My Quest For Love, part 2
All people and events in the the following text are real, but the names of all but famous people have been changed to protect their privacy.
My longest relationship
My relationship with Ciska had taught me something important. Before her, I connected with women mostly at an cerebral level. But with her, the connection was at a more raw, animalistic level. With here, there was this visceral male / female dynamic that I had never felt with any woman before. And I promised to myself that I needed more of this in my next relationship, yet without losing touch of the cerebral connection.
That’s when I met Cheryl. I’d decided to subscribe to a dating site and after a couple of dates with women I had zero connection with, I met this fascinating new woman. Cheryl was in an electric wheelchair since age 12 due to a neuromuscular condition, but she had this beautifully warm and very feminine personality that totally captured me. But, being a PhD level biomedical scientist doing post-doctoral research at a local university, she also had this intellect unlike I’d seen in any other woman. This unusual combination of her very warm feminine personality and her deep intellect drew me towards her like no other woman before.
Her neuromuscular condition scared me though. And much the same, Cheryl was scared by my Autism. But we decided there was enough sexual tension going on between us to go for “friends with benefits”. This was less scary and came with less expectations than calling it a relationship, yet it allowed to explore our romantic potential nevertheless. Soon, however, we both agreed that we were essentially behaving like a couple in every way, so we started calling ourselves a couple.
Cheryl and I had the most open conversations about literally anything that could seem to go on literally forever. And while she approached everything from a very intrapersonal “micro-level” and I approached everything from a very abstract “macro-level”, we somehow nearly always managed to meet eye to eye on the widest range of issues. I was certain I had found my soulmate this time. I must have…
After a while, I moved into Cheryl’s appartment. And a few years later we would buy a house that we’d convert into out dream home during the years that followed. For years, I thought of ourselves as the perfect couple. I thought we were perfectly complementary and simply made for each other. And after we’d joined a local Autism awareness organization, we actively promoted our way of coupling as a role model.
As time progressed, however, more and more cracks started to appear. For starters, we had truly opposite personalities. In MBTI terms, she was an ESFJ and I was an INTP. As there were fewer and fewer topics we hadn’t already discussed ad nauseam, we slowly but steadily discovered that we didn’t really have that much left in common.
More importantly, though, our sex life became increasingly problematic. Due to a metal bar attached to Cheryl’s spine that was also connected to her pelvis, her body was extremely fragile, which in turn made sex positions extremely limited. This became further aggravated as we both gained weight. Sex became a chore, that often resulted in mutual frustration. The more we tried to have sex, the more frustrated the experience became. Sex became something to become scared of rather than look forward to. So, eventually, I learned to block my libido and stopped initiating sex altogether.
There was also the problem of kids. I’d been wanting to have kids ever since I was together with Hilde. I think it was Hilde’s own wish to become a mother that stirred my own desire to have kids, but somehow we never got there. Cheryl wasn’t so sure about it, though. And she was afraid her body was too fragile to actually handle kids. Yet it took her 9 years to make the final decision she never wanted to have any kids, after considering anything from in vitro fertilisation to a surrogate mother.
What also didn’t help was how the occasional use of psychedelic and empathogenic substances had slowly turned into a habit that took over more and more of our life. Want to clean the roof? Take some 1P-LSD. Want to organize my library? Take some 2-FDCK. Want to meet with friends? Take out the 3-MMC. I had a “research chemical” for every context, which did in some way actually work for me. But it slowly made me ever more dependent on them. And it made Cheryl grow apart from me still further, never knowing which “version” of me she would have to deal with that day, as every substance alterted my personality in different but noticable way. We also became increasingly unable to work out any differences between us without both of us taking a “research chemical” to put outselves on the same wavelength to to speak.
In the long run, the “research chemicals” along with my daily caffeine intake also gradually drained me of my natural reserves. And as my job as an R&D software developer for a high tech company required me to function at a very high level on a daily basis, I started to slide on a spiral towards burnout by October 2019, only to get fired when my sick leave was prolonged. When I started a new job after 6 weeks of rest in January 2020, I hadn’t sufficiently recovered yet. It also didn’t help that I wasn’t really on the same page as the owners of the startup I had joined to become their software architect. So around April 2020, as my country had just gone through its first Covid-19 lockdown, I would lose my new job as well.
