love is dangerous and cruel. at least that's what my experience with this deadly innate trait of human beings keeps teaching me. when in love, you're supposed to give yourself to someone else, to let them see you and within you, to let them know how and why you are the way you are. how can i do that when all love has brought me was shame?
i was thirteen when I gave my body away to men triple my age who looked at me like a piece of plastic ready to feast on whatever they could get out of me. i was fourteen when i was raped for the first time. I couldn't understand this though. living in a society in which my love didn't exist, in which my identity was a taboo subject, all i understood is that my love is about sex and that it happens in the bedroom. i had no models of good healthy relationships between men. actually, all the gay men i met were explaining to me how the gay world is about giving your body away, how you're supposed to feed other men's desires in order to get some sort of fucked up connection. how love is nowhere to be found because it is not accepted.
i was falling in love though. with people i couldn't have. the person i've loved the most yet was himself in a journey of self discovery and couldn't discern between sexual desire and feelings. i thought he loved me. i thought he loved me but he just couldn't be himself. i lived on that narrative for years only to discover in the end that it is not my job to heal people and it is not my bussiness to bring to light parts of people that they themselves are not ready to show. i loved him with all my heart and i still do, i think i will forever do. the flame died and we cut contact, but sometimes i still think of him smiling, wishing he is now in a happier place than when we were part of eachother's lives.
because he couldn't love me and because i could not find a place for my identity in the society i was living in, here came addiction. i filled the gaps left by him and by feeling like I don't belong with drugs and alcohol. lots of drugs and lots of alcohol. and sex. lots of sex as well. i didn't care who i was fucking or who was fucking me as long as we had the crystals and the drinks. i couldn't live through a party without ending up crawling on the floor. everytime i found myself almost dead i would call him. to swear at him or tell him i loved him, it didn't matter. i always knew his voice would calm me down.
by the time i finished high school i was a true addict. i didn't care about myself. I wasn't a person. being gay was something even my friends only tolerated. my existence was so irrelevant where i grew up and my problems were so taboo that i didn't even think of bringing them up. after all that's what all the gays ended up doing in cluj - sex on drugs and losing themselves.
somehow i made it out. i left. more like ran away. i found myself in a strange land with strange people speaking a weird language. but they did one thing that made me feel more at home than anywhere else. they understood me. i was a person. for the first time in my life. i was a person in the eyes of the society, government, law, university, everything. i mattered. i will never forget how calmly i was first asked at thr GGD if i am involved in the chemsex scene - a thing they are fully aware of and ready to help you cope or leave it for free. in romania i'm pretty sure the only people who know the term are people who are in the scene.
but this feeling of belonging led to a deep shame of my past. and that's when i did it. for the very first time in my life i actually tried to kill myself. i was so sure i would do it. i even called him to come clean with everything, to tell him how he hurt me, and that i forgive him and love him. selfish move, i know. but i wanted to die, i wanted to die for so long i can't even remember when i didnt.
but it didn't happen. my friends saved my life. i was brought into the psychward, evaluated, and sent to see a psychiatrist. that's when chapter 2 of my life began for real: bipolar.
i always knew there was something wrong with my head. i was always up or down, never normal, but always bad. my friends also knew it that's why they sent me to therapy when i was in 11th grade. couldn't afford a real therapist so i went to the school counselor who was not qualified to deal with my suicidal thoughts and mood swings.
the first year of university is when it got bad. i always had depressive episodes but never had real intense manic states. yes, i went through a lot of hypomanias throughout high school, but never full blown mania. my first psychotic mania was me believing i am in a relationship with ian gallagher. it was weird, i actually thought that, and I wouldn't understand why my friends were not agreeing with be, but either way i didn't have the time to think about it, since a million thoughts were racing in my head either way. i scared them, i scared them all. scared and scarred. i will never forgive myself for the way aprilia was banging on the toilet door begging me to take my meds. or how i ran away to selen's and obsessively told her the others want to kill me because they are jealous of ian. i know this sounds insane, cause it is.
but they stuck around after that. somehow i always had that luck, no matter what i did, my friends never left me alone. they always stood by my side. the period that followed was a terrifying one, but a powerful transition. i kept doing drugs and drinking. I didn't necessarily care. when i was told i can stop taking medication i took that as a green flag to sniffing as much coke as i can before i feel like i need to call an ambulance.
