Fox and Wolf: Inferno

CW: Dysfunctional System dynamics, control and abuse mentions, abusive relationships. Hypnosis, trance states and abuse.

So is this an intervention?

Not really. No. -Serena

Then what is it?

Oh, I’m not entirely sure. A narrative change? -Serena

Okay, so where do we start?

Where do you want to start? -Serena

Why you’re out here in front?

I’d rather not start there. I’d rather here what it’s like from your point of view. -Serena

From, my point of view?

Yes. What is it like? -Serena

What is what like?

What’s it like to find out that these violent delights, have violent ends? -Serena.

Oh.

So that’s what this is about.

Yes. That’s what this is about. -Serena

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -

Being controlled made it easy for others to control me. Made me reluctant to admit when I had been taken advantage of, when I was being played.

It still does. -Serena

How much of this do you even want to be public? -Serena

Oh, that was less than I expected. -Serena

There are two things you need to know to understand this conversation I’m having.

1. ) I just spent the last two weeks grieving the entirely random death of a friend I had meant to catch up with. (2020 was going to be my near of catching up)
2. ) My DID system was designed for survival at all costs. Including myself. Think Westworld. Now think crueler. Cruel enough to deal with an outside world viewed as absolutely unforgiving by a scared child with the ability to shape her own internal reality.

Oh, I suppose you also need to know who Serena is. It would be easy to say that Serena is the architect, but that’s not true. She’s simply the one who maintains the inside of my head. Every bit of inner world we have, she’s in charge of. And that’s where she likes to stay. She doesn’t front. She doesn’t venture outside my head. Until now.

Well, you’ve never caught on fire before. I wanted to touch the flames. -Serena

I didn’t catch on fire. I lit myself on fire. There’s a difference.

It all burns in the end. And you’ve been trying to burn that mask off of your face for years. -Serena

I couldn’t though. Because I couldn’t admit how much it all got through to me. How much it broke me. How much she broke me.

8 months of hell. -Serena

I’m not allowed to say that word.

Well I am. -Serena

Well then you’ll pay the punishment later.

*Shrugs* -Serena

Weren’t you supposed to protect me from her?

Weren’t you supposed to protect /me/ from her? -Serena

I suppose in a way, I was. That was my job as host, right? Protect the girl. Which, involves protecting the rest of the system.

Your job was to survive. -Serena

I know that. I don’t like it.

I know you don’t. -Serena

But my job was to protect Madison too. And God, did I fail.

How could you have anticipated that you would encounter someone like her? -Serena

I couldn’t have. I had spent a lifetime being controlled and manipulated. I didn’t realize that, I didn’t even consider that the rope being lowered down was to an equally bad place. I didn’t even know what was possible.

There are more cages than just silver ones, you know. -Serena

She built a cage of shame around me. Shame, self loathing. Self hatred. Inferiority. All the things she felt, she put them on me. Made me experience them. Redirected them to me. Eight months to an eternity.

I let her inside my brain, Serena. I let her inside my head.

You didn’t know what you were doing. -Serena

I did though. I did. And she played me for it. She played me like a fiddle. I wanted to be with her, so bad. I wanted to be her. She made me want to be her. She had it under control. She had it, she was at the same spot I was at. In the same cage. But she had a way out. She had a light. She had everything. That’s what she told me.

And instead she just led you into a different cage. That’s what abusers do. -Serena

She hurt me. She hurt me so bad.

Say it. -Serena

She used my own daemon against me.

Say it again. -Serena.

She used my own daemon against me.

Say it again -Serena

She used my own daemon against me. She saw Maddie and she didn’t like Maddie. She didn’t like Maddie at all. She didn’t like that I had that in me.

Your therapist describes Maddie as having a sort of, innocence. -Serena

I don’t think she liked that. I think she hated it. I think she hated me.

She did. -Serena

So she. She took the part of me that’s supposed to protect me. The part of me that’s supposed to be there for me. That’s supposed to. She took one side of me. And she turned it against the other.

She fucked up my brain, Serena.

I let her in.

I gave her the keys. Oh my god. I gave her the keys. I gave her the keys.

And she started shooting. -Serena

Or she would have. If she had known what the fuck she was doing. Luckily for all of us, she didn’t. Or perhaps, she did, and we simply didn’t stick around long enough to find out. -Serena

That’s a terrifying thought.

Indeed. -Serena

What do you think, the effects were, on Maddie?

