Now, for the things that are bothering me:
That time I accidentally killed a Toad and didn't understand that I had... bothers me to no end.
And the fact that I capitalized Toad. My phone is doing it automatically. The reason? Hard to explain. It racks me with guilt, no matter how many times I remind myself that it wasn't my fault, no matter how many times psychologists tell me it's not rare to be pulled in like this, when I simplify the issue to emotional manipulation and abuse.
I was literally sure I didn't deserve a good life, that's how guilty I've been for ten years. I'm constantly doubting, though... if I was a liar, if I was insane, if I was purposefully evil.
I know logically that none of that is true. I need to keep repeating it to myself. I have my entire life to get over this thing with B -- and I know how to avoid dangerous people like B.
The problem is that I DID try to be more convincing. When I went all in, i went all in. I was a child so that isn't too surprising. I viewed it as my addiction, and my problem. Like my daydreams NEEDED to be real -- but that wasn't true, and that wasn't me. I was scared, and ironically these fantasies were my way of escaping and coping. With rape, with being abused by my father, and with the fact that if I "admitted" I was "lying" that B might kill herself, might kill me. I believed it. I was carrying a knife to her house to cut myself with, to punish myself for telling her "lies" that SHE forced me to say, but on some level I was enjoying it? And I know I needed to, had needed to before and this was no different.
I wish I hadn't sat next to her in 8th grade. f*cking middle school. I wish an adult had believed me that I needed help with a child who REALLY needed an adult, some kind of professional help. I didn't know that her "game" was going to become my reality.
That's how it started: I sat next to her a few times. She kept repeating that I was weird, gross, annoying, and ugly, and that she didn't love me as much as she loved J. She started dating J and now days I don't care, because it was middle school. I did care that she kept saying she had "become" gay and "wasn't gay anymore" when they broke up, but it was middle school. No one cares about middle school relationships, except B who never got over it.
She literally cheated on me for her ex from middle school. Said there had been nothing between us, despite all the times I was expected to finger her or whatever else, even when she didn't shower, against my will. I literally thought that was love, thanks to the ropes. Meanwhile, she'd remind me she thought I was disgusting. I don't even think she meant to hurt me, she just believed it and thought it should be said. Like when she constantly made my mom mad, making faces and insulting her cooking at *every* meal. My mom started hating her immediately.
One time I waved at J, in high school, and B got so depressed that she didn't want to talk to me, yet drilled me for DAYS on why I was talking to J. They had dated in middle school. Not in high school. I was afraid to even look at J after that.
Meanwhile B was slowly pulling me from all my friends, my family... all I had left was that stupid fantasy world, and it bothers me so much because all I wanted to do was help, and to be a good friend. And I genuinely believe she loved me -- right up to the time she lost control of me, and her dad told her she should have gone to college like me.
In eighth grade, I sat next to her during a study break. I remember that really well for some reason. I had trouble making friends at the time, but in hindsight I miss the friends I did have then. We probably would have grown incredibly close in high school, much closer then B and I did. I had dated one of them, and another one saw her mom die, and another one I had a crush on in first grade and obviously that meant nothing but we could have been friends.
Instead B got abandonment issues any time I talked to anyone. I thought I was being a good friend, by kindly not letting her get depressed by seeing me talk to them.
I genuinely think she didn't even know she was being hurtful. Never stopped to consider it, even when I said it. Even when I told her point blank that I missed my friends, which never ended well. Usually? Ended in me being called crazy, being accused of hating her secretly, all that.
A week or so after the study meet in 8th grade she told me she had demons in her head. They made her change forms when she was too angry. Into bats and panthers, then she's accidentally kill people.
I mean, sure, it honestly wasn't so bad. It was middle school. We were kids. I immediately saw it as a game -- the kind I promised I'd never get into again, because my Aunt Michelle had made me promise that I'd never "lie" again. By which she meant, write fiction. Tell stories. She wasn't a nice aunt.
(Same aunt got her kids put into foster care later so she could f*ck their sexual abuser. I may never see my cousin Emily again, because her birth mother refuses to let her family see her. Any of it.)
Plus, I'd had bad luck with it. Friends thinking it was weird and not playing along. So I was excited and ashamed at the same time. Perfect storm.
