My descent into madness (2020-2023)

The new something (2020)

Q1

This is so normal! I’m gonna make March the most normal month ever!
-Rachael Ann Brown; Tuesday, March 3^rd, 2020

Our polycule imploded a few weeks into the new year. April broke up with me, feeling like she barely knew me after five or six months. By that point, I’d begun to feel like the fifth wheel in my own relationship; a problem I’ve felt I’ve had with friends my whole life. I dropped the trauma bomb at this point without really thinking it through, which didn’t help matters.

April said she needed to “not be around me for a while”. I briefly retained a superficially better relationship with Drew, before ultimately drifting apart from them too.

Shortly after, Josh (Crystal’s friend) temporarily moved from Texas to the apartment in Durham to escape his abusive relationship. This created tension with AJ, and they broke up. AJ ran off with some trans woman named Molly who she’d recently started dating. Crystal and Josh moved to Colorado just as COVID started, so that they could be closer to Josh’s young daughter.

Fin.

I heard that April had a sort of mental breakdown shortly after this and may’ve had a stay at the mental hospital; but, I don’t know details, and thought it impolite to pry.

I began to turn my mind toward a search for normalcy and simplicity. Our polycule was complicated. I didn’t think of myself as very jealous or otherwise incompatible with polyamory; but, I didn’t want to be the awkward wheel in my own primary relationship, and given my lack of experience that’s what was likely to happen in a similar situation without extra effort.

I actually remember, eating a slice at Pie Pushers after TT one evening in early March, thinking to myself “2020 is going to be the most normal year ever!”

Q2

Susan kept asking how “April and Drew” were doing. Ugh…

It was really annoying, having told her so early in her relationship. I was always having to manage the gap between where we were and what she knew, because she just gets… weird when you tell her stuff. She panics, she thinks you’re abandoning her or something… She never says what she means or tells you how she really feels; until she’s boiling over with some crazy bullshit because she’s just so goddamn obsessed with you, when you just want to be left alone to live your life.

Fuck.

I eventually told her we broke up under vague pretenses. I tried to explain that I was dealing with something that was hard to talk about. Which was met with little more than

You can tell me anything… Why won’t you tell me anything? You never tell me anything…

I wasn’t really sure why sex was so complicated, and why I struggled to connect with anyone in bed despite at least having some kind of libido. I actually identified as gray ace for a while because of this; but, I’ve started to think my problem is more that I haven’t found the right person yet.

In my struggle to process my post-breakup life, I’d been swept up by Persephone and friends somewhat.

Persephone, by now, had proven herself to be a complicated character. She’d alienated a lot of her former allies in the community with her antics. Her once bustling Discord server was losing momentum fast. She recently found out she had BPD. Kristina was filing for a divorce. Oh, right.

Kristina

Persephone was married to a cis woman named Kristina. The relationship proceeded Persephone’s transition by several years.

I grew closer to Kristina over the next several months. I was clear from the beginning that I wasn’t looking for anything sexual or romantic; we weren’t really compatible on either of those fronts. I sort of became part of their infection circle; and wasn’t really getting physical interaction anywhere else given the times.

I was initially really private with both of them about what happened between April and me. I opened up to Kristina about it around June, after having brought it up with my therapist a couple of months prior.

Oh yeah. This was COVID year right, I was dealing with trauma stuff, I was dealing with breakup stuff, and I kinda just forgot Mother’s Day. Susan loses her shit when this happens. I’m not sure that it’d happened in my adult life.

Anyway, message bubbles.

Well, that was lovely. I remember trying to explain (outside of SMS) that I had been dealing with a lot lately, and she wasn’t having it.

Why won’t you tell me anything? You never tell me anything… I’m your mother!

Ugh…

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Persephone was keen on evangelizing concepts from Buddhism and various mystical traditions, and seemed to follow her own idiosyncratic blend of western paganism and eastern spirituality. While I never quite succumbed to Persephone and her enthusiasm, she did have me doing mettā for a while.

I want to insert this conversation with Persephone that I found while putting this book together. It’s a little off-topic, but I think it provides useful character development.

The context for this exchange, is that Kristina had just come to my house and kicked my ass at Mastermind.

Q3

I had drifted closer to Kristina and further from Persephone; the latter of which I could increasingly tell was problematic from various sources, even if she was alright in small doses. Kristina broke up with Persephone after years of emotional abuse, and Kristina and I started a weekend tradition of alternating between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Trek: The Next Generation; as well as going to the pool with Liam that summer.

