the person that lived in the converted garage loft on the lot. And the fact that it was the middle of a midwest winter still. ^^
We continued to hang out over the course of the next year. I was working full time and got promoted fairly quickly once my new boss saw I knew what I was doing. I ended up taking over the grocery department and actually running it quite well all things considered. I wasn't very 'good' managing my couple associates (Hadn't even met one of them when I'd been doing it for a year, they always started an hour after I left x.x) but the other big associate had been there 26 years and I could count on him for anything. My partner 'L' and I had actually run into my coworker who had a second job at a gas station in the large city a couple times. And once when we were downtown ran into another coworker. I hadn't transitioned at work yet, so when I thought I heard someone calling me I quickly pulled 'L' down the street the other way. Next day heard from the coworker that yeah, although they hadn't planned to go drinking that night, they did. x.x
During this year, I started going through electrolysis, with 'L' there at nearly every 2 hour session. I'm extremely sensitive so it was sometimes very uncomfortable, even with the kindest technician I'd still be fighting tears when in the more sensitive places on my face. My doctor had even given me a surgical grade painkiller to take. (Not an opiod, but something else fairly strong and possibly addictive). It worked amazing the first time and then a little less each session after that. Luckily, we got through the worst of it for that area at least.
Most of the money for this was coming out of my savings account, eating up what little i'd set aside. It wasn't medically necessary so my insurance wouldn't touch it, but it was emotionally necessary. Especially as I'd applied for and been accepted at school the next year. I legally transitioned before I left my job and moved with the partner to the city the school was in, however I didn't have the guts to do so at work, I just finished my time and moved. I know it 'should' have been alright, and my boss had supposedly even seen a picture of me on a friend's phone a couple weeks prior to me leaving. (I didn't know the name, but my partner did. The 'friend' was one of the board members of the local LGBT group.) It was very awkward and I just figured it wasn't worth the stress since I didn't plan to come back to that store x.x
Now, while I'd been spending a year gathering my funds together, getting back into school, and growing that offline relationship, I'd also spent a fair bit of time online. My friend 'J' had introduced me to an artist who liked to stream. We talked a little and although we were not really friends, I felt somewhat safe in her channel as she worked. However, my old partner 'R' was also there. He wasn't openly hostile, however he was 'very' protective of 'J', to the point where anyone showing affection was an enemy. She even tried to do a little public RPing with me and got in trouble with him, since they were still an online couple.
I didn't like this, even after leaving he was still controlling parts of my life through 'J's. I'd also started to feel trapped by my sona. Although she had grown with me some over the years, she became a bit of a habit that I was stuck in, I couldn't push outside what I'd always done. So I made a very difficult choice to step aside from her for a while. For a character that was me for almost 20 years, that was a very tough decision.
Shortly after having moved in with my partner 'L' into the city I was going to school in (Which was the same distance from where they worked as where they lived before, and in a much more accepting state) the artist whom I hung around posted a gryphon up for adopt. I immediately loved it and started a private conversation with the artist. I explained what I was going to do and why I was going to do so. To help remove the drama that me being in the stream caused by letting the old 'me' die out and this new character slowly enter. With enough overlap and distinction that nobody else would know, at least until the time was right.
The artist agreed completely, so I created a new FA account (Mahin_nyx) and bid. Surprisingly I won her and thus a second account was born. I worked very hard to make sure this second account was separated from my first. No knowledge of things I shouldn't know, different available hours in the day. Even had my two accounts interact once or twice. Tame little nothings. Only the artist running the stream knew. And somehow it worked, nobody else suspected. Over the time I was doing both characters, 'J's relationship with 'R' started to degrade on it's own. I certainly wasn't trying to hurt it, just to not be a part of it. To not be involved in drama with it.
Somewhere in there I'd commissioned a very large and detailed piece with my partner, 'L'. It was a sexual piece, a threesome with 'J' in it as well. I'd explained to my partner 'L' about my polyamory from the beginning, it wasn't a secret or a way for me to 'cheat' on them whenever I wanted. For me, it's the fact that I'm a bit like a character from the sims. My relationship meter with those around me doesn't have a cap. If I've hit relationship 100 with someone, it doesn't mean I can't also have gotten someone else at 80 or even 90. I don't actively try to do so, it just happens as I spend time with my friends.
'J' was easily my best friend at this point, one of the only people that had stuck with me for half a decade. I loved her, I still do love her. Even to this day, I love her. But she cannot commit physically and that's what I need my emotional relationships to lead to, at least one of them at a time x.x
We'd asked 'J' if they wanted to be involved and had permission and they said yes. However when 'R' found out by coming into the stream while it was being sketched, things exploded. I admit I don't fully remember the details nor the order of things nor the exact accusations, however the net result was that the relationship between 'J' and 'R' online was done.
This was the place where I revealed that Kaaryn and Nyr were both me. First in private to 'J' but then in general. Since 'R' wasn't coming around anymore there was no reason to hide. Kaaryn sort of faded into the background at this point and Nyr became my sona. She was more outgoing, more friendly, and far better liked. I'd picked up a few side characters and one of them was Avie, a bluejay that was sort of a tribute to a friend that had vanished over the years. Someone that I'd been on the point of asking out when she had. x.x.
I think this is about where things were in late 2015
School started. I didn't have a car but my partner dropped me off in the morning for my early class and then picked me up in the evening. I spent a lot of time on campus between classes (Since my schedule alternated most days. Hour on hour off.) I attended the first couple meetings of the LGBT group but quickly found it not very welcoming for an older/nontraditional student, especially one that had a hard time speaking up. Most of the 'meet and greet' activities were so loud that nobody could hear me when I used the least bad version of my crappy voice. That and just the general odd feeling of being a decade older than all the other students quickly made me feel unwelcome. I just had nothing to connect with.
So on campus I really didn't find any friends. So I spent my time in a secluded place (with a power outlet) and browsed FA. Commented on lots of things, met a lot of new people. Met mommy Paradise, and for a while really thought I had a bit of a home there in her Nest. She was so kind and caring and sweet, but for whatever stupid reason I felt I had to 'earn' my way in. So I started a story. One that she helped me edit at first, but never quite as much as I'd have liked. I simply couldn't reproduce her 'voice' myself, no matter how hard I tried. Making characters actually be 'other' than myself was always a weakness in my writing.
Over time, she got busy with the others in her life and I sort of drifted away, never happy enough with what I'd done to submit it even with the encouragement of Marzipan, the one person that truly believed in me from the Nest. I just... I couldn't do it alone.
Another thing going on in life was that I still had a fairly close bond with 'J'. To the point where my partner new I had an interest in including them in some of the few times we had intimacy. Both because it really turned me on to know that we were not quite alone, and I honestly think that 'L' liked it a bit as well, playing for an audience. At first it was just an audio call with a picture here or there sent, but in at least one point we had video going. I don't remember what we did, just that I had found it extremely hot. *Blushes darkly.*
I enjoyed the intimacy when it was initiated, but my medication gave me a big fat 0 sex drive. I had to be mentally worked up into it, and that along with my lack of experience made my partner hesitant to do so very often. Honestly, the hitachi wand was a far better physical partner than I ever could have been and I know it.
Although I passed my first semester amazingly well (It was all review classes to get me a solid start in my major after nearly a decade away). However the financial aid had been lackluster at best. Even lower than what I'd predicted based on what I knew. Apparently even with 2 years of credit (and previous federal loans) they still counted me as a new student so gave me almost $2000 less than I had planned on. I had stretched my money decently, but my weekly medical appointments had drained it so that right before christmas I had to go begging to my parents for money so that we could eat.
I was so ashamed. I'm still ashamed of that. I feel if I'd only planned better or cut my care off sooner we'd have made it without trouble.
Around this time, a friend of ours online, we'll call him 'S' had started to show signs of genuine distress in their living arrangements. Abusive relatives taking advantage, always yelling. We were literally afraid that he was being driven to the point of suicide, especially as people disparaged his artwork He wanted to make a living and did have a bit of talent, especially for some of the crafty things we'd been shown.. We had an extra bedroom and figured why not. Extra help to lower rent would be appreciated and we'd be doing a good deed.
Plus, I'd formed a little bit of a crush on him. *Blushes darkly.*
So, once school started my financial aid was a little better second semester, and I planned to get a job over the summer. And without the constant $400 a month in medical expenses I had the money to help. So my partner and I sent my partner across the country to pick 'S' up and move them back in with us. We knew it would be a bit of a challenge, but then isn't doing a good deed with no expectation of reward one of the best things someone can do?
So one day in early spring we sent 'L' to pick him up. Apparently they had also set up a long term housesitting job right after they got back. I'm thinking 5 weeks now, but I was busy with school at the time so had apparently forgotten about it. So when the two of them got back it was just for a day or two. 'S' was very clingy to 'L' and I couldn't blame them. They'd just left their family and everything they knew behind. And so 'S' went on the housesitting job with them.
This was probably the biggest mistake any of us made. Looking back now, I believe that this early time would have been critical for forming a stable bond for the three of us. Maybe it still wouldn't have worked out even if we had, there was a chance.