As Cheryl was forced to work from home due to lockdown and I was struggling to cope with the loss of this new job as well, our home had turned into a pressure cooker. All the cracks in our relationship that had developed over the years became deeper at an accelerating rate until the inevitable happened. After 10 years of sharing our lives, Cheryl decided our relationship needed to end right then and there. And in spite of all the hobbies I kept alongside out relationship, my life suddely felt like it had no more meaning.
“I battle with depression, but the question still remains
Is this post-traumatic stressing or am I suppressing rage?
And my doctor tries to tell me that I’m going through a phase
Yeah, it’s not a fucking phase, I just wanna feel okay, okay?
Yeah, I struggle with this bullshit every day
And it’s probably ’cause my demons simultaneously rage It obliterates me, disintegrates me, annihilates me
’Cause I’m about to break down, I’m searching for a way out”— Falling In Reverse, Popular Monster
The lesbian interlude
During the years since Hilde (my second longest relationship) and I broke up, we always stayed more or less on friendly terms, although we weren’t in each other lives for prolonged periods of time.
At some point, Hilde was without a job and in need for a home. As Cheryl and I had just bought our house and it was without an occupant while renovations were in a planning stage, we decided to allow Hilde to rent our house for a very modest fee. We also hired her to clean our appartment, so she’d have some extra income and we had some extra help.
Around the same time, I had become very close with Lizzie, the lesbian tomboy I had the failed FWB with. Lizzie and Hilde became close as well, and gradually ended up in a lesbian affair. Around the same time, both developed an amphetamine habit, which resulted in increasingly probematic behavior by both of them, which became a nasty vicious circle. As some point, Hilde would start stealing supplies from Cheryl’s appartment while she was cleaning there and even took some methylone from our freezer, after which Hilde diluted the remnant with powdered caffeine to avoid anyone from noticing. Lizzie was aware of this and took some of the methylone with her. When I mentioned afterwards how this methylone felt different and reminded me of caffeine, they just told me “it’s probably just a different batch”.
There was also a time when I myself had developed an amphetamine habit myself and decided to go “cold turkey” because I had realized it was doing more harm than good. And I’d promised to Cheryl I wouldn’t take any substances at all while I was going “cold turkey” on amphetamine. Somehow, just that moment, Lizzie decided to take me on a trip to first see her dealer and then some gay barber friend with a heavy addiction to both amphetamines and cocaine. Just at a time I had sworn to both myself and Cheryl that I wouldn’t touch any substance and I’m going “cold turkey” on amphetamine, Lizzie takes me to two places where I’m literally surrounded by the stuff. Now, this might not have been worth mentioning if either was a place she’d taken me before or after. But both were places I had never been to before or would never visit afterwards. And, in retrospect, it’s hard to see this as anything other but a purpuseful attempt by Lizzie to “trap” me into breaking my vows to go “cold turkey”.
When I’m offered a line of amphetamine by either Lizzie or the barber guy (I honestly don’t remember), I proudly refuse. And when Cheryl calls to check up on me, I equally proudly proclaim that I only drank two glasses of wine. Unfortunately, when I agreed to Cheryl to take “no substances”, at least in her mind this also included alcohol. So you can imagine my shock when she started angrily shouting at me for violating our agreement, when I was so very proud to not touch any of the (very addictive) amphetamine I’d been literally surrounded with that day.
When I put down the phone, I had become so pissed-off and disappointed by Cheryl I made one of my worst decisions in my life: I snorted a line of amphetamine either because I just stopped caring… out of spite… or maybe both? It was probably both. Either way, the reason doesn’t matter. That fateful day, I did snort a line only after so proudly proclaiming that I had managed not to do so.
