When my cat, Kit, passed away, it was awful. She was the center of my world. She stopped eating, I made her a vet appointment, she died two hours before the appointment. It was bad, it broke me. I went months unable to function, and my partner at the time (Let's call them "Selenia") was really unsupportive because they felt invalidated by how I was more reliant on Kit to function than them.

I ended up dating an ex (Let's call her "Accalia") who had been terrible to me in the past. She claimed that she'd changed, and emotionally supported me through all the dysfunction going on after Kit. A few months later, she told me something that shattered me. She confessed that when me and her started talking again, and we were all hanging out with Selenia's sister(A good friend I really trusted) that Selenia's sister confessed to her that she was convinced that Selenia killed Kit by doing something to cause Kit to get sick. It made sense, Selenia hated Kit for my reliance on her, they had anger issues, and they completely flipped on me after Kit passed and I truly wasn't okay with just them.

It broke me. I was too scared to talk to their sister about it, but I felt so responsible for having Selenia around. I felt responsible for Kit's death. These emotions, I really felt like I'd end up taking my life if I let myself feel them entirely, let myself feel as responsible for her death as I thought I was. And, my mind had a way of keeping that away from me. A mental visual of station management from Welcome to Nightvale. A door that the story was locked behind, with the constant roars and silhouettes of flailing dangerous tentacles.

That door just, existed in my mind. A constant threat. Something terrifying that left me in fear that those emotions and that sense of responsibility would come out. I shut down. I cried daily for months, with Accalia holding me and nurturing me through all of it. Accalia "helped" me stay together and survive despite how badly I was being messed up. I grew drug reliant to manage myself, I started self harming, I barely functioned for two years.

This art piece is meant to capture that feeling. Amaiya, on the floor with her back to the door to station managements office, crying and desperately trying to keep it shut. The tinted windows showing the tentacles and threat behind it.
~
That story takes an interesting turn. I grew very emotionally dependent on Accalia after she helped me through that. I feared functioning without her, so I was permissive of the ever worsening physical and emotional abuse she had been putting me through. I ignored the friends and therapists telling me to get out of the abusive relationship, I didn't think I could. I took physical abuse, I detransitioned by her demand, I was breaking apart completely and the lies she'd gotten into my head made me feel like I couldn't leave.

By the time I was out of the relationship, I'd come to understand how much of a liar Accalia was. So, I swallowed my fears and approached Selenia's sister to tell me the truth. She confirmed what I was already suspecting. Accalia lied about it. It never happened, Selenia's sister never said that. Accalia fabricated the entire thing to break me so that she could play savior and create that dependence I had on her. I confronted Accalia, recording the interactions, and her changing the details to her story to attempt to reinforce that it was true made it really clear that it truly was nothing more than a lie. She even tried to rope Selenia's mother into the story to try to give it credibility, despite their mother not even being there the day the fake conversation allegedly happened, and H's mother also being someone who could back up that the whole thing was a lie.

Station Management was a lie. I went through such horrible emotional turmoil because Accalia correctly knew she could control me if she did that to me.

I'm not responsible for Kit's death. Station Management isn't real. The trauma of what Accalia did was actually real though. So, this is an incredibly, deeply personal art piece. This is how I can show what I experienced during the time with that lie.

Character: Amaiya
Owner:  amaiya
Artist: Frostwolfblue