They stopped in from time to time to visit or pick up things, but mostly I had the apartment to myself. I did get lonely quite easily and tried to spend my free time talking with what friends I had made online. Somewhere early in the year, before 'S' moved in with us, I think I knew the relationship was starting to crumble slightly. I was lonely and browsing FA and I came across someone that was bright and friendly. They said if I liked the picture they got so much, the artist might make one for me.
I got to talking with the artist, but it was just a couple words, I was too shy to ask for something. I still don't like asking for free art, and I wasn't sure if they were accepting commissions. At that point mostly I was still talking with the person that introduced me. We will call her 'A'. Over the course of three or four days, she spent so much free time with me, getting to know me and pushing me to RP a bit more than I was comfortable with. After the first eRP that I was partially pushed into (I could have stopped at any point, I know. I sometimes let others push a bit because I've found I do grow from some experiences) I felt I should tell her the truth about myself. She'd been honest and open, or so I thought.
Turns out, when I came out to her as trans she freaked out. Vanished immediately after freaking out about "I thought I was RPing with someone with the same parts as me" (paraphrased, I don't remember the exact wording nor even what messenger it was in. I think it may have been a private whisper/room on the stream. 15 or 20 minutes later I get a message from her husband asking what happened. Not mad at me, but wondering what I'd done since she wouldn't even talk to him.
Of course, I was in tears myself. Crying, staying up way too late trying to fix things. The artist messaged me, asking me if everything was ok, I'd been talking normally in stream and then just vanished. Since I knew the artist 'F' was friends with her, I figured I could write a nice detailed note to the artist, not asking for her to take my side, just for her to pass it on saying 'a friend asked you to read this, they're not asking for you to forgive them'. Of course I also asked the artist to read it, and if passing it on would do more damage than just ignore it and forget me.
In my note, I detailed some of what I've gone through in my life. Much like a mini condensed version of these posts. I pulled up real information including my driver's license to show that yes, I had legally transitioned. I wasn't lying about who I was, I just couldn't afford the surgery yet. It's expensive and working for close to minimum wage doesn't get you very far. I laid my heart out, explaining that although I don't usually come out to people that don't need to know, whenever it gets that far I do so. Just, she'd pushed faster than I would have gone with things, caught me off guard, and I hadn't felt a moment I 'could' interrupt it to say something.
From this, my friendship with 'F' was born. She'd seen deeply into my past, saw much of the pain I was coming from and how it had shaped me. And how I still was doing everything I could to try and remove pain that I had caused by accident. She saw me baring my heart, trying to make things right. She saw someone that she thought could be a friend. And so our friendship was born from my pain.
For a time, I did patch things up with the person who I'd 'hurt'. Except that both 'F' and I found out that we never actually knew the lady. It had been her husband RPing for her "Because she didn't know how to RP but wanted to" or something like that. 'F' and I both felt betrayed by that. Especially that cutting mark that started it all about my lack of surgery, that was rich coming from a guy playing his wife online.
This covers from late 2013 to early/mid 2016
This portion isn't as dark as the prior piece. For a couple of years, things were looking up and I was moving forward in life. I was making friends and I thought I was happy much of the time. And maybe I was. I question to this day if I really know what happiness is.
....
So in this time period I drifted into a relationship with my former partner. We had quite a few interests, but they were a more active sort of person, going out and about in nature, and I know I brushed off too many opportunities to join them, that certainly didn't help. I like the 'thought' of nature, but the reality is always uncomfortable for me. Clothing doesn't quite fit, bugs seem attracted to me. Too hot/cold to the point of being uncomfortable. Too wet x.x
I feel if only I would have been more involved in such things, tolerated them a little better, maybe they wouldn't have started drifting away from me, maybe the feelings that we had wouldn't have been overpowered by whatever it was. Or maybe if I could have expressed my emotions a little better. Offline I can be seen as a bit cold, I keep my emotions locked up close to myself because I got hurt for having them when I was young. This was extremely unfair to 'L' who I know needed more of them than I gave.
I also know my lack of sex drive didn't help anything. I could view adult art all day and enjoy it, but just didn't have any drive to do anything more on my own. And the thought of initiating sexual contact still scares me. One of the early therapists had pretty well drilled into my head that being trans wasn't normal. And that I couldn't be trans because I identified as liking women. At the time that was termed autogynephilia. Which just made me a sexual pervert, a sexual monster just trying to trap women to take advantage of them.
*Shakes a bit.* S..sorry, I can literally hear some of that in his voice to this day almost 15 years later, and while my head says it is all bunk...it's drilled into me deeply. It's horrible because a part of me wants to believe it, wants to believe I'm this horrible monster I'm told I am, because than maybe all the pain and suffering i've gone through, maybe then it means something.
....
Another 3.5 hours of typing x.x It's really hard to keep a timeline behind all of this. Thoughts and memories are not really connected chronologically in my head. They leap around and I keep remembering things that may come up in the last part that need some backstory.
After my sister's wedding and the offer to move back home, I know things were going to change in my life. Although at that point 'R' didn't request my messenger logs or anything very often (I don't remember exactly when they stopped, the relationship sort of started going different ways as they found others to spend time with online and offline (on vacations the last year or so). However one thing they did continued right up until the end. They were 'very' good at gaslighting me. They'd hold an argument with me on the stupidest topics or issues, and no matter how clearly I remembered it or even if I had proof, I was always wrong and they would convince me of that.
I still have issues trusting my memory to this day from it. x.x It doesn't help that I get so lonely I hold conversations in my head with friends when nobody is around, I sometimes start to believe i've told them the things that were just in my head as those conversations go on and on, on whatever topic I'm thinking. So I already seem forgetful when I mention something and then realize I'd never told the person in reality.
And when you are being gaslighted and you depend upon the person doing it, they can easily make it into an issue of trust. That you don't trust them, that you are always attacking them for being wrong. x.x They can make you in to the aggressor in that situation when you really are the victim. I can't estimate how often this was done, from the inside it wasn't something you really saw. You felt it and it felt like you were in the right, but then doesn't any argument you make in good faith feel that way? Anyway x.x
In the last month I was there, I started putting myself on a bunch of online dating sites. Mostly furry related. I'd never had luck doing so, however it was worth a shot. Wasn't actually hoping to get lucky, was just hoping to find a friend in the same geographical area. Someone that I could visit maybe once a month to get me out of the house. While I did know of two furries living in the big city (50,000 people) near where I was moving to, one of them was very anti trans and the other lived with them. Not really safe people for me to want to know.
Surprisingly I did find someone, a recent college graduate we'll call 'L'. Turns out they were house sitting about an hour and a half away but they otherwise lived nearby. We hit it off immediately, and shortly after I'd moved in we arranged a bit of a 'date'. It wasn't formal, we'd just gone to see the Desolation of Smaug together which had recently released. Ended up at 'their' house later that night, and was pretty much my first time with anyone not physically male at the time *Blushes darkly.* They identified as genderqueer. I can tell you it likely wasn't anything spectacular for me, and I doubt it was for them either. I certainly had no skill as any sort of lover. We hadn't really prepared for it, we just had hit it off pretty well and were enjoying each other's company.
Second date was on new years eve, I remember being at their house again, sitting on the living room couch, snuggling (I think during movies) and then realizing just how late it was when we heard the fireworks go off.
*Blushes* We never officially started dating, we just sort of became a couple to those we knew. The second time they started house sitting for the same person, I actually got to come visit them for a week. It was very exciting. For a week I was living in a big house in the middle of the country. Privacy in nearly every direction. Probably could have gone outside naked except for the person that lived in the converted garage loft on the lot. And the fact that it was the middle of a midwest winter still. ^^
We continued to hang out over the course of the next year. I was working full time and got promoted fairly quickly once my new boss saw I knew what I was doing. I ended up taking over the grocery department and actually running it quite well all things considered. I wasn't very 'good' managing my couple associates (Hadn't even met one of them when I'd been doing it for a year, they always started an hour after I left x.x) but the other big associate had been there 26 years and I could count on him for anything. My partner 'L' and I had actually run into my coworker who had a second job at a gas station in the large city a couple times. And once when we were downtown ran into another coworker. I hadn't transitioned at work yet, so when I thought I heard someone calling me I quickly pulled 'L' down the street the other way. Next day heard from the coworker that yeah, although they hadn't planned to go drinking that night, they did. x.x
During this year, I started going through electrolysis, with 'L' there at nearly every 2 hour session. I'm extremely sensitive so it was sometimes very uncomfortable, even with the kindest technician I'd still be fighting tears when in the more sensitive places on my face. My doctor had even given me a surgical grade painkiller to take. (Not an opiod, but something else fairly strong and possibly addictive). It worked amazing the first time and then a little less each session after that. Luckily, we got through the worst of it for that area at least.
