More than anything, this is me just... letting all my frustrations out. How much I hate my life and myself, and how bad I always fuck everything up.
I have always been a fairly ordinary kid. Perhaps not that socially competent, but I have always had my little circle of friends. I must admit, my friends were not always the nicest to me, but that is how children are; like adult humans but lacking empathy (read: small sociopaths). To my recollection, I believe I first started developing issues in 6th or 7th grade of elementary school. I did not want to go to school, and I wanted the attention of my parents that had previously all been given to my brother who suffers from several illnesses. So I did one of the most selfish things I could have done, I pretended to be sick. You might not find that unusual, a lot of children do such things to avoid going to school… the difference was that this went on for more than 6 months. I did not go to school during this period, and spent most my time in and out of the hospital. Of course they could not discover what was wrong because there was nothing wrong. After a while though, I started actually feeling sick because I was so immersed in the act that I barely ate or went outside. At the time I had become severely underweight to the point of me barely being able to walk at all. Only when I visited a psychologist and she correctly assumed it was more of a mental thing was I able to get out of the act and get better. No one other than me and my psychologist actually knows this though, my family and doctors still do not know what was wrong with me at that time.
As I was healthy again, that meant that the attention from my parents stopped. This was also around the time when I started middle school, where I was very unhappy. I felt like no one could really understand me, and that although I was surrounded by people I felt alone. I could not really relate well to my peers, and spent most my time alone. I eventually switched middle schools, but still did not feel any less lonely at my new school. It was around this time, when I was 13, that I started chatting with people online. I found this website that was meant for teenagers aged 13-20 to make friends, and for the first time it felt like people cared about me. They would actually speak to me and listen to what I had to say. I noticed that the more… let’s say “revealing” my photos were, the more people spoke to me and gave me attention. So with time my pictures started going further and further in that direction. A lot of the attention was of the negative kind, but for me that was still better than no attention although it did give me certain issues with my self-esteem and the respect I had for myself. My biggest worry at that time was someone I knew finding out about my actions online, as I know they would not have approved the slightest. I was very shameful about it all, and tried deleting my account and quitting several times, but always ended up coming back. I was very depressed in this period because of the shame and the issues I had with my view of myself, and I also barely went out of my room other than for school.
Additionally, I developed really bad anxiety in this period. The worst example of this was when I was say 14-15 and this guy messaged me on a messaging app saying he was an admin of the page I had been using. He told me that uploading my pictures there, which at worst were of me in my underwear, was illegal because it would technically be considered child pornography according to him. I apologized to him and told him I would delete my pictures off the site. However, he had already saved my pictures and told me he would send them to the police. Of course, I begged him not to – as any naive teenager would. And then the blackmailing begun. “I will delete one picture from the e-mail for each new picture you send me”, his words awakened a severe panic attack in me. I told him to please just let it go and that if he did I would actually want to kill myself. He then threatened to call my parents and warn them about this, as he apparently knew our house phone number from the IP address he had found as admin on the site. At this same time I was talking to this other guy, who along with the first one was also in his mid 20s, and explained the situation to him. I was obviously panicking and told him I just wanted to die. He told me he would pay the other guy money not to do it, and as desperate as I was I thanked him and said that would be great. He actually did it, quite a lot of it, and I thought all would be well after that. It felt like my life had been saved… until he started blackmailing me too. And with him I actually complied in the beginning just because I felt horrible about him paying the other guy money, but he started asking for more and more risqué pictures and I told him I did not want to. The blackmailing continued and I ended up blocking his account because I could not take it anymore; as expected though, he made a new account and messaged me again. I ended up deleting the whole messaging app off my iPad. This whole experience however, caused me to have really severe anxiety and panic attacks probably for almost a year. Chatting with people online though, likely did not stop until I was about 17. I also went on dating apps meant for adults, where I lied about my age. Most the men there would obviously realize I was underage, but they did not seem to care; most in their 50s and up.
I had reached a point of my depression and anxiety where I did not feel like I could handle it anymore, and after hours of crying and building up my courage, I told my mother that “I felt sad” and was going to go on to say I wished to see a psychologist. However, before I even got to that point my mother just looked up from her phone at me and told me “you have nothing to be sad about”, and then looked back down at her phone. From that moment I realized that keeping my issues to myself or opening up to strangers on the internet would be the best options. I never told my parents about my personal life until I told my mother that I was asexual after she asked me why me and my now ex broke up. Her response of “I pity you, you need therapy, no guy will ever stay with you when you are like that” was a painful reminder of why I should not open up to her. I got this reminder once more when I told her about my experience getting raped and getting herpes from the rapist in a hope to receive some consolation from someone who cared about me, and she responded by blaming me, saying she was disappointed in me, that I was a slut, and that my life was over.