Later that summer, Kristina moved out of the apartment with Persephone, and into a house being rented by fellow trans folks Stephanie and Tristan. Their son Liam moved with Kristina, while still seeing Persephone periodically.

Liam

Probably about 7 or 8 at the time. Good kid.

After consideration I decided, almost certainly incorrectly, that I should tell Susan about the whole sexual trauma bit.

I told Susan what I was going through in… late August, I think. There were a lot of feelings, but I hoped to convey that I was alright. I was just processing a lot. And I might just not be as available and attentive as usual. So, it’d be nice if you’d, you know, cut me some slack when I forget Mother’s Day during COVID year when I’m dealing with a rough breakup and maybe sexual trauma I didn’t know I had until now. Okay?

Susan had a rough time with this. She wanted to do a joint session with me and my therapist, but backed out at the last minute. She proceeded to get a therapist of her own for a while. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was having a more difficult time with it than I was for a while.

Simultaneous with this, Susan pushed us doing a regular weekly video chat. This tradition would continue until, well… we’ll get there.

I soon grew uncomfortable with the extent to which Susan wanted to involve herself in this process, and began to pull back. She kept asking me what my diagnosis was, and I didn’t really have a diagnosis. She kept asking me what workbook I was using, and I didn’t have a workbook. I told her I had read things independently, but was intentionally very vague about this. I was frankly uncomfortable with her questions, and was worried she’d pressure me to switch therapists because my trauma recovery process wasn’t comprehensive enough or something. Although I don’t know that it’s caused any problems, I regret describing some guided imagery work I’d done with my therapist as “hypnotherapy”; as that is both misleading, and something Susan would be likely to distort and misquote to others.

• Extremification (“I drink Sam Adams sometimes” → “He only drinks Sam Adams”)

Jeez, Susan. I just wanted you to know what was going on with me, you know? Because you’re always complaining about how I “never tell you anything”, or whatever? Ugh…

I didn’t bring up the, uh… plural stuff, or whatever. We’d talked about enough. I did talk about how a lot of my childhood seemed like a blur and I had a lot to process. This was already too… ugh, goddammit

#TODOI haven’t really been doing this justice, but I’m trying at the last minute.

She kept prying for more and more information. I didn’t really want to talk about it, and just wanted her to stop being an asshole about me being distant and having a rough time. And, I was not going to talk about this weird plural stuff that maybe kinda started it all. She kept prying, and… look, I didn’t mean to misrepresent myself, but she did manage to pull the term “amnesia” out of me, I think, and like, ugh, half my friend group was ostensibly dealing with shit like this, and… this might’ve created a mess. I still don’t really know what happened.

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I “fell off the wagon” with cannabis right around September, if you can call it that. I never decidedly gave that up for any particular reason, but hadn’t really smoked or wanted to since the end of 2016 or so, isolated incidents aside. I suppose I felt it might keep me on an even keel, and never felt it had a particularly negative effect on my life. It isn’t as if I’ve ever exactly “had it together”; but the long stretches of not using cannabis between 2015 and 2020 don’t really show any improvement in work ethic or reduction in laziness. Frankly, I’m just a messy, lazy fuck.

Q4

Susan’s accident characterized virtually the entire month of October.

It sounded serious, so I rushed home to take care of her and see what happened.

By around one week into my stay, I had the distinct impression that Susan… didn’t want to get better; that she was hamming it up, whatever happened to her. I didn’t want to believe it, but I couldn’t deny the feeling that Susan was using this to grapple with a perceived loss of control over me, in light of my aforementioned recent struggles. Phrased differently, it felt like she needed to reclaim some lost sense of victimhood; as if I was supposed to be the one taking care of her at this point in our lives, and she needed to flip our relationship back around to where she felt comfortable.

At the same time I had these thoughts, I tried to examine myself for my own biases. I really don’t like spending large amounts of time with Susan. We slip into this weird routine, where we’re like some kind of bitchy old married couple, except for the parts where Susan treats me like I’m a fucking child or something. Ugh… one week really is about the max I can handle with this person without losing health bars, and I mean that in the nicest way possible.