Most of the money for this was coming out of my savings account, eating up what little i'd set aside. It wasn't medically necessary so my insurance wouldn't touch it, but it was emotionally necessary. Especially as I'd applied for and been accepted at school the next year. I legally transitioned before I left my job and moved with the partner to the city the school was in, however I didn't have the guts to do so at work, I just finished my time and moved. I know it 'should' have been alright, and my boss had supposedly even seen a picture of me on a friend's phone a couple weeks prior to me leaving. (I didn't know the name, but my partner did. The 'friend' was one of the board members of the local LGBT group.) It was very awkward and I just figured it wasn't worth the stress since I didn't plan to come back to that store x.x
Now, while I'd been spending a year gathering my funds together, getting back into school, and growing that offline relationship, I'd also spent a fair bit of time online. My friend 'J' had introduced me to an artist who liked to stream. We talked a little and although we were not really friends, I felt somewhat safe in her channel as she worked. However, my old partner 'R' was also there. He wasn't openly hostile, however he was 'very' protective of 'J', to the point where anyone showing affection was an enemy. She even tried to do a little public RPing with me and got in trouble with him, since they were still an online couple.
I didn't like this, even after leaving he was still controlling parts of my life through 'J's. I'd also started to feel trapped by my sona. Although she had grown with me some over the years, she became a bit of a habit that I was stuck in, I couldn't push outside what I'd always done. So I made a very difficult choice to step aside from her for a while. For a character that was me for almost 20 years, that was a very tough decision.
Shortly after having moved in with my partner 'L' into the city I was going to school in (Which was the same distance from where they worked as where they lived before, and in a much more accepting state) the artist whom I hung around posted a gryphon up for adopt. I immediately loved it and started a private conversation with the artist. I explained what I was going to do and why I was going to do so. To help remove the drama that me being in the stream caused by letting the old 'me' die out and this new character slowly enter. With enough overlap and distinction that nobody else would know, at least until the time was right.
The artist agreed completely, so I created a new FA account (Mahin_nyx) and bid. Surprisingly I won her and thus a second account was born. I worked very hard to make sure this second account was separated from my first. No knowledge of things I shouldn't know, different available hours in the day. Even had my two accounts interact once or twice. Tame little nothings. Only the artist running the stream knew. And somehow it worked, nobody else suspected. Over the time I was doing both characters, 'J's relationship with 'R' started to degrade on it's own. I certainly wasn't trying to hurt it, just to not be a part of it. To not be involved in drama with it.
Somewhere in there I'd commissioned a very large and detailed piece with my partner, 'L'. It was a sexual piece, a threesome with 'J' in it as well. I'd explained to my partner 'L' about my polyamory from the beginning, it wasn't a secret or a way for me to 'cheat' on them whenever I wanted. For me, it's the fact that I'm a bit like a character from the sims. My relationship meter with those around me doesn't have a cap. If I've hit relationship 100 with someone, it doesn't mean I can't also have gotten someone else at 80 or even 90. I don't actively try to do so, it just happens as I spend time with my friends.
'J' was easily my best friend at this point, one of the only people that had stuck with me for half a decade. I loved her, I still do love her. Even to this day, I love her. But she cannot commit physically and that's what I need my emotional relationships to lead to, at least one of them at a time x.x
We'd asked 'J' if they wanted to be involved and had permission and they said yes. However when 'R' found out by coming into the stream while it was being sketched, things exploded. I admit I don't fully remember the details nor the order of things nor the exact accusations, however the net result was that the relationship between 'J' and 'R' online was done.
This was the place where I revealed that Kaaryn and Nyr were both me. First in private to 'J' but then in general. Since 'R' wasn't coming around anymore there was no reason to hide. Kaaryn sort of faded into the background at this point and Nyr became my sona. She was more outgoing, more friendly, and far better liked. I'd picked up a few side characters and one of them was Avie, a bluejay that was sort of a tribute to a friend that had vanished over the years. Someone that I'd been on the point of asking out when she had. x.x.
I think this is about where things were in late 2015
School started. I didn't have a car but my partner dropped me off in the morning for my early class and then picked me up in the evening. I spent a lot of time on campus between classes (Since my schedule alternated most days. Hour on hour off.) I attended the first couple meetings of the LGBT group but quickly found it not very welcoming for an older/nontraditional student, especially one that had a hard time speaking up. Most of the 'meet and greet' activities were so loud that nobody could hear me when I used the least bad version of my crappy voice. That and just the general odd feeling of being a decade older than all the other students quickly made me feel unwelcome. I just had nothing to connect with.
So on campus I really didn't find any friends. So I spent my time in a secluded place (with a power outlet) and browsed FA. Commented on lots of things, met a lot of new people. Met mommy Paradise, and for a while really thought I had a bit of a home there in her Nest. She was so kind and caring and sweet, but for whatever stupid reason I felt I had to 'earn' my way in. So I started a story. One that she helped me edit at first, but never quite as much as I'd have liked. I simply couldn't reproduce her 'voice' myself, no matter how hard I tried. Making characters actually be 'other' than myself was always a weakness in my writing.
Over time, she got busy with the others in her life and I sort of drifted away, never happy enough with what I'd done to submit it even with the encouragement of Marzipan, the one person that truly believed in me from the Nest. I just... I couldn't do it alone.
Another thing going on in life was that I still had a fairly close bond with 'J'. To the point where my partner new I had an interest in including them in some of the few times we had intimacy. Both because it really turned me on to know that we were not quite alone, and I honestly think that 'L' liked it a bit as well, playing for an audience. At first it was just an audio call with a picture here or there sent, but in at least one point we had video going. I don't remember what we did, just that I had found it extremely hot. *Blushes darkly.*
I enjoyed the intimacy when it was initiated, but my medication gave me a big fat 0 sex drive. I had to be mentally worked up into it, and that along with my lack of experience made my partner hesitant to do so very often. Honestly, the hitachi wand was a far better physical partner than I ever could have been and I know it.
Although I passed my first semester amazingly well (It was all review classes to get me a solid start in my major after nearly a decade away). However the financial aid had been lackluster at best. Even lower than what I'd predicted based on what I knew. Apparently even with 2 years of credit (and previous federal loans) they still counted me as a new student so gave me almost $2000 less than I had planned on. I had stretched my money decently, but my weekly medical appointments had drained it so that right before christmas I had to go begging to my parents for money so that we could eat.
I was so ashamed. I'm still ashamed of that. I feel if I'd only planned better or cut my care off sooner we'd have made it without trouble.
Around this time, a friend of ours online, we'll call him 'S' had started to show signs of genuine distress in their living arrangements. Abusive relatives taking advantage, always yelling. We were literally afraid that he was being driven to the point of suicide, especially as people disparaged his artwork He wanted to make a living and did have a bit of talent, especially for some of the crafty things we'd been shown.. We had an extra bedroom and figured why not. Extra help to lower rent would be appreciated and we'd be doing a good deed.
Plus, I'd formed a little bit of a crush on him. *Blushes darkly.*
So, once school started my financial aid was a little better second semester, and I planned to get a job over the summer. And without the constant $400 a month in medical expenses I had the money to help. So my partner and I sent my partner across the country to pick 'S' up and move them back in with us. We knew it would be a bit of a challenge, but then isn't doing a good deed with no expectation of reward one of the best things someone can do?
So one day in early spring we sent 'L' to pick him up. Apparently they had also set up a long term housesitting job right after they got back. I'm thinking 5 weeks now, but I was busy with school at the time so had apparently forgotten about it. So when the two of them got back it was just for a day or two. 'S' was very clingy to 'L' and I couldn't blame them. They'd just left their family and everything they knew behind. And so 'S' went on the housesitting job with them.
This was probably the biggest mistake any of us made. Looking back now, I believe that this early time would have been critical for forming a stable bond for the three of us. Maybe it still wouldn't have worked out even if we had, there was a chance.
They stopped in from time to time to visit or pick up things, but mostly I had the apartment to myself. I did get lonely quite easily and tried to spend my free time talking with what friends I had made online. Somewhere early in the year, before 'S' moved in with us, I think I knew the relationship was starting to crumble slightly. I was lonely and browsing FA and I came across someone that was bright and friendly. They said if I liked the picture they got so much, the artist might make one for me.
I got to talking with the artist, but it was just a couple words, I was too shy to ask for something. I still don't like asking for free art, and I wasn't sure if they were accepting commissions. At that point mostly I was still talking with the person that introduced me. We will call her 'A'. Over the course of three or four days, she spent so much free time with me, getting to know me and pushing me to RP a bit more than I was comfortable with. After the first eRP that I was partially pushed into (I could have stopped at any point, I know. I sometimes let others push a bit because I've found I do grow from some experiences) I felt I should tell her the truth about myself. She'd been honest and open, or so I thought.
Turns out, when I came out to her as trans she freaked out. Vanished immediately after freaking out about "I thought I was RPing with someone with the same parts as me" (paraphrased, I don't remember the exact wording nor even what messenger it was in. I think it may have been a private whisper/room on the stream. 15 or 20 minutes later I get a message from her husband asking what happened. Not mad at me, but wondering what I'd done since she wouldn't even talk to him.
Of course, I was in tears myself. Crying, staying up way too late trying to fix things. The artist messaged me, asking me if everything was ok, I'd been talking normally in stream and then just vanished. Since I knew the artist 'F' was friends with her, I figured I could write a nice detailed note to the artist, not asking for her to take my side, just for her to pass it on saying 'a friend asked you to read this, they're not asking for you to forgive them'. Of course I also asked the artist to read it, and if passing it on would do more damage than just ignore it and forget me.