I had no demons in MY head making me kill, though. That wasn't really my thing. I didn't view myself as dangerous.
I should have known when she first used the demons in her head as an excuse to "become" gay. She and J matched with male in love gay demons. They took it EXTREMELY seriously. I should have ran.
I also should have ran when I got the first feeling that I should, when she first started dating J. She was constantly depressed, and being around them was straight up toxic. They were horrible to each other. Being around B during that time made me want to run, and I wish I'd trusted my gut. There's no use being a good friend to someone who would literally kill you.
I remember the first time I tried to tell her that the imaginary world wasn't real. That first, genuinely innocent surprised look, that lasted a second. Right before she got dangerous. Threatened me, threatened herself. I caved she said I was just kidding. I wish I would have just gone inside and asked my mom for help. As an adult, this would have been easy to solve. Even if she really meant to kill me or herself -- that's what hospitals are for.
I got diagnosed with psychosis in my freshman year of highschool, when I first went to the hospital myself in 2014. When I finally admitted my dad was insane, when I finally admitted that my neighbor had raped me, though I didn't admit that it had happened for a year.
The psychosis in my medical chart doesn't have a description, and it honestly isn't that surprising considering the circumstances. My journal I kept was insane to follow -- though B had asked for it. In fact? I knew she would, so it had little truth to it. It was a show, designed for B's benefit -- not mine.
Even my stay at the hospital largely involved my panic that B wouldn't be getting certain emails when the sun went down. Honestly? I was panicked at first, trying to find ways to steal a computer and write something to B as another person (usually a spiritual entity, not anything that could actually exist/type out an email). But once 7pm passed? Once 9pm rolled around? Calmest I had ever been. I realized that I was safe in here. In a hospital, my dad couldn't get me, B couldn't -- no one could. It gave me the power I needed to out my dad, to become safe again.
Except I talked to B after that. Big mistake.
I truly believe that the psychosis diagnosis wasn't fully accurate -- although I can't prove it and wouldn't try. I can't disagree that it was possible that under that much stress, maybe my mind WAS doing something to cope. It happens. It doesn't mean I'm crazy.
However, I distinctly remember trying to convince people what I knew B would be asking me about later. The demonic things that she cared so much about, the shadowy aliens. One of them was her husband. I think at the time, I was entranced by the fantasy world, wanting to go all in because my real life had gone completely insane. I knew, though, that it wasn't real. I think B knew that too? Hard to say. But there's no other reason to have threatened me with being a sinful liar, taking advantage of a lonely friendless girl, as she reminded me constantly. I thought I was evil, and doing it for me, but it was so much more complex than that.
I wish it hadn't happened, but I'm constantly relieved that it's over now. I never thought I'd ever be free. I assumed my entire life was doomed to following someone I hated, whose perfect vagina I had unwillingly been all over, constantly building my fantasy world while also using it to give her free therapy -- though I am not a therapist.
I knew her so well by the end of it. I loved her and hated her at the same time, because I wanted to get away, but I wanted her to -- for once -- understand that it wasn't my fault, that I never wanted it to be like this, that she had NEVER even MET the real me. Because she only wanted me for my storytelling. So she could have an invisible alien husband who was a king on some distant world, and she was secretly someone who, in her sleep, was fighting evil kings and shit.
I hate that this happened. I hate that I didn't know I could leave at any time. I thought it was impossible.
So, I'm glad I finally "admitted" it. I'm not a fungus talking over email. I have homework to do, jobs to do, meetings to lead. I was a f*cking manager, I didn't have time for her, honestly. She was dumping literally all her problems on me, she in return wanted to hear none of mine.
I mean, we all have battles. We all have to learn how to deal with what life has given us. I'm truly sorry she was hurting. I truly wish I had boundaries and knew I didn't deserve that, but I thought I did. And it feels like my fault, so I have to remember that it wasn't. I feel guilty, but it wasn't my fault this happened.
It was insane.
I still feel like a fungus. I feel it when I talk -- when my empathetic side picks up on what's going on in another life -- literally any species. I've saved multiple caterpillars and put down my time and sometimes other's time to save plants and earthworms. I don't think it's a bad thing, though. But it's because I'm an empathetic human, not because I'm an empathetic fungus.