On my way home to Cheryl’s appartment, I had realized I’d made a terrible mistake. But it was too late to turn back the clock. When I arrived back home, Cheryl and I had a huge fight, with Lizzie only aggrevating it. Yet, somehow we manage to clear things up and I restarted my “cold turkey” strategy that day. Cheryl and I had both come to the conclusion that while I most certainly made a terrible mistake, Lizzie had deliberately tried to “trap” me into breaking me “cold turkey”, to break up Cheryl and me and that we should both keep an eye on her behavior in the future.
When Lizzie and Hilde had broken up, Lizzie would come clean about Hilde’s theft to get Cheryl on her side. She would tell all about the household items that were stolen, the methylone that was diluted, etc. She didn’t mention, of course, that she took some of the methylone with her herself. That part she conveniently left out and I found out only many years later. Yet that moment made it abundantly clear to me that Lizzie was a toxic influence for everyone in her environment : me, Cheryl, Hilde, etc. I blamed it mostly on the amphetamine, though, so I told her I wanted her out of Cheryl’s and my life until she had cleaned up and quit her amphetamine habit. For more or less the same reason, we Cheryl and I would distance ourselves from Hilde once she no longer lived in our home and we’d started with our renovations.
The lesbian sequel
Before Lizzie and Hilde were out of our lives, there was a New Year’s Eve where Lizzie, Cheryl & I each took methylone, a substance that enhances empathy and produces a genuine sense of bonding. At that night there was a noticeable spark between Lizzie and Cheryl, who as far as I know wasn’t bisexual but had a bixcurious side. Considering I’d slept with Lizzie once myself, this resulted in Cheryl and myself contemplating the idea of a threesome with Lizzie. But we never went as far as actually proposing something like that. We figured it would have been too dangerous, as Cheryl would probably have become jealous to see me engage sexually with another woman. And if the sex would have only been between Lizzie and Cheryl, that would have just been too awkward for me. So this became nothing but a silly fantasy that I had largely forgotten as time passed.
Eventually both Lizzie and Hilde could clean up their lives. While I tried to keep both at a safe distance while giving them the chance to gradually regain my trust, Cheryl was much less careful and got closer and closer and closer with Lizzie especially. I had long forgotten about the spark that once existed between Cheryl and Lizzie. But they definitely had not.
The moment Cheryl broke up with me, Lizzie offered her “comforting shoulder”. And in a matter of weeks, both had become a couple, which they’ve remain to the moment I’m writing this, more than a year later. And so I further spiraled down into what had become my second breakdown.
My second breakdown
In spite of the many obvious cracks in our relationship, I still saw Cheryl as my soulmate. I was certain our connection was strong enough to overcome all our differences and that we’d been through more than enough of hardship already to survive whatever was in front of us.
So when Cheryl said “no more”, it was more than my heart that broke. I broke down as a person. That Cheryl would choose Lizzie over me, after her outright betrayal on multiple occasions, further tore me down. And then there was Diederick, my so-called best friend, who also fully supported their relationship, even though he himself was stabbed in the back by Lizzie multiple times. And for Hilde, it was no different. I felt like I lived in an alternate reality where everything was upside down and thought I was going crazy. And because I refused to see things “their” way, I pretty much lost the few friendships I’d maintained over the years.
Meanwhile, Lizzie had moved part-time into our home when I was still living there part-time. I’d moved to the guest chamber while Lizzie slept in my bed. More than once did I hear sex noises from the bedroom while I was still awake in my study. I kept snorting and snorting and snorting an ever greater amount of 3-MMC to sedate the feeling of utter despair until the powder had no more effect. Life had lost meaning. I saw no more future. And I thought I was going completely bonkers because the world I lived in no longer made any sense.
The plan was to gradually move in with my parents again. As my father was nearing the terminal stage of his ALS, I didn’t feel mentally equipped take my parents’ struggle on top of my own, at least not full-time. So I dediced to move in with my parents starting with just a day or two and moving up from there.
The silence before the storm
It was around that time I met Suzie in a local Facebook group focused on geeks & dating. “How are you doing” she asked during our first private chat. “Do you want the real answer or do you want the socially acceptable answer, I asked”? “The real one”, she answered. And so, in an unusual display of bluntness and directness, I explained the mess I was in to this total stranger. This in turn made her curious. This let to a very intense chat. And so she became my new love interest.