In my note, I detailed some of what I've gone through in my life. Much like a mini condensed version of these posts. I pulled up real information including my driver's license to show that yes, I had legally transitioned. I wasn't lying about who I was, I just couldn't afford the surgery yet. It's expensive and working for close to minimum wage doesn't get you very far. I laid my heart out, explaining that although I don't usually come out to people that don't need to know, whenever it gets that far I do so. Just, she'd pushed faster than I would have gone with things, caught me off guard, and I hadn't felt a moment I 'could' interrupt it to say something.
From this, my friendship with 'F' was born. She'd seen deeply into my past, saw much of the pain I was coming from and how it had shaped me. And how I still was doing everything I could to try and remove pain that I had caused by accident. She saw me baring my heart, trying to make things right. She saw someone that she thought could be a friend. And so our friendship was born from my pain.
For a time, I did patch things up with the person who I'd 'hurt'. Except that both 'F' and I found out that we never actually knew the lady. It had been her husband RPing for her "Because she didn't know how to RP but wanted to" or something like that. 'F' and I both felt betrayed by that. Especially that cutting mark that started it all about my lack of surgery, that was rich coming from a guy playing his wife online.
This covers from late 2013 to early/mid 2016
This portion isn't as dark as the prior piece. For a couple of years, things were looking up and I was moving forward in life. I was making friends and I thought I was happy much of the time. And maybe I was. I question to this day if I really know what happiness is.
....
So in this time period I drifted into a relationship with my former partner. We had quite a few interests, but they were a more active sort of person, going out and about in nature, and I know I brushed off too many opportunities to join them, that certainly didn't help. I like the 'thought' of nature, but the reality is always uncomfortable for me. Clothing doesn't quite fit, bugs seem attracted to me. Too hot/cold to the point of being uncomfortable. Too wet x.x
I feel if only I would have been more involved in such things, tolerated them a little better, maybe they wouldn't have started drifting away from me, maybe the feelings that we had wouldn't have been overpowered by whatever it was. Or maybe if I could have expressed my emotions a little better. Offline I can be seen as a bit cold, I keep my emotions locked up close to myself because I got hurt for having them when I was young. This was extremely unfair to 'L' who I know needed more of them than I gave.
I also know my lack of sex drive didn't help anything. I could view adult art all day and enjoy it, but just didn't have any drive to do anything more on my own. And the thought of initiating sexual contact still scares me. One of the early therapists had pretty well drilled into my head that being trans wasn't normal. And that I couldn't be trans because I identified as liking women. At the time that was termed autogynephilia. Which just made me a sexual pervert, a sexual monster just trying to trap women to take advantage of them.
*Shakes a bit.* S..sorry, I can literally hear some of that in his voice to this day almost 15 years later, and while my head says it is all bunk...it's drilled into me deeply. It's horrible because a part of me wants to believe it, wants to believe I'm this horrible monster I'm told I am, because than maybe all the pain and suffering i've gone through, maybe then it means something.
....
Another 3.5 hours of typing x.x It's really hard to keep a timeline behind all of this. Thoughts and memories are not really connected chronologically in my head. They leap around and I keep remembering things that may come up in the last part that need some backstory.
Airing my own dirty laundry - part 1
Posted 7 years agoFeel free to unwatch me now if you'd prefer not to see some of the deeper darknesses in me and the things i've done.
I was serious in my prior journal. And to prove it I will start. I'm only going to go back about 10 years, give or take. Beyond that the details are too fuzzy for me to remember clearly, especially those i've spent the last decade trying to forget. I apologize if times are slightly fuzzy, some years sort of ran together.
Who have I been?
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/kaaryn
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/mahinnyx/
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/threshersharkmaya/
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/sinuousorchid/
I only left the first account to hide from someone, an ex that visited the same stream I did and was angry with me and very possessive over another friend of mine. The stream owner and artist created Nyr (mahin_nyx) for me to hide behind. With her blessing. She understood why I was doing it, why I faked two identities for a few months until he left. It wasn't to fool people or take advantage of them, it was just so that I'd be ignored by the ex. And If I'd tried "anything" wrong she was to publicly out me, I insisted on it.
Maya just fell in love with her best friend, and became too painful for me to think about, and Destiny...she was too bright and bubbly for me at the time. I just couldn't play that happy while hurting so much. After her, I left the community for over a year before creating Amaranth as a profile. And even then, it took another 6 months after overwhelming myself.
So, about me, first of all. I'm currently 31 years old trans female living just south of Madison, Wisconsin. I currently live with my parents for the second time. I'm twice a college dropout, the first time my grades suffered from both isolation and a lack of the medical treatment. I already had quite a few issues from my non-accepting parents and the conversion therapy I spent years going through during high school. Yes, they kept insisting it was for my own good. And while I was mostly an A student until the my junior year of high school, worked a job to pay for my gas to get to school and was mistaken for a college student even at 15 I was told I couldn't possibly make decisions on my own, and that my input didn't matter.
So I was forced to attend college without transitioning. However it was on my record, and the school had no choice but to stick me in a 4 person apartment by myself. Normally they didn't let freshman live outside of the dorms, but they couldn't put me in them. I didn't have a car or a way to fill the apartment fridge besides the once my parents visited (I'd picked a school 6 hours away on purpose to be away from them). I did have a meal plan, but I couldn't open up to too many people. Both the LGBT group met during a class my first semester and when I finally did get to go second semester I barely fit in. I remember a few meetings and two movie nights. One in a public on campus room and one in two ladies dorm room (where we watched a really crappy Pirate porn movie while two gay gentleman blew up balloons to give themselves boobs, then threw sharpened pencils at each other to pop them)
Right about the end of the semester, last two or three weeks I'd really started to hit it off with one of the girls in the group, we had so many similar interests (And she even loved the Sonic SatAM DVD set i'd just gotten as much as I did) But we never really stayed in contact over the summer, especially as I then took a year in England.
It's funny, due to miscalculation in GPA due to my term not lining up with the traditional term, my school refused my financial aid. They also insisted they didn't know how to contact me (yet I was with professors from my school, with 29 other students from my school, and even getting paid by my school for a research project) and so although I passed most of my classes even suffering through the depression and a self medicated transition, I still ended up coming back to the US with no hope of continuing. I was able to get a private loan with the help of a relative to cosign, but that only paid for the financial aid refused. I'd missed class signup. I had no other options. And the prospect of living with my parents for more than three months made my blood run cold.
So, a friend i'd made offered to let me move in with them. I applied for the school they went to, was accepted and told I'd be getting a full ride scholarship. We started dating online shortly before I turned 21. This was the first time I'd had any sort of relationship. She was another trans lady, and although I still care for her to this day, personality wise we were just too different to pull it together with all the other issues we faced. I helped them rent an apartment and a couple weeks after my 21st I flew down there to join her. School fell through right away, once I was there they found the money promised no longer existed thanks to the economic downturn. Supposedly I had a transfer in at work, but when I went to the local store they'd never heard of me. Asked me to come back another week later.
So I did, and then it was 'hey, since your previous store listed you as quit already and we hadn't accepted you last week when the manager was on vacation, now we're in a hiring freeze and can't hire anyone'. At the same time, my partner at the time was struggling to work almost full time at a gas station while going to school. My savings ran out and nobody was hiring since it was the middle of the depression we had. Finally when we started getting truly desperate I put in at McDonalds again. My highschool job. I'd hated it, but, 40 hours was 40 hours. The store closest to me offered 8. The next one 12. Finally I found one that was an hour away by bus (and passed 3 others, with a 4th just a few blocks down the other direction).
Somewhere in the job search, a friend of ours needed a place to live. So even though we lived in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment we invited her in with us. We figured that with three of us we could 'upgrade' after a few months to something a little bigger. She had a little money saved up and we figured she could get a job at some point. (She was fairly pretty and as sexist as it is, I've seen pretty girls get jobs that otherwise wouldn't be offered to someone with the same skills. Been those other girls countless times, watching someone less qualified get a job that they don't really care for because of a pretty face)
Started at minimum wage because my experience was about 18 months old. Quickly proved to be one of the best workers that didn't cut corners. This was the first time in my life I ever really saw racism first hand. Quite a few of the people I worked with were Hispanic and I was one of just two Caucasian employees that were not in management. Although I quickly showed my skill at the tasks set before me (and had detailed plenty of things I'd done to the hiring manager, who knew right away that I was well trained when she saw me working), others whispered that the only reason I got full hours so fast was because I was white. It hurt, but I didn't call anyone out on it or pout. Instead, I made it a point to work with those that I'd heard say such things, to help them improve or do things correctly. I'd been a trainer in high school and although I'm extremely introverted, I was pretty good at politely guiding people into the correct ways to do the job.
Over a month or two, the whispering stopped because nobody believed I was trying to be 'better' than anyone, I was trying to do my best and improve those around me. To me, that's just the smart thing to do. If everyone is better at the job than we all have less work.
About six months into the job, my partner (Let's call her E) lost her job. Money went missing from the safe that only management could open, and although she wasn't a manager she was the only one on shift. Fired on the spot for that. At the same time, my relationship with her had started to show some rough edges, her friends (and pets) didn't think I was giving her enough attention. They were starting to say mean things behind my back about me, about how I was just using her. Around that time, our other roommate moved out with little notice. So, to fill this in we invited another friend of mine 'R' to move in. Although he was male, I'd known him online for several years. He'd been nothing but kind to me in that time. The move happened around this time, I don't remember the exact date anymore.