One week turned into two. Two weeks turned into three. The goalpost kept moving. Her family doctor said she wanted her to see the neurologist first. “Oh, she didn’t say ‘see the neurologist’, she said ‘get an EEG’. The EEG is the next appointment.” The goalpost is the next appointment with the neurologist in Wilmington, until it turns out that’s just the consult for the EEG.

Ugh. Look. I know the healthcare system is slow, but… if there were something seriously wrong with her, wouldn’t the doctors have a little more expediency in their triage efforts? Not helping trust any was the fact that I often couldn’t go back to see the doctor with her because of COVID; so, I kinda just had to take her word for it when Susan said the doctor said he doesn’t want me to go back to Durham just yet.

The passing weeks and moving goalposts eventually led to a nightmare scenario.

I’d been talking to Kristina and my therapist in private. By now, Susan had long since taken to looking after me; she’d tell me when dinner was ready, I’d quietly try to masturbate without a vibrator in between the church bells going off loud as fuck, often failing at the task… I realize I sound like a pervert, but I really don’t do it more than a few times a week. The church bells go off at least three times a day for like fifteen minutes, right there, and I swear to whoever it seemed like it was always at the worst possible time; when I’m trying to talk on Zoom, or do the deed… Saccharine church hymns blaring right when I happen to be in the mood is so not my kink. I guess I was just used to it when I was younger.

It had become a truly miserable experience; but the point is, there was no more emergency, and there was no more need for a live-in caretaker. Susan was never going to admit it, and I was getting the impression she’d keep me until Christmas if I let her get away with it. So, I had to do it.

I had to tell her no.

And, you know what? I felt so much better, being on the other side of it. And, I doubt she was any worse off.

But, I had a lot of health bar to refill.

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After telling Susan what was going on with me, my mental health focus took an unexpected turn toward her.

Historically, I’ve viewed my mother as a survivor. She’s been through a lot. She has a lot of mental health issues. I don’t think she had a great child herself; while I’ve often felt I have little to complain about other than my little first world gender identity problem.

From my perspective, I’ve never had a great relationship with Susan. We have little in common, she’s very religious, she’s afraid of everything, and I think she’d like to keep me in a little bubble for ever and ever if she could. I’ve kept her in my life, mainly because she’s the only real family I have; everyone else is people in different states who I probably don’t even know how to get in touch with. Our relationship feels, oftentimes, obligatory.

Susan often insinuates that I mean something much more to her. She calls me her “best friend”. She says I’m “all she has”. She longs for more closeness with me. I don’t know what’s normal. I don’t have much family in my life in general; much less another mom.

It makes me uncomfortable, but I don’t know what to do. I try and talk about it with her. She shuts down everything with her aforementioned thought-halting statements.

I feel bad for her; I really do. She never seems to have found a man, or whatever. But, what about me? I’m just this, trying to find my way in this crazy world; and I don’t even have a uterus to pop out a kid to force my relationship needs onto. If I want a family, or a long term relationship, or a sexual partner, I just have to create that. From scratch; organically, out of real, voluntary relationships I’ve managed to cultivate with like-minded people over the years. It really has been a background task throughout most of my adult life, despite my apparently lackadaisical attitude toward relationships. I’ve just had… a lot of trouble finding my dating pool, I guess.

I’ve increasingly felt like she’s “cheating” at building a family, in some sense. There’s little genuine connection present from my point of view. I feel like I’ve sort of just been brainwashed to take care of this person. She seems to have exercised an ironic and uniquely female privilege that allows one to bypass the need to build genuine, mutual connections with people. She just gets to decide to stop looking for voluntary companionship, and let the responsibility of showering her with gifts and affection fall to her “son”; the distorted role of which I don’t think I ever really stopped playing after I transitioned. She’s my problem, and I’m my problem.

To anyone else, I’d just say look at me. I like getting tied up and beaten with stuff for fun, I kinda just want somebody to fuck me but not like a gay man, dommes turn out to me into different stuff or just looking for actual men… like, I’m struggling over here. Yet, Susan seems to be the only person in my life who’s actually more pitiful than I am.

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Susan kept asking about my “workbook”. I kept trying to explain that I didn’t have one per se, and had done nothing more than independent reading. She didn’t seem to get it.

About a month after I “escaped”, I reconnected with Erika. We’d fallen out of touch over the last few years, and she messaged me after I think having lost my number in the interim. It turned out Erika was now non-binary, and was sometimes Eric. Birds of a feather or something, I guess. I think they’d heard about my transition and subsequent polycule from Dakota or someone.