The girl who got too much love

Also today finishing my day at work. I need to keep track of what is going on these days, many emotions spinning around and around; and I do not want to be emotional. I keep emotions for a journal or for drawing, for nothing else and the day is still long. The night will be long. I need to go on writing my thesis, and I got a 30% job as a student assistant from a Professor whose existence I ignored until the day he contacted me to offer me the position – it was Doctor Ben who suggested him to hire me. I am very grateful to her for it. Those opportunities are like gold for me, since my curriculum shows a ten-year-gap with I will have to justify to an employer in the future. “I was ill”. Nobody wants to hear that, especially if you were in a psychiatric hospital for depression and schizophrenia. So, at the moment I am working 130%, and yes, now I should be finishing some chores but I am writing here. This means I will stay a little longer but I need a short break.

The ghost of Kerstin is still haunting me. She is the symbol of everything that always made me fail in my life: loving the ones who rejected me. She is the best example I can think of. She is what Jazzie was in middle school, of what my class mates were in high school, of what all the people who liked me as long as they could use me and then threw me away thereafter were when I went to Basel. I do not really think that Kerstin was aware of what she was doing. To me, to all the girls she seduced and then left after she had used them. She loved only herself, and she thought that the whole world had to adapt to her conditions and to her needs. And she was not even able to love herself, because she was highly self-destructive; but everything she did was just to catch attention, and I say it as a self-harmer who knows that most self-harmers do not do it for attention. Kerstin never tolerated not to be the focus of the attention of everybody. As soon as she had the love, friendship, or devotion of someone, she became bored, and she moved on to someone else.

I was never a strong person. A psychiatric hospital is a place where you are convicted; it must be a little like being in prison – I luckily never was sent to prison, so I cannot know, but I suppose it is. There are dynamics of power and dominance; there are “alpha” people who are respected, and there are other people who are less respected. I was always left alone. Neither respected nor walked all over on, just tolerated. I always tried not to get in trouble with anyone. Just sometimes, when it was necessary, I was able to show I can spit poison if someone goes on my nerve, just to set a borderline between myself and the outside world. Kerstin never got in trouble with other patients, just with the nurses. She kept them busy. So did I, but only after I met her. She had a very bad influence on me. Oh, I let myself get influenced. As I said, I was not a strong person.

During the first weeks of our acquaintance I thought she was doing good to me. She was chatty, nice, and we were always together. We explored Basel’s gay scene together. She took me out to places where people thought we were a couple and it was funny, she was funny, we laughed and talked and it seemed to work. Then, she started doing drugs. She had always been sober before. Maurice gave her her first shot heroine. She started showing me how to throw up food and how to cut myself deeper. We started destroying each other, meeting in the bathroom in the middle of the night to get drunk or just talking about self-destructive things. She became a drug addict. Luckily, I managed to stay away from drugs, even if I went very close to become an alcohol addict. After a while, she discovered that I was quite an unusual punk: a punk with a lot of money in her pockets. So, she started asking me to borrow her some cash, and at the beginning I was so dumb that I did not check it was for heroine. I became aware of the situation when it was too late, Maurice was sent to jail, she was sent to rehab, I was sent to the isolation ward because I attempted to the life of a nurse while psychotic. When I came out of the isolation ward, where I stayed for months, she was already definitely out of my life. She had forgotten me.

Kerstin contacted me a couple of times, we also met again. She needed money. The last time I saw her, she was in a rehab, and I refused to spend the night with her. I had the impression that she wanted to give me her body for money. I gave her some money because her dog was starving, so I hope she used at least some of that cash to buy dog food. Then I took the train, and went back home. Yes, she is the way people always treated me. Shake before use, throw away after use. And now she is most probably dead. Or living somewhere in misery.

I am not a strong person, but I do not show it. Kerstin was strong, but she used her strength in the wrong way. She conquered love and attention, but where did that lead her? In the end, I am the one who is alive and kicking. Even if I have never been loved. Too much love can kill you, not just if you give it, maybe also if you get it.