So out of work and having just finished school, I managed to get 'E' a job working with me. We didn't say we were partners, that would have been really awkward, we were both a bit shy about it. She quickly became one of the best customer service oriented employees there. After a few weeks, my boss jokingly asked if I had any more friends. In fact, I did. 'R' needed a job, and although they were hired on as part time, they got full time hours after the first week or so as well.
For a few months things went well, but then 'E' went to visit some friends cross country. When they got there they said they were moving out in a month or so. We'd sort of fallen apart as a couple, but were still good friends, so it wasn't all that painful. And their online friends and pets actually apologized. They saw that I supported 'E' the same way she had me when she was out of work.
So, now it was just myself and 'R'. I knew online I'd had a very slight crush on him for being so kind and protective of me, but this somehow translated into an offline relationship through some form I don't understand still. Technically he was already married to a wife in another country. Had a child he suspected actually was fathered by his father-in-law. Nothing proven, just, they wouldn't let him be on the birth certificate, or get a test done. And he couldn't get a visa to stay there. it's why he was desperately looking for a place to live as that relationship fell apart.
This is about the time I started realizing I was polyamorous to some degree. There was another friend 'J', one I still talk to from time to time. We both cared for her online and wanted to bring her down to join us. She kept saying she wanted to as well, but no matter what we tried, there were excuses. I know physically I couldn't have sex with a male, I just couldn't. But maybe if she'd been there, I could have tolerated it because she'd have been there with me, doing everything she could to make me comfortable. And That's what kept me in this relationship for nearly 5 years. It grew more and more emotionally abusive over that time. And it kept threatening to become physically abusive. When 'E' left us, I stopped sleeping in the bedroom and started sleeping on the couch.
The lack of physical affection is probably why the anger issues started to grow. I just...I could treat him as a friend, but not as a partner. Online we still RPed quite often, that was the interaction we had when not at work. (Which was all the time)
Within a few months of him working there, I got in major trouble at work. We'd gotten a new manager, one I liked very much. She quickly saw that I was one of her best employees and made use of my abilities. At times when she was the only manager on shift and doing critical paperwork in the back (Since other managers dumped it off on her, several of them couldn't actually read english) she entrusted me with her supervisor password to do things like employee meals (Actually chose a code that used my ID in it on purpose). I always called out to her for permission first. One day my boss must have seen it on camera, pulled me aside and asked about it. I told him the honest truth. That the manager gave it to me for use when she was extremely busy, that I only used it when I specifically had permission to do so, and that if I thought she was just being lazy I wouldn't have accepted the responsibility. That during those hours, an employee meal could mean a regular customer had to wait minutes to order, and that was unacceptable, but I was willing to accept responsibility for technically having broken the rules, I knew it was against the rules to use it.
Because I'd given the same answer as my boss (truthful) I actually ended up in management training from that. I wasn't a very good manager of people, but I was great at following procedures and catching little things others did not. So immediately after finishing training we had a manager fired for an incident with an employee that happened where the camera couldn't see anything. So I took over the night shift. Just myself and one other person most nights, two on fridays and saturdays.
The fact that I was promoted over 'R' rankled him, especially as over the next 3 years we didn't promote but 1 person right after me who quit shortly after. He'd had management experience before. Eventually staffing issues led me to an unusual setup, I asked for him on overnight with me although he didn't know grill. So as manager I did the grill and he did all the front end work.
I'm proud of how well it worked considering I made literally everything to order after 11pm and before 5am. Our store had poor reviews during the day but the few night ones we had were amazing in everything but wait times. And once people understood what they were getting from me they were usually happy to wait the extra minute over what another store might have had. x.x
We did this for two years, but things got more and more emotionally abusive. At some point he demanded access to my chat logs at all times, to see if I was cheating on him. (There was one friend that played the cutest little male and female dragons. Adult age but so tiny and cute, i'd have let them do more than most x.x *Blushes*)
We didn't actually do anything more than them teasing me, but he saw it and freaked. Started threatening to just walk out. Suicide, leave, call his mob like relatives on me...all of those at some point. I couldn't afford the apartment on my own. As a shift manager I still made under $9 an hour, it was ridiculous. I was paying off one set of student loans even then, there was no deferral on them. And even combined we barely made enough to cover all other expenses. An hour bus ride each way to work on top of things. x.x
Near the end I'd picked up a cheap van, it helped make work a little more survivable, but R quit after the third time having medical problems due to the lack of care we took with cleaning the oil vats. (We didn't replace the oil when needed, that was too expensive, we let it go way too long where it made this cloud of smoke that got stuck in your lungs)
I quit shortly after, my boss was changing time punches and had found a way to do it in my name. Cutting 30 minutes out for lunch breaks I know never happened. I reported it to the owner one day and since they didn't investigate, I quit.
Somewhere in all of this, we'd tried to fly 'J' down to visit us. But on the way to the airport supposedly her taxi was hit by a drunk driver and she was left even worse off. Thing is, we couldn't ever get proof of this. And 'R' was pretty good at digging stuff up on people when he wanted to be. Found things even I hadn't remembered about myself to use against me. I still want to believe 'J' is who she says she is, but there's never quite enough proof to confirm or deny it. And she can hate me for saying this, I still doubt sometimes, even though to this day she holds a piece of my heart.
I'd gotten a job at Walmart then, forcing 'R' to do the same at a different one (not by choice, he just was spending all his time playing games and not job searching) Although it's for the best, his store was pretty bad. It was the one I'd tried to transfer into in the first place.
Me, I got promoted after a couple months again, took over the frozen department for about 8 months. In that time, my parents let me know my sister was getting married and flew me back for the wedding. I'd been mostly disconnected from them, not talking at all until they one day showed up and found me at walmart. (Tracked my phone to it, actually, I was on the family plan. Figured I wouldn't hang out there of my own free will)
At the wedding my parents offered to let me move back home and get ready for school a second time.
My situation with R had deteriorated at home. Although he was still manipulative, he'd found some new friends online, even flown to join them once, apparently the three of them wanted to get the lady pregnant by him. For me, it just meant I wasn't quite under the magnifying glass, so it was relief for me. But a lot of the damage that had been done is still there to this day. Whenever a guy stands up too fast I cringe, afraid of being hit. And I don't open up to most guys very easily.
I left within a month and a half after returning from the wedding. He was able to find a small apartment closer to where he worked. I left him the car, we'd registered it in his name anyway. Most of my stuff was sent through Fedex. I know moving apartments a week before I finally flew out was rough since neither of us took time off of work. I remember moving stuff until 1am some days and then working at 7. And the final clean was brutal, the apartment was in bad shape, although most of the real damage was due to lack of repairs by the office, not stuff we did.
....
So, in this 2008-2013 period what did I do. I know I ignored my first partner 'E' as we sort of grew apart. I just couldn't do much physical intimacy and they were so extroverted that I struggled to spend a lot of time with them. I did care for her, but, if I'd have known what I know now, i'd have said that was doomed from the start. She was a good friend after we separated, although I've lost contact with her years ago and feel bad about that. I know I could have treated her better.
With 'R', I feel I led him on somewhat. I know I'd had a crush online on him and his wife, I think it was mostly his wife and I was just too ashamed to say that. So I let him set the terms, push me into a relationship I wasn't comfortable with from the start, and then couldn't end it. Every time I was uncomfortable, he'd remind me of our friend 'J' and how maybe once she was there it could work for both of us.
So in the end I know we'd both objectified 'J' to some degree (Although I'd honestly say that was one of her kinks, seriously otherwise I'd never have been able to do it to any degree) and I was unfair to R. I should have said how I felt, that I knew for sure after a while that I wasn't Bi offline at all, just a tiny bit online where I didn't physically have to deal with certain things.
Even after I left, I still liked him as a friend, and I still feel bad for the position I left him in. Tiny apartment, no friends in the area, crappy job. I feel I should have worked harder to find him a solution as well, but I barely managed to get myself moved as it was.
I also show I have a difficult time expressing emotion offline. Growing up I suffered such abuse for being expressive that it's gotten to the point where I internalize all my emotions. They come out in text, through *emotes* easily enough, but physically doing so is very difficult for me. Which also leads people close to me to think I don't like them or care for them. And I'd apologize for that to everyone I've known if they'd let me. I know it's a flaw in myself, a big one that's likely cost me my last relationship.
I also need to apologize to 'J' who I expect will be reading this journal at some point. I've been catfished so many times prior to meeting you, you throw off some of the same warning signs they did. But none of them stuck with me for a decade now through all the crap i've been in. Which makes me feel even worse for when I have doubted you. And when I still do. x.x I know I can't do enough to earn your forgiveness. And I know if I was to hop a flight up to visit you I still fear even knowing your address and apartment and general ideas of when you are home, I'd get there and there'd never be an answer. x.x I'm just disgusting.