i went to barcelona to an old guy i met in another drugged sex date in maastricht during an arts fair. he paid for everything, i stayed at his place. we did meth the first night and he had people come over and fuck me and then i left to go to another guy's where multiple guys came again to fuck me. i liked it. I don't know. my stomach is turning as i am writing this. the guy didn't like that i spent a whole day at the other guy so when i got back he called me names and told me i am a sex crazed animal that just can't get enough. that hurt me. i was very hungover and on a huge comedown and he just kept having people over to fuck while i was in the other room and he kept inviting me to join. i wanted to cry and go home.
then i stopped with drugs for like a month. i got to romania and was feeling again psychotic and manic, though i had it under control. after a couple weeks home, i found myself again high, having sex with a man i dont know, leaving his place looking for more. it hurts to think about this.
then i met razvan. we met at a party, incredibly drunk. first thing i told him was that i am bipolar, a drug and alcohol addict and i destroy everything around me. he liked that. we started dating and we dated for about a month, though our relationship had an expiration date due to my departure for the netherlands. he was in love with me. i still don't understand why. he was so patient, so considerate, so careful with me. he cared about my trauma and was taking care not to rock it around. he shared himself to me and i liked him so much i thought i would marry him. i wanted to do it long distance, he didn't. that's how we ended, i left. he is happy now, has a cute boyfriend and they do netflix valentine's dates and wine which is cute as fuck. i am happy for him and i thank him for showing me that i matter.
back in the netherlands i didn't know where i belonged. I didn't know who i was anymore, where i'm supposed to be, who i'm supposed to be with. and the mania was getting out of control. too little hours of sleep, too much stress, it was about to explode. and so it did.
this time i was talking to jesus. convinced that he is communicating with me through ethel cain's preacher's daughter. it felt real, i felt a connection to god, one i had when i was a child but lost later in life. i was constantly listening to that album as a form of prayer, of an offering. i was ready to give myself to god, whatever that meant. what was happening in the meanwhile is that i was preaching in vrijthof while my friends were trying to get me to a hospital. i ran, they chased me around, even involved the police, but i was too fast.
later i understood Cioran's famous quoute "The premonition of madness is complicated by the fear of lucidity in madness, the fear of the moments of return and reunion when the intuition of disaster is so painful that it almost provokes a greater madness… One would welcome chaos if one were not afraid of lights in it." - what is worse than being insane? the moments of lucidity in which you realise you are insane. and that's what happened for a short moment when i found myself in a taxi on the way to the hospital, where i switched back to insane mode and yelled at the doctor that he's going to hell for trying to institutionalise the literal Messiah.
then i turned my life around. the damage i have done to my friends this time was incredible. they were visibly traumatised by my actions and i was so ashamed of what i'd done. unfortunately for me, the psychosis fades away and comes back instead of being constant. so i found myself ina lucidity moment completely destroyed by what i've done, back on antipsychotics and ready to fight this fucking disease once and for all.
i quit drugs. i quit drinking. lithium came into play. i finally felt the clinic was taking me seriously. i turned my life around. i am better now and stronger and so much more on my feet and ready to face this fucking world. i am not living in my head anymore and i am not overwhelmed by existence. i see the light, i fight my demons and i do shit. i do great quality shit, from my job as a bartender to my research at uni, i am fucking awesome. i still struggle with my physical image, but i am sure i will be able to get better at loving my physique as well. i am so fucking strong, i overcame so much fucking trauma, i am so fucking worth it and so fucking cool. i care so much about people, i love so strongly, i want to help the world through my field, i am smart, funny, have a sense for the arts, and am great at storytelling and making conversation. i deserve to be fucking loved and i deserve someone who will love me for who i am and who will understand my past and who i am right now and who will be there to support me while i support them. i deserve someone who wants me for who i am and who is willing to build something together with me that will last and will be beautiful. i am not unlovable and i am not awful. i am such a fucking great person.
so this was supposed to be a post about you jakub. but somehow through writing this post i realised that you are not my biggest issue. and also, ure not the only guy in the world. frankly, if u don't do something soon, i don't even think you'll get a chance with me. you're awesome, but i am not your ex, and i deserve someone who can commit to me and who actively shows that they like me. i get that u are anxious and maybe kinda autistic, but over the last days i was the only one putting in the effort, and guess what, a relationship is not a one way street. so act up, if u want me.