Of having her own daemon attack her? At the time she was most vulnerable? When she was just starting to peek her head back out? At the time when you were most vulnerable, and when you had also taken one of your most important steps, to transition? Incalculable. Everything Maddie suspected about the outside world. She reinforced. Every seed of self hatred you had in you, she watered. You worried you were unlovable, and you opened up to someone. -Serena

And she told you you were right. -Serena

And she treated you like it. -Serena

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Hypnosis isn’t dangerous on its own.

No, it’s not. -Serena

It’s got the potential to be. It’s root access to someone’s brain.

Madeline already had root access. -Serena

She should have secured the ports better. Maybe had a firewall. -Serena

Jesus Christ.

She did have a firewall, Serena. It was me.

Oh, well then. It’s my solemn duty to inform you that you were compromised. -Serena

I hate that word.

I know you do. -Serena

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

It feels like a violation.

It was a violation. -Serena

I thought that. I thought that if I. If I put, the parts of. Oh my god. More memories. How do I. I thought.

It seems now that the forest is burned to cinders, we see what was hiding under all that old growth. -Serena

How could she. How could she do that to me?

Why?

Because she hated herself, and she needed someone to validate that. So she taught you to hate yourself. She knew you were vulnerable. She knew others had made inroads. So she followed those paths and she completed them. All so she could export her own self hatred. By yelling at you, by shaming you, by judging you, by gaslighting you, by threatening you, by controlling you. -Serena

She knew exactly what she was doing.

She did. -Serena

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

How was I so stupid. How didn’t I get help for this years ago?

Because you didn’t want to admit how much she hurt you. -Serena

I knew in, February or March.

And then there was a pandemic and a breakup and you moved out on your own for the first time. -Serena

And then she was back there. In the fucking mirror. Telling me to, that I.

How do I even start to explain that, what that feels like?

She didn’t just do that in your head though. She did it outside. She wanted to die, and she wanted you to die with her. -Serena

I helped write the book discourse wise on GamerGate and abusive relationships.

How the fuck did I miss how much she fucked me up for so many years?

Because she fucked you up that much at the right time. Perfect storm. You internalized it. At least until last night, when you made the choice to stop internalizing it. -Serena

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Because I realized she wasn’t a part of me. She’s never been a part of me.

You knew that back in February -Serena

Yes. But. I. Didn’t know. I. I did know. I just. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t admit how much she hurt me. I wouldn’t admit it for half a decade. It felt violating. It /was/ violating. It wasn’t just that she fucked me up while we were both in trance. It wasn’t just that she made me want to die. It wasn’t just that she made me hate myself. It’s that she. It’s that she made me.

Ashamed.

Ashamed and afraid.

I’ve been hurt, a lot.

She’s the only one who has managed to convince me to hurt myself.

I was ashamed of that. Of the control she had over me. Of. Of being abused by her. How could I even begin to explain to people that this girl, this run of the mill person who couldn’t even, that this is the person who abuse me. This person. Not some, ancient evil, not some. Just another trans girl. Nobody powerful, nobody particularly of any public importance. Not even someone obviously evil. Just. A person. Another person. Who hurt me more than anyone. More than GamerGate, more than my dad’s yelling. Who hurt me the worst anyone has hurt me since my rapist.

Yes well. She’s a special type of evil. -Serena

She’s not though. That’s the thing Serena. She’s not. She never was. She was broken and hurting just like me. She’s an abuser. Sure. But she’s not. She’s not extra evil. She just knew where to hurt. I don’t even know if she’s evil. I know she’s dangerous. I know she’s still dangerous. She didn’t show any remorse for what she did, that’s for damn sure.

I’d call knowingly hurting the most vulnerable part of a person because you didn’t like them, knowingly hurting someone when they open up to you, telling them that who they are is worthy of condemnation and hatred. I’d consider that evil. -Serena

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Burning her out was the right choice. The only choice. You can’t coexist with someone who wants you dead.

No, you can’t. -Serena

But that meant letting go, too. Of the future she told me. Of the ways she propped me up. Of all those little moments. Of her being a light in the dark during that time.

But I found new strength. There. New growth in the cinders of the fire.

Because if she didn’t help me get through that time in my life, if she’s not responsible for my transition or my eventual escape from my father’s dysfunction.

And she’s not. She is 100% not responsible for any of those things.

Because I am.

I did those things.

Not because of her.

In spite of her.

From the ashes, we are reborn again. -Serena

I step into the flames, I walk through them, and I leave her behind. Not to be transformed like I am, but to be incinerated.

And you’re better off for it. -Serena

Fox and Wolf is an experiential journaling and blogging experience by Alexandria Christina Leal and company (The Unity System). Other entries can be navigated to via kitsune.gay

Postscript: By it. I mean by leaving her behind in the flames. -Serena