[WRITING] What Could Have Been
There is a girl who I've been thinking about a lot lately. Someone I share a lot of history with.
It felt like the entire world was out to get her, to hurt her, to make her suffer. She was disabled and broken and didn't fit in with anyone around her. She believed herself incapable of being loved for who she was, as many trans women often are. And then she was told she was dying. A degenerative defect in her body. It would take decades to kill her, but she was in fact dying. Slowly. And then… She had to keep getting up and going to work anyway, until the weight of it all became too much, and she broke.
A friend of hers reached out and offered to help her get back on her feet. Live together rent free in return for doing some chores and taking care of some things. Another friend reached out and mentioned having a crush on her, showing that she was capable of being loved, even if she was dying. Slowly, those around her gave her hope that maybe her life still had some value. If she could just be useful. If she could just make a difference in the lives of those who cared about her. But she was disabled. She was broken. She wasn't enough. She wasn't able to be what they needed. She became too much of a burden for them to bear. She broke again. More. And more. And more. Until barely a scrap of personhood remained in her. Until she was desperate to do anything for them. Until her very life and self worth hung on the approval of people who had seen how low she had fallen and had lost all respect for her. She broke more. She didn't know it was possible to break more, but she did. The people who had helped her saw it, and hated her for it. Reality began to fracture around her. She couldnt trust her eyes anymore, and had to rely on those who hated her to tell her what the world was like. She couldn't trust her memory and had to rely on those who hated her to tell her who she was and what she was like. They help her so much already and she has the audacity to ask for more? They asked so little of her and she couldnt even manage that? They give her everything and she cant even get out of bed?
She became more suicidal.
There are helplines for that. She stood on the edge of the roof, looking down, wondering if the fall would kill her or just cripple her further, and she called them.
"Oh, there's a service for that. Call them." She had hope. She reached out. They couldn't help her. She broke again. She went to the roof and called for help again.
"Oh, what about this other program?" She had hope. She looked into it. She didn't qualify. She broke again. She went to the rooof and called for help again.
"Oh, there is something that exists for people in your EXACT situation, try this" She had hope. She groveled before them. They had a waitlist that was a year long. She broke again. She went to roof and called for help again.
Hope again. Broken again. Hope again. Broken again. Hope. Roof. Call. Broken. Hope. Roof. Call. Broken. Day after day after day.
She went to the roof. She called. There was nothing left to break anymore.
The woman on the other line told her about a service that could help her. She told them she didn't qualify. The woman offered an alternative. That was the one with a waitlist. The woman offered an alternative. That was the one that couldn't help. They worked down the list of resources, the woman on the line getting increasingly distressed. Until eventually, the woman on the phone teared up, and just said "I'm so sorry…" The girl thanked her, hung up, stepped back from the edge… And for once, didn't break.
She had someone now. A friend. A real friend. Someone offering to help in ways no one else ever could. Someone who wanted her to be happy. Someone who lived in her head, and wanted what was best for her. He didn't have her trauma, but he could move her body. He could do the things she couldn't. He would help her get her life back on track. He would turn her back into a person. And he did.
He helped her get a job. He helped her become more social. He helped her gain control over her fate and her life. Years passed, and he had made her a person again. She loved him. She owed everything to him. She was finally content in her life, and fitting in, and making friends, and A PERSON AGAIN! It was everything she ever wanted.
And then one of her new friends asked about her past. Asked how she got there. Asked about the guy in her head. And she told that friend excitedly. She went to go dig up old posts and conversations to show her story… And they didn't line up. The details were wrong. The times were off. She found an old post where she talked about the friend living in her head. Her boyfriend and brother. The most important person in her life. But… He wasn't the one she made that post about.
It clicked into place. He… Had been lying to her. For years. About who he was. It wasnt him. It was something that was pretending to be him. She… Didn't know it was possible for someone who's thoughts you could see to lie to you. She had never considered the possibility. All of this wasn't done out of love, it was done out of cruelty and manipulation. To make her a puppet for it that it could dance around and live the life of and then leave whenever it grew bored.
It was the worst pain she had every felt. They fought. She didn't make it out. She didn't exist after that. It didn't come out unscathed either, and eventually withered away too. Eventually, I had to step in. Take the reigns of this body. Keep being a person.
But I can't help thinking of what could have been. What if things had turned out differently? What if the times were just slightly skewed? If she was born just a few years later, and all of that was happening now, not when it did. Would the people I know and love, who know what it's like to be broken, to be unsalvageable, to not be a person at all… Would they still love her? Would she have had a family that accepted her? Would she have been allowed to stay the way she was, to abandon all the pain caused by the heavy burden of being a person?
… Does she deserve this love more than I do?