I realize i've been typing for almost 3 hours here. I won't be able to finish this all tonight, but tomorrow after work there will be a part 2. This got me from 2006ish to 2013 or so. I'm sure there's plenty of things I don't remember, or that I didn't list. The noncon sex from the first roommate (I won't say rape, but what happened was not what I'd agreed to or wanted for my first time). I know she meant well, but if i'd have known all it was was pity sex for a birthday I'd have said no flat up. But those sorts of things really didn't matter, they weren't positive or negatives on me.
If you think I'm wrong, feel free to leave comments. I won't hide anything on purpose, I just might not have remembered everything important.
I was serious in my prior journal. And to prove it I will start. I'm only going to go back about 10 years, give or take. Beyond that the details are too fuzzy for me to remember clearly, especially those i've spent the last decade trying to forget. I apologize if times are slightly fuzzy, some years sort of ran together.
Who have I been?
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/kaaryn
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/mahinnyx/
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/threshersharkmaya/
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/sinuousorchid/
I only left the first account to hide from someone, an ex that visited the same stream I did and was angry with me and very possessive over another friend of mine. The stream owner and artist created Nyr (mahin_nyx) for me to hide behind. With her blessing. She understood why I was doing it, why I faked two identities for a few months until he left. It wasn't to fool people or take advantage of them, it was just so that I'd be ignored by the ex. And If I'd tried "anything" wrong she was to publicly out me, I insisted on it.
Maya just fell in love with her best friend, and became too painful for me to think about, and Destiny...she was too bright and bubbly for me at the time. I just couldn't play that happy while hurting so much. After her, I left the community for over a year before creating Amaranth as a profile. And even then, it took another 6 months after overwhelming myself.
So, about me, first of all. I'm currently 31 years old trans female living just south of Madison, Wisconsin. I currently live with my parents for the second time. I'm twice a college dropout, the first time my grades suffered from both isolation and a lack of the medical treatment. I already had quite a few issues from my non-accepting parents and the conversion therapy I spent years going through during high school. Yes, they kept insisting it was for my own good. And while I was mostly an A student until the my junior year of high school, worked a job to pay for my gas to get to school and was mistaken for a college student even at 15 I was told I couldn't possibly make decisions on my own, and that my input didn't matter.
So I was forced to attend college without transitioning. However it was on my record, and the school had no choice but to stick me in a 4 person apartment by myself. Normally they didn't let freshman live outside of the dorms, but they couldn't put me in them. I didn't have a car or a way to fill the apartment fridge besides the once my parents visited (I'd picked a school 6 hours away on purpose to be away from them). I did have a meal plan, but I couldn't open up to too many people. Both the LGBT group met during a class my first semester and when I finally did get to go second semester I barely fit in. I remember a few meetings and two movie nights. One in a public on campus room and one in two ladies dorm room (where we watched a really crappy Pirate porn movie while two gay gentleman blew up balloons to give themselves boobs, then threw sharpened pencils at each other to pop them)
Right about the end of the semester, last two or three weeks I'd really started to hit it off with one of the girls in the group, we had so many similar interests (And she even loved the Sonic SatAM DVD set i'd just gotten as much as I did) But we never really stayed in contact over the summer, especially as I then took a year in England.
It's funny, due to miscalculation in GPA due to my term not lining up with the traditional term, my school refused my financial aid. They also insisted they didn't know how to contact me (yet I was with professors from my school, with 29 other students from my school, and even getting paid by my school for a research project) and so although I passed most of my classes even suffering through the depression and a self medicated transition, I still ended up coming back to the US with no hope of continuing. I was able to get a private loan with the help of a relative to cosign, but that only paid for the financial aid refused. I'd missed class signup. I had no other options. And the prospect of living with my parents for more than three months made my blood run cold.
So, a friend i'd made offered to let me move in with them. I applied for the school they went to, was accepted and told I'd be getting a full ride scholarship. We started dating online shortly before I turned 21. This was the first time I'd had any sort of relationship. She was another trans lady, and although I still care for her to this day, personality wise we were just too different to pull it together with all the other issues we faced. I helped them rent an apartment and a couple weeks after my 21st I flew down there to join her. School fell through right away, once I was there they found the money promised no longer existed thanks to the economic downturn. Supposedly I had a transfer in at work, but when I went to the local store they'd never heard of me. Asked me to come back another week later.
So I did, and then it was 'hey, since your previous store listed you as quit already and we hadn't accepted you last week when the manager was on vacation, now we're in a hiring freeze and can't hire anyone'. At the same time, my partner at the time was struggling to work almost full time at a gas station while going to school. My savings ran out and nobody was hiring since it was the middle of the depression we had. Finally when we started getting truly desperate I put in at McDonalds again. My highschool job. I'd hated it, but, 40 hours was 40 hours. The store closest to me offered 8. The next one 12. Finally I found one that was an hour away by bus (and passed 3 others, with a 4th just a few blocks down the other direction).
Somewhere in the job search, a friend of ours needed a place to live. So even though we lived in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment we invited her in with us. We figured that with three of us we could 'upgrade' after a few months to something a little bigger. She had a little money saved up and we figured she could get a job at some point. (She was fairly pretty and as sexist as it is, I've seen pretty girls get jobs that otherwise wouldn't be offered to someone with the same skills. Been those other girls countless times, watching someone less qualified get a job that they don't really care for because of a pretty face)
Started at minimum wage because my experience was about 18 months old. Quickly proved to be one of the best workers that didn't cut corners. This was the first time in my life I ever really saw racism first hand. Quite a few of the people I worked with were Hispanic and I was one of just two Caucasian employees that were not in management. Although I quickly showed my skill at the tasks set before me (and had detailed plenty of things I'd done to the hiring manager, who knew right away that I was well trained when she saw me working), others whispered that the only reason I got full hours so fast was because I was white. It hurt, but I didn't call anyone out on it or pout. Instead, I made it a point to work with those that I'd heard say such things, to help them improve or do things correctly. I'd been a trainer in high school and although I'm extremely introverted, I was pretty good at politely guiding people into the correct ways to do the job.
Over a month or two, the whispering stopped because nobody believed I was trying to be 'better' than anyone, I was trying to do my best and improve those around me. To me, that's just the smart thing to do. If everyone is better at the job than we all have less work.
About six months into the job, my partner (Let's call her E) lost her job. Money went missing from the safe that only management could open, and although she wasn't a manager she was the only one on shift. Fired on the spot for that. At the same time, my relationship with her had started to show some rough edges, her friends (and pets) didn't think I was giving her enough attention. They were starting to say mean things behind my back about me, about how I was just using her. Around that time, our other roommate moved out with little notice. So, to fill this in we invited another friend of mine 'R' to move in. Although he was male, I'd known him online for several years. He'd been nothing but kind to me in that time. The move happened around this time, I don't remember the exact date anymore.
So out of work and having just finished school, I managed to get 'E' a job working with me. We didn't say we were partners, that would have been really awkward, we were both a bit shy about it. She quickly became one of the best customer service oriented employees there. After a few weeks, my boss jokingly asked if I had any more friends. In fact, I did. 'R' needed a job, and although they were hired on as part time, they got full time hours after the first week or so as well.
For a few months things went well, but then 'E' went to visit some friends cross country. When they got there they said they were moving out in a month or so. We'd sort of fallen apart as a couple, but were still good friends, so it wasn't all that painful. And their online friends and pets actually apologized. They saw that I supported 'E' the same way she had me when she was out of work.
So, now it was just myself and 'R'. I knew online I'd had a very slight crush on him for being so kind and protective of me, but this somehow translated into an offline relationship through some form I don't understand still. Technically he was already married to a wife in another country. Had a child he suspected actually was fathered by his father-in-law. Nothing proven, just, they wouldn't let him be on the birth certificate, or get a test done. And he couldn't get a visa to stay there. it's why he was desperately looking for a place to live as that relationship fell apart.
This is about the time I started realizing I was polyamorous to some degree. There was another friend 'J', one I still talk to from time to time. We both cared for her online and wanted to bring her down to join us. She kept saying she wanted to as well, but no matter what we tried, there were excuses. I know physically I couldn't have sex with a male, I just couldn't. But maybe if she'd been there, I could have tolerated it because she'd have been there with me, doing everything she could to make me comfortable. And That's what kept me in this relationship for nearly 5 years. It grew more and more emotionally abusive over that time. And it kept threatening to become physically abusive. When 'E' left us, I stopped sleeping in the bedroom and started sleeping on the couch.
The lack of physical affection is probably why the anger issues started to grow. I just...I could treat him as a friend, but not as a partner. Online we still RPed quite often, that was the interaction we had when not at work. (Which was all the time)
Within a few months of him working there, I got in major trouble at work. We'd gotten a new manager, one I liked very much. She quickly saw that I was one of her best employees and made use of my abilities. At times when she was the only manager on shift and doing critical paperwork in the back (Since other managers dumped it off on her, several of them couldn't actually read english) she entrusted me with her supervisor password to do things like employee meals (Actually chose a code that used my ID in it on purpose). I always called out to her for permission first. One day my boss must have seen it on camera, pulled me aside and asked about it. I told him the honest truth. That the manager gave it to me for use when she was extremely busy, that I only used it when I specifically had permission to do so, and that if I thought she was just being lazy I wouldn't have accepted the responsibility. That during those hours, an employee meal could mean a regular customer had to wait minutes to order, and that was unacceptable, but I was willing to accept responsibility for technically having broken the rules, I knew it was against the rules to use it.