Since that first chat, Suzie and I started chatting for an average of about 5 hours straight on a daily basis. I don’t think I ever felt what seemed like such a strong connection with a random stranger I met online since I met Cheryl… or maybe even since I met Sandra. And as I got to know Suzie better with every interaction, I felt like I was rapidly shooting straight from hell to cloud 9.
After a few weeks we arranged our first date. First we went for dinner, then for a walk, and then we continued talking in a pub, near a beautiful castle. The conversation went just as smoothly, but physically I felt distance. I remember ending our first date with an awkward hug and possibly a kiss on the cheek.
Before we had our second date, I told Suzie I sucked at flirting, which something Cheryl had frequently pointed out and always felt she missed in me. I was afraid the lack of flirting would automaticly bring me into her friendzone, so I told her my love language was physical touch and agreed that maybe we should try cuddling. We met for our second date in the home I was still sharing with me ex, while my ex was out for a day. We drank some bubbles, had a rather intimate talk and watched the movie “Cashback” together on my couch, while rubbing feet and cuddling a little bit. By the end of the day, she was anxious to invite me to her home for a third date and we had our first kiss on the lips before she entered her car and drove home.
A few days later, Suzie and I would meet again for a sorta-kinda-date before we had our actual third date. She’s arranged for both of us to be extras in a movie, which basically consisted of hours of waiting and then a couple of times walking alongside a car while the camera was focused on that car, which would result in a scene where you see both of our backsides while we walk hand-in-hand for just a few seconds. Suzie told me she was stressed to get her house in order for our third date. Her house is pretty sacred, she said, and she wanted it to be in good order before she invites someone for a date. I figured this was probably normal for her and didn’t really think much of it.
Then the day before the actual third date came. Suzie was unusually quiet online, so I asked her if she was OK. “No”, she said. She wasn’t able to prepare her house in time for our third date, and this was totally freaking her out, she said. So I proposed her to either change locations of cancel the date, so she’d have more time to prepare. She chose to cancel the date.
It was a day or so after she canceled our third date that she told me she needed distance. I was not allowed to contact her in any means whatsoever until she was “ready” to be in contact again. Would that be a week? A month? Ever? She couldn’t give me any specifics, but she made it clear that there was no way whatsoever I should contact her.
Now, I got that she needed some distance. I got that she started feeling like everything was moving too fast. But why did it have to be on those terms? I understood her emotions were important and she needed to guard her boundaries, but what about my emotions? Couldn’t she at least give a regular check-up or something on what’s the progress? Was there really no other way but leave me in the cold for an indeterminate amount of time until she figured out if she wanted to continue our relationship?
I felt suddenly knocked from cloud 9 and thrown back into the gaping pits of hell. A week long, I kept waiting and waiting and waiting until any sign of life from her side, and this waiting was just killing me. I decided to give her until the end of the week before I sent her a letter telling her things can’t work out between us because I cannot accept it when my partner unilaterally imposes such demands on me without consideration of my own needs.
About a day before I’d set my deadline, Suzie decided we should continue dating. First we’d go see “Apollo 11” and “The Invisible Man” in a movie theatre until we eventually would meet at her home. We would start building the physical contact from scratch again. After about 4 dates, we’d come as far as a kiss on the lips and my being allowed to put my hands on her thighs.
Yet in between every two dates, she seemed to need a break of about a week or so. First she was sick. Then it was her keto diet making her uncomfortable. The online communication had mostly died. Things between us just weren’t the way they used to be. It’s like Suzie was desperately trying to keep a spark alive that for some reason died between our second and third date and never really came back.
Then came the moment my father was hospitalized from pneumonia and high fever. It hit me that he would probably never leave he hospital alive. I had already planned to meet with Suzie and how I desperately wanted to see her, since she’d lost both of her parents and I thought she could offer me some support. But when I arrived at her place, I met an ice queen. She was pissed off that I hadn’t told her in advance that my father was hospitalized. I believe now that she’d planned to break up with me that day, but that she couldn’t get herself to do so because I was too emotional about my father’s situation.
