Then at 19.

I'm 19, I'm out, I'm trans, and I meet Laura. Laura's 23. We meet in a social anxiety therapy group (RED FLASHING LIGHTS). She is incredibly well read, well lived and very interesting. I am... 19. And so emotionally wilting that I spend most of my time in the group watching everyone else talk.

She befriends me quickly.

Within a week or two, we are fast friends. Around this time, she tells me that, to her, a sexual relationship is the purest, highest form of friendship. She complains about how a pair of her other friends declined and they haven't been talking much since (RED FLASHING LIGHTS).

Our first sexual encounter takes place that night.

I say I'm not sure I want to do this. She looms over me, "Do you trust me?"

"I don't know."

Repeat it a few times. I relent.

I assume she feels good. I don't. But I'm happy for the attention.

Over time she gets it in her mind that I should move into her apartment, so she single handedly kicks out her other roommate. I'm happy to have a friend.

She has a boyfriend. She insists she's poly. I'm still happy to have a friend. She talks about maybe having a threesome with him. I happily agree, thanking God it never happens.

She teaches me that I am a natural bottom. I learn I can take almost a whole fist with no lube.

I learn this in 10 seconds.

She convinces me that I can't be trans because I use my penis during sex. I go back into the closet because that makes sense.

She assumes the role of domme. I assume the role of sub. I learn that I'm too loose to go walking for a mile with a plug in my ass.

My symptoms get worse. She notices. She uses it against me. I learn that BPD is evil and nasty and since I am not evil and nasty it can't possibly be me.

@ThatVeryQuinn (Fav-ing this doesn’t seem remotely appropriate, but I’m reading and witnessing.)

@ghost_bird I understand.

She has me lend my bed to her boyfriend for a weekend. They pop the inflatable mattress I'd been sleeping on for half a year. I sleep on the couch for a week.

Things dissolve when she finds another bright and shiny person to latch onto. I worsen in BPD symptoms. We break up.

I still don't know if she was poly. I still want to reach back out. I still feel a need, an emptiness where she took something.

I still need to know she's a failure to get along in life.

I still have a hard time admitting that what she did was wrong.

I don't know. That's not nearly all of what she did. I'm done now.

@ThatVeryQuinn Ugh. I can relate hard to the questioning and desire to reconcile, to give 2nd (3rd & 4th) chances.

Things went bad between my penultimate ex & I once I realised she was gaslighting me & manipulating both me and our mutual partner. Exacerbated by chronic pain, in my case.

Mistakes were made, all around. I was avoidant. Our mutual was avoidant. We didn't address our problems & it blew up on us.

I'm sorry to hear things were, arguably, even ickier for you ∑:s

@ThatVeryQuinn

Oh man.

This makes my early-adulthood story (featuring the suicide of the girl who basically brought me back to humanity and on whom I had deeply, deeply imprinted) seem like the very soul of compassion, sanity, and innocence by comparison.

The good news is: this suggests *reasons* why your head is the way it is. That's tractable -- something that can be made better over time.