Because I'd given the same answer as my boss (truthful) I actually ended up in management training from that. I wasn't a very good manager of people, but I was great at following procedures and catching little things others did not. So immediately after finishing training we had a manager fired for an incident with an employee that happened where the camera couldn't see anything. So I took over the night shift. Just myself and one other person most nights, two on fridays and saturdays.
The fact that I was promoted over 'R' rankled him, especially as over the next 3 years we didn't promote but 1 person right after me who quit shortly after. He'd had management experience before. Eventually staffing issues led me to an unusual setup, I asked for him on overnight with me although he didn't know grill. So as manager I did the grill and he did all the front end work.
I'm proud of how well it worked considering I made literally everything to order after 11pm and before 5am. Our store had poor reviews during the day but the few night ones we had were amazing in everything but wait times. And once people understood what they were getting from me they were usually happy to wait the extra minute over what another store might have had. x.x
We did this for two years, but things got more and more emotionally abusive. At some point he demanded access to my chat logs at all times, to see if I was cheating on him. (There was one friend that played the cutest little male and female dragons. Adult age but so tiny and cute, i'd have let them do more than most x.x *Blushes*)
We didn't actually do anything more than them teasing me, but he saw it and freaked. Started threatening to just walk out. Suicide, leave, call his mob like relatives on me...all of those at some point. I couldn't afford the apartment on my own. As a shift manager I still made under $9 an hour, it was ridiculous. I was paying off one set of student loans even then, there was no deferral on them. And even combined we barely made enough to cover all other expenses. An hour bus ride each way to work on top of things. x.x
Near the end I'd picked up a cheap van, it helped make work a little more survivable, but R quit after the third time having medical problems due to the lack of care we took with cleaning the oil vats. (We didn't replace the oil when needed, that was too expensive, we let it go way too long where it made this cloud of smoke that got stuck in your lungs)
I quit shortly after, my boss was changing time punches and had found a way to do it in my name. Cutting 30 minutes out for lunch breaks I know never happened. I reported it to the owner one day and since they didn't investigate, I quit.
Somewhere in all of this, we'd tried to fly 'J' down to visit us. But on the way to the airport supposedly her taxi was hit by a drunk driver and she was left even worse off. Thing is, we couldn't ever get proof of this. And 'R' was pretty good at digging stuff up on people when he wanted to be. Found things even I hadn't remembered about myself to use against me. I still want to believe 'J' is who she says she is, but there's never quite enough proof to confirm or deny it. And she can hate me for saying this, I still doubt sometimes, even though to this day she holds a piece of my heart.
I'd gotten a job at Walmart then, forcing 'R' to do the same at a different one (not by choice, he just was spending all his time playing games and not job searching) Although it's for the best, his store was pretty bad. It was the one I'd tried to transfer into in the first place.
Me, I got promoted after a couple months again, took over the frozen department for about 8 months. In that time, my parents let me know my sister was getting married and flew me back for the wedding. I'd been mostly disconnected from them, not talking at all until they one day showed up and found me at walmart. (Tracked my phone to it, actually, I was on the family plan. Figured I wouldn't hang out there of my own free will)
At the wedding my parents offered to let me move back home and get ready for school a second time.
My situation with R had deteriorated at home. Although he was still manipulative, he'd found some new friends online, even flown to join them once, apparently the three of them wanted to get the lady pregnant by him. For me, it just meant I wasn't quite under the magnifying glass, so it was relief for me. But a lot of the damage that had been done is still there to this day. Whenever a guy stands up too fast I cringe, afraid of being hit. And I don't open up to most guys very easily.
I left within a month and a half after returning from the wedding. He was able to find a small apartment closer to where he worked. I left him the car, we'd registered it in his name anyway. Most of my stuff was sent through Fedex. I know moving apartments a week before I finally flew out was rough since neither of us took time off of work. I remember moving stuff until 1am some days and then working at 7. And the final clean was brutal, the apartment was in bad shape, although most of the real damage was due to lack of repairs by the office, not stuff we did.
....
So, in this 2008-2013 period what did I do. I know I ignored my first partner 'E' as we sort of grew apart. I just couldn't do much physical intimacy and they were so extroverted that I struggled to spend a lot of time with them. I did care for her, but, if I'd have known what I know now, i'd have said that was doomed from the start. She was a good friend after we separated, although I've lost contact with her years ago and feel bad about that. I know I could have treated her better.
With 'R', I feel I led him on somewhat. I know I'd had a crush online on him and his wife, I think it was mostly his wife and I was just too ashamed to say that. So I let him set the terms, push me into a relationship I wasn't comfortable with from the start, and then couldn't end it. Every time I was uncomfortable, he'd remind me of our friend 'J' and how maybe once she was there it could work for both of us.
So in the end I know we'd both objectified 'J' to some degree (Although I'd honestly say that was one of her kinks, seriously otherwise I'd never have been able to do it to any degree) and I was unfair to R. I should have said how I felt, that I knew for sure after a while that I wasn't Bi offline at all, just a tiny bit online where I didn't physically have to deal with certain things.
Even after I left, I still liked him as a friend, and I still feel bad for the position I left him in. Tiny apartment, no friends in the area, crappy job. I feel I should have worked harder to find him a solution as well, but I barely managed to get myself moved as it was.
I also show I have a difficult time expressing emotion offline. Growing up I suffered such abuse for being expressive that it's gotten to the point where I internalize all my emotions. They come out in text, through *emotes* easily enough, but physically doing so is very difficult for me. Which also leads people close to me to think I don't like them or care for them. And I'd apologize for that to everyone I've known if they'd let me. I know it's a flaw in myself, a big one that's likely cost me my last relationship.
I also need to apologize to 'J' who I expect will be reading this journal at some point. I've been catfished so many times prior to meeting you, you throw off some of the same warning signs they did. But none of them stuck with me for a decade now through all the crap i've been in. Which makes me feel even worse for when I have doubted you. And when I still do. x.x I know I can't do enough to earn your forgiveness. And I know if I was to hop a flight up to visit you I still fear even knowing your address and apartment and general ideas of when you are home, I'd get there and there'd never be an answer. x.x I'm just disgusting.
I realize i've been typing for almost 3 hours here. I won't be able to finish this all tonight, but tomorrow after work there will be a part 2. This got me from 2006ish to 2013 or so. I'm sure there's plenty of things I don't remember, or that I didn't list. The noncon sex from the first roommate (I won't say rape, but what happened was not what I'd agreed to or wanted for my first time). I know she meant well, but if i'd have known all it was was pity sex for a birthday I'd have said no flat up. But those sorts of things really didn't matter, they weren't positive or negatives on me.
If you think I'm wrong, feel free to leave comments. I won't hide anything on purpose, I just might not have remembered everything important.
To my ghost...
Posted 7 years agoHello! It's been a while since we've had any contact, whoever you are. I've been out of the community for about a year and a half, give or take a few days. I suppose it'd be easy to look up exactly what date I last favorited something, but even after I leave I occasionally get linked something, or at least I used to, when I still knew people.
I was not informed of your identity (or even if it's just one person, what I was told could have been singular or plural.) And I've no intention of asking. I do have several suspects, but that's only because there are very few who would even remember I exist, let alone be able to identify me. Not that I think it is very hard to do, I'm not trying to hide. If I was you'd likely not have had such an easy time of it. I'd have been something other than a gryphon (And not used an image from an artist connected with people I knew in the past, I'd probably have pretended to be bi with female preference. I'd probably have lied about a location/timezone and just said I had odd work hours.
But I didn't do any of that. While I didn't flat out state who I used to be known as in public, The couple people that i've interacted with more than just a random comment or two were informed in private shortly after I was aware of them. I would feel awkward trying to pretend, and I've always believed in trying to be honest. Yes, I do fail there sometimes, but so do we all. My biggest 'lies' are usually through omission. If I can't say something or I shouldn't I'll stay quiet.
Maybe your motivation was purely altruistic. You didn't want a friend to be taken advantage of. I can respect that, however you should have approached me, whether through an identity I knew or a new one and asked me what was going on. I'd have told you the truth, which I'd quite frankly have expected you to confirm.
The thing is, whatever is being alleged is just a smear in the context it has been used. I could actually be someone different (However cosmically unlikely that is), and to show respect for someone in that position would have been to ask.
I don't even know the allegations, just that I'm supposed to expect hateful comments, coming from someone I trust completely. Someone whom I avoided for the last year and more out of respect for their decision, and to honor a promise I had made.
I don't believe posting updated contact information on my older accounts was a violation of that promise. There may well be others who actually miss me and wanted to talk to me again. (There were at least 3 others, possibly a 4th) I also knew that the one I mostly wrote it for was not using the watch feature. And with how many people they watch, one or two random journals would have fallen through the cracks anyway even if they had.
I was invited to resume communication with them, which you would have found if you'd asked me first.
I don't know where I'll go from here. Should I shut this account down, do the things I suggested above? Should I just ignore you and whatever hateful comments I should be expecting?