Either way, police officers would meet me and my mother the following night to tell us that my father wasn’t doing well. They told us to come to the hospital immediately, so my mother and I rushed and packed our stuff. I would stay there for the rest of the day with my mother as I begged Suzie for emotional support. After getting my mother home for some sleep the next night, I laid behind my father, kind-of in a spooning position, to make sure he felt my presence. He was already way too far gone to communicate, so I didn’t know how else to let him know that he wasn’t alone as he his body was slowly but steadily shutting down and preparing him for his final breath.
During the two days my father was at the hospital, both Cheryl & Hilde would visit to provide me and my mother emotional support. But Suzie was nowhere in sight. So when I kept begging to help me one way or another, she finally ended with “this isn’t working”, “our dating story ends here”. We would exchange some online communication afterwards, but I would never meet her in person anymore. My father would die, less than 24 hours later, from the complications of a combination of pneumonia and a blocked bowel the second day of his hospitalization.
The eye of the storm
My father’s death did not exactly come as a surprise. After he was diagnosed with ALS, an expert had given him roughly 2 years to live, as het gradually lost his capabilities to walk, eat, talk and do pretty much anything else. It was about 2 years since he got that diagnosis, so I had already somewhat made my peace with my father’s death. And in some way I was glad to finally see his suffering end. Knowing that my father was no longer a prisoner in what was once his body and was hopefully in peace now one way or another actually was a lot easier than seeing him struggle on a daily basis and seeing his body gradually shut down the days, weeks and months before his death.
My mother was not able to look at it this way, though. All she saw, was that she’d lost the man who’d been on her side for multiple decades straight. And while they had grown apart for a long, long time, my mother loved my father no less and his illness had in some way actually brought them closer together. So, needless to say, my mom was absolutely devastated by my father’s passing. Meanwhile, I was unable to process the rollercoaster crash my fledgling love affair with Suzie had become. Heck, I was still barely able to process my break-up with Cheryl and all the practical issues that came with it.
When this thing with Suzie started, it didn’t stop my mental breakdown. It merely plateaued it, as I clinged onto her like a drowning man clinging on to the last bits of straw he can find. While I don’t think she ever really felt strongly enough for me to make whatever we had together work, my clinging on to her must not exactly have helped to play things out in my favor. Right then, it didn’t matter, though, as I had no more straws to cling on and I totally and utterly broke down.
In an attempt to toothe the utter despair that was haunting me every second of every minute of every hour of every day, I started mixing 3-MMC with my parents’ lorazepam to make just getting through the day remotely manageable. The entire week between my father’s death and my father’s funeral had become mostly a blur. Cheryl was kind enough to help me with compiling a Powerpoint presentation for my father’s funeral, but I barely remember even visiting her for this.
“You can’t rely on other people to make you happy.”
— Sean Biggerstaff (as Ben Willis), Cashback
Deus ex machina
I had reached rock bottom. I felt like I had completely lost everything that truly meant anything to me. I felt like had reached a point where there was no way to sink any lower. And just at that point, Hilde came out of nowhere like a deus-ex-machina, like an angel of mercy coming down from heaven to tell me to get my shit back together and help me clean up the mess I’d left behind me.
While my mind was still in a total haze, Hilde took over the organization of the moving process and got all my stuff either at my mother’s place or at my library, which I’d continue using for the time being, by the end of summer. With a little help of Lizzie, she made sure all the furniture, board games, DVDs and a bunch of other stuff that needed to be moved to my mother’s place all ended up at their destination.
While in the process of moving, Hilde would also take me to a crisis team to help me sober up and start treatment with bupropion. The following days and weeks were still hell, though, but Hilde’s support made it all the more bearable. After I’d sobered up and my stuff was moved, I felt both thankful and ashamed that I hadn’t given her a real chance at restoring our former friendship. So I proposed we’d meet on a bi-weekly basis to just hang out and play board games or discuss random stuff, as friends do. Doing so, slowly but steadily we rekindled our old friendship and restored the trust I once had for Hilde.
“This is the haunting period. The time when the demons of regret come for you.”
— Sean Biggerstaff (as Ben Willis), Cashback