The one part I cannot blame her for though, is the disappointment. I moved to Korea August 2018, and my lifestyle got pretty fucked up from that point on. My mother only knows a tiny, tiny part of what I have actually been up to. Dealing with severe depression and anxiety, especially being by myself in a country far away from home, my coping mechanisms weren’t the best; mainly guys and alcohol. I had downloaded Tinder, and would go on dates with a lot of guys in order to get away from the dorms and distract my thoughts. But I learned the painful way that Korean men tend to look at foreigners as easy, and that they mostly just want them for sex – “riding the white horse”. This tendency is especially bad when met with people like me… I cannot say no or stand up for myself. My parents have always joked that I “will end up getting married to someone I do not like because I cannot say no”. Thus, I have been in several uncomfortable situations where I have been pressured into doing things I did not wish to do. One example I can think of is when I agreed to meet this guy for dinner. I had not eaten all day, and it was 8PM at the time, so I was obviously starving. We met, and he told me he knew a good restaurant and to follow him. But where does he take me? A room café. I had never been to one, but apparently you just get a small room with a TV and a mattress and the only food there is some dry crackers. At that point I wanted to leave, but I was too scared of creating an uncomfortable situation. So I just sat there silently and watched the TV. He started touching me and trying to kiss me out of nowhere and I leant away and told him I did not want it. He said ok, but only a minute later he continued and I continued saying no and pushing him away, until the point where I just kind of… gave in. I cried all the way back home on the subway that day. Another time I was with a guy who I had met a few times at his house, this was after I had gotten herpes, and we had been drinking a bit and were going to sleep. He started touching me and undressing me and I told him I did not want it. He still continued, whilst I told him to stop and tried to push him away. He physically held me down and did his business, all whilst whispering “it’s ok, it’s ok, don’t cry”. I freaking out after, not because I had just been raped again, but because I had not managed to tell him I had herpes. I told him later out of guilt and of course he got extremely angry and said he’d kill me if he ended up having it – which he luckily did not. Anyways, those were two examples of how my dates with men often went.
My lack of ability to say no and stand up to myself though, is not just bad in relation to sexual things. I also tend to pay everything for everyone. All my money comes from student loans, and even my student loans are not really enough to cover my expenses because of all the money I spend on others. I have undoubtedly spent well over two million won (around 25 000 kroner) on my friends and exes whilst in Korea. I offer to pay once, as a nice gesture, and they start expecting me to pay for everything. I could not say anything about it because I literally cannot deal with confrontation, but for every “buy me this” more and more frustration built up inside me. At the end of my stay I tried starting to say “don’t you have money to pay for yourself?” but they would always just not bring money so that I’d have to pay. Or if we were out eating and I told the waiter I’d pay just for me, my friends would just point at my card and say “two on that card”, with no intention of paying me back. My parents are obviously super angry at me because they think I waste all my money on myself, but I know they would be even angrier if they knew I actually wasted it on other people.
My other coping mechanism, drinking, got me into a lot worse situations than these. I would drink sometimes perhaps 4 nights a week, starting at 9PM and coming back home at 8-10AM. Throwing up and blacking out in random places was something I had gotten used to. I would also experience waking up to guys in motel rooms quite often, not remembering anything of the night before. While drinking I believe I have experienced getting raped four times, not including the time mentioned above; the worst, of course, being by the man who gave me herpes (which is a fucking pest by the way; constant physical discomfort in terms of itching and/or pain). After that experience I could not sleep or eat or go outside for probably a week. All I did was cry. Later I also heard rumors that the guy had given HIV to girls before, and had a huge scare that I might have gotten it myself. I have a tendency to bleed during sex, which of course greatly would increase my chances of getting it. Luckily I did not, but even now I am freaking out over the prospect of having more STDs, as I have had sexual intercourse several times after having gotten tested the last time. Guys usually do not use a condom either, and often do forceful penetration anally as well without asking; bringing even more health risks with it. I will start thinking about it and get really bad panic attacks in random places at random times. I cannot really talk to anyone about it. I think it was sort of a vicious circle of self-destruction though – where I drank because I was depressed, but drinking made me more depressed, and so I drank even more because of this additional feeling of depression. On top of all this I have absolutely zero self-esteem or respect anymore, I don’t really care about what happens to me. I think I am worthless, unlovable, a waste of space… I am ashamed to tell anyone about my life. It is especially funny that my life turned out this way considering the fact that I am asexual. When I was with my (two) exes I was comfortable enough to reject their sexual advances, so it was basically sexless relationships. If I told people this and told them my sexual history however, they would think I was lying and that I am just a slut trying to cover it up.
As I am writing this I am currently sitting on my flight back to Norway. I couldn’t handle it anymore, and my parents also told me I needed to come home after the HIV scare, so I dropped out of university. I know it is bad to think like this, but I do wonder how life would have turned out different for me if I had gotten help in my teenage years when I first started needing it. I am hoping I can turn my life around going back to Norway, stopping with some of my bad coping mechanisms and getting a more healthy lifestyle, but I do not think my depression and anxiety will decrease unless I get professional help and perhaps start medication. I do not want much out of life, my only wish is to one day become happy. Actually happy. However, I am not sure whether I will be here long enough to experience that. I am not quite sure why I am writing all of this; I think perhaps I just needed to get it on paper because it feels less like I am just keeping it to myself that way.
Update: Now that I am back in Norway, I feel even more horrible. I keep having panic attacks every time I get reminded of all that has happened to me, or the prospects of me now having HIV or otherwise. I keep feeling dirty and disgusting, especially as that is how my mother treats me. I tell her that herpes cannot spread from inanimate objects, but she still tells me “wash the toilet seat every time after you use the toilet, wash your hands well before you touch any food in the house, keep your towel far away from ours”. I feel like I am a living, walking, disgusting disease. I want to get away from here. I want to start a new life where no one knows me or anything about me, somewhere far away.
Update 2: My anxiety and panic attacks have gotten worse again. I feel horrible and disgusting at all times, and guess what? I think I might have gotten chlamydia or some shit in my throat. It hurts so badly that I am able to eat or drink. I have come to the realization that I am just a dirty, asexual whore. I have also come to terms with the fact that I will die alone; which I guess I am ok with. I will just get a dog instead, preferably a corgi.