I don't believe I've done ANYTHING wrong enough to feel this treatment of me is warrented. Yes, i've made some mistakes in my past, and I've hurt people on accident. But some of those people have also hurt me in other ways.
So please, respond here (since you obviously know this account) and lets air all of our dirty laundry, get this settled so that you don't have to stalk me from the shadows. Something I've not done and would never do.
And if you knew me well enough to identify me, you'd also know that I'd never do anything to actively try and hurt my best friend. I'd literally have let myself vanish and never return if I'd have truly thought that was what they wanted of me.
I was not informed of your identity (or even if it's just one person, what I was told could have been singular or plural.) And I've no intention of asking. I do have several suspects, but that's only because there are very few who would even remember I exist, let alone be able to identify me. Not that I think it is very hard to do, I'm not trying to hide. If I was you'd likely not have had such an easy time of it. I'd have been something other than a gryphon (And not used an image from an artist connected with people I knew in the past, I'd probably have pretended to be bi with female preference. I'd probably have lied about a location/timezone and just said I had odd work hours.
But I didn't do any of that. While I didn't flat out state who I used to be known as in public, The couple people that i've interacted with more than just a random comment or two were informed in private shortly after I was aware of them. I would feel awkward trying to pretend, and I've always believed in trying to be honest. Yes, I do fail there sometimes, but so do we all. My biggest 'lies' are usually through omission. If I can't say something or I shouldn't I'll stay quiet.
Maybe your motivation was purely altruistic. You didn't want a friend to be taken advantage of. I can respect that, however you should have approached me, whether through an identity I knew or a new one and asked me what was going on. I'd have told you the truth, which I'd quite frankly have expected you to confirm.
The thing is, whatever is being alleged is just a smear in the context it has been used. I could actually be someone different (However cosmically unlikely that is), and to show respect for someone in that position would have been to ask.
I don't even know the allegations, just that I'm supposed to expect hateful comments, coming from someone I trust completely. Someone whom I avoided for the last year and more out of respect for their decision, and to honor a promise I had made.
I don't believe posting updated contact information on my older accounts was a violation of that promise. There may well be others who actually miss me and wanted to talk to me again. (There were at least 3 others, possibly a 4th) I also knew that the one I mostly wrote it for was not using the watch feature. And with how many people they watch, one or two random journals would have fallen through the cracks anyway even if they had.
I was invited to resume communication with them, which you would have found if you'd asked me first.
I don't know where I'll go from here. Should I shut this account down, do the things I suggested above? Should I just ignore you and whatever hateful comments I should be expecting?
I don't believe I've done ANYTHING wrong enough to feel this treatment of me is warrented. Yes, i've made some mistakes in my past, and I've hurt people on accident. But some of those people have also hurt me in other ways.
So please, respond here (since you obviously know this account) and lets air all of our dirty laundry, get this settled so that you don't have to stalk me from the shadows. Something I've not done and would never do.
And if you knew me well enough to identify me, you'd also know that I'd never do anything to actively try and hurt my best friend. I'd literally have let myself vanish and never return if I'd have truly thought that was what they wanted of me.
When those odd moods strike.
Posted 7 years agoI've been working an overnight shift the last couple nights for a small project at work. It'll likely continue for a couple more days (and then I'm hearing I might be doing it next week too, I thought it was two weeks out for that portion of it). At least for this one I'm pretty much by myself which gives me a lot of time to think.
Well, last night all I wanted to do was snuggle up with a pretty girl and watch something like "The Polar Express", or something with that same sense of innocence and wonder in it. x.x
Well, last night all I wanted to do was snuggle up with a pretty girl and watch something like "The Polar Express", or something with that same sense of innocence and wonder in it. x.x
Feeling a big ugh.
Posted 7 years agoAlways fun feeling like you've gotten punched in the gut. x.x I've been off of FA for a long time after a bit of personal drama. I lost my best friend because she cared too much for me, it was causing her problems. Just saw her posting stuff again. *Sighs* I knew it would hurt whenever it happened, I was just hoping it would hurt a bit less. I guess a year and a half wasn't long enough for that wound to heal. I think in my heart she's still the best friend i've ever had even if I can't talk to her or be in her life anymore.
Ref:Amaranth Don't know where to start
Posted 7 years agoEdit: Sorry for how long this is x.x
I used to think it was so easy to find exactly what I wanted. Of the characters that were closest to me over the years I felt I knew what I wanted immediately, the characters were either well developed before the reference was made or I was working with an artist that was one of my best friends, who knew me better than I knew myself. Even for an extremely detailed character they made the process simple, helped me eliminate options and suggested new ones that worked even better.
I know I've put together what I have so far, but I'm sort of feeling like I've hit a wall with what I can do on my own. Normally at this point I'd have gotten with one of my old friends and they'd likely have insisted on doing some sketches for me which they'd then use to hash out the details for the full commission. I'd then feel guilty about all the extra work and overpay for the commission even more than I'd planned at that point. x.x
Sometimes it'd go through 4 or 5 rounds of rough sketches before it got to a place where we were both happy with it. They even stood up to me once or twice and convinced me that I'd be happier with their changes. I really appreciated that even if I didn't realize it at the time how much that was really worth. To have the artist nearly as invested in the character as I was, that really was a treasure.
I see so many references done off of bases, which (for me) is fine for minor characters, ones that one isn't so attached to or or won't use all that often. But a sona should be something special, something crafted with love and care. Not just be another of the 200+ characters someone has. Even I was guilty of collecting a few too many adoptables in the past, but then rarely using them.
So maybe it's best I not start with Amaranth. Even as things are now with a couple of rough ideas, the freebie done by Frostlupus at the urging of a friend and one or two other scattered sketches not uploaded anywhere, I don't want to mess this up. I don't even know what style of art I'd like for her. x.x
So...
Maybe I should start with a character that I've wanted to make for a while now. Idea started as a silly thought that grew on me, and maybe now more than ever I need to try and get back some of what I invested in a retired character of mine.
I don't quite have as much detail worked up for her but my internal 'need' also isn't requiring quite so much perfection either on the first attempt here. Anyone know of an artist that might be willing to work with me on the creation of a somewhat non-traditional as-yet-unnamed shark?
I used to think it was so easy to find exactly what I wanted. Of the characters that were closest to me over the years I felt I knew what I wanted immediately, the characters were either well developed before the reference was made or I was working with an artist that was one of my best friends, who knew me better than I knew myself. Even for an extremely detailed character they made the process simple, helped me eliminate options and suggested new ones that worked even better.
I know I've put together what I have so far, but I'm sort of feeling like I've hit a wall with what I can do on my own. Normally at this point I'd have gotten with one of my old friends and they'd likely have insisted on doing some sketches for me which they'd then use to hash out the details for the full commission. I'd then feel guilty about all the extra work and overpay for the commission even more than I'd planned at that point. x.x
Sometimes it'd go through 4 or 5 rounds of rough sketches before it got to a place where we were both happy with it. They even stood up to me once or twice and convinced me that I'd be happier with their changes. I really appreciated that even if I didn't realize it at the time how much that was really worth. To have the artist nearly as invested in the character as I was, that really was a treasure.
I see so many references done off of bases, which (for me) is fine for minor characters, ones that one isn't so attached to or or won't use all that often. But a sona should be something special, something crafted with love and care. Not just be another of the 200+ characters someone has. Even I was guilty of collecting a few too many adoptables in the past, but then rarely using them.
So maybe it's best I not start with Amaranth. Even as things are now with a couple of rough ideas, the freebie done by Frostlupus at the urging of a friend and one or two other scattered sketches not uploaded anywhere, I don't want to mess this up. I don't even know what style of art I'd like for her. x.x
So...
Maybe I should start with a character that I've wanted to make for a while now. Idea started as a silly thought that grew on me, and maybe now more than ever I need to try and get back some of what I invested in a retired character of mine.
I don't quite have as much detail worked up for her but my internal 'need' also isn't requiring quite so much perfection either on the first attempt here. Anyone know of an artist that might be willing to work with me on the creation of a somewhat non-traditional as-yet-unnamed shark?
Sorry to anyone I was talking to when I vanished
Posted 7 years agoI know I sort of vanished when I was here last. It was a bit of a breakdown on my part. I thought I could handle going back and doing things like I've always done. I thought I had recovered that much but apparently I was wrong. I'm not sure if it was too much too fast or if I just wasn't ready to connect with so many new people all at once. I don't really know. I'm going to try and take it slower this time, see if I can handle it now. I hope so, I'm tired of being a lonely broken old bird.
Looking to commission a ref sheet
Posted 7 years agoI'm interested in commissioning a detailed ref for Amaranth. I've been out of the community a while and most of those I would have gone to have vanished or are taking a break.
I'm looking for someone that wants a bit of a challenge, that is willing to help me flesh out the character a bit more and really do her justice. I'd like her to be one of those characters that really makes a 'wow' moment when you see her. I want to make her something special
I'm looking for someone that wants a bit of a challenge, that is willing to help me flesh out the character a bit more and really do her justice. I'd like her to be one of those characters that really makes a 'wow' moment when you see her. I want to make her something special
