111 - A God, In Metamorphosis

Lin

I slept in quite late today.

Honestly, I had no intention of doing so, but I struggled to sleep last night, as I had wanted to finish my takeout. 

In the end, I ate most of my food after I woke up today.

Hot or cold, Coco Di Mama is delicious.

Today has felt different, especially with my family staying over.

Most of the Celtic and Gaulish family and friends who visited me for Imbolc left today, but my parents and my brother, Olly, decided that it would be in my best interest for them to stick around.

Mannanán, Rhiannon, Arianrhod and Danú decided to stay as well, so there are plenty of people to talk to.

Genuinely, I appreciate their commitment to helping me recover, and metamorphose into the person I need and want to be.

Also, my housing officer from the council tried to call me today, but I was asleep, so I left her a text. Maybe there's an opportunity for me out there somewhere that she found.

If so, then that's great. Somehow I know that her calling me could only be a good thing.

Now that I sit back and look at myself, the more I see, the more I realise about what my life must have been like before the voldys.

Earlier, I was learning the Greek alphabet, as I felt called to, and when I looked at some of the letters, I realised that I had been writing some latin letters in that way during primary school. It also explains why my Year 6 teacher hated me so much. (She was Turkish, and my Greek heritage was quite clear. My autism just added another reason to her list.)

The irony is that I have no recollection of learning any Greek besides in a very passing, verbal way at that point.

Which gives me further reason to believe that perhaps I was taught Greek at a young age before I was kidnapped, and therefore had some knowledge of what the letters were unconsciously.

As I think about it now, a lot of my time at primary school, I was treated quite badly.

Teachers, especially in early years teaching, can be very abusive when they want to be, but especially towards neurodivergent students, and I was no exception.

In some ways, I feel like it extended to the students I was in classes with as well.

Not everyone, but there was a certain clique of mainly Turkish girls in my class that it felt like I wasn't a part of, nor invited to, and I don't know if it was to do with my race or autism, or potentially both, but I'm pretty sure that I was mainly excluded from that group because I was different.

Something actually makes me wonder if those girls knew I wasn't supposed to be there subconsciously.

Or, perhaps they unconsciously knew that I was the voldys' slave, and therefore decided to treat me as inferior.

I couldn't say. What I do know is that I was only accepted gradually, and even then, it was very clear that I had a separate role in my class to other people.

And I floated between people, aside from one friendship group that involved multiple people (mainly girls) from different classes from about Year 3 to Year 6.

From nursery to Year 2, I actually did have a friendship group that consisted of myself and two boys, as well as two girls I had a bit of a weird relationship with.

The boys were Greek too, from what I remember, and cousins. We got along super well, and they were the only two people I remember consistently being nice to me and playing with me as a kid. I'll never forget that, even though it's unlikely I'll ever see them again.

As for the girls, I think we kind of competed over some people's attention, but we did play together sometimes.

If I remember rightly, one of them was a bit bossy, and at times, I think I didn't like that. But overall, I get the sense that we got along, despite our rivalry.

All of that group left for other schools, so I don't have any knowledge on what happened to them, aside from one girl, who one of my friends from secondary school ended up being friends with by some weird coincidence.

That was fun to find out about.

Right now, I'm in quite a bit of an anxious state.

I think I've come to realise why.

I'm so used to dealing with hardships, or people being nasty to me, or even general unpleasantness, that when it gets quiet and peaceful, alarm bells start ringing for me.

It's almost as though I expect that it's all a huge façade, and so when it turns out to just be life running its course in a peaceful way, I overanalyse the whole thing, wondering whether or not I'll live to see the next day.

And especially given that I've been alone for so long, I've adjusted to this idea of 'learned loneliness', and so I avoid dispelling that notion despite the amount of good it would do me.

A lot of times, doing almost anything I want to do for a long period of time gives me anxiety now, too, especially if it involves me using a lot of energy.

It's also become difficult for me to take people up on their promises of sociability because of this 'learned loneliness'.

I don't want to be alone any more, but I don't know how to function like a social, energetic creature any more.

Thinking about it now, I used to be very sociable - I had a group of friends wherever I went, whether it was at school, college, university, at the youth centre or even elsewhere. I got along with almost everybody.

Covid made things a lot harder.

But even then, I had at least one person to socialise with.

When I found out about my godliness, and the dangers surrounding a lot of what I'd experienced, I essentially went into hiding.

Now that it's come to this point, I honestly don't know where to turn. Physically, I don't even have family (that I know of, at least) to speak to about this.

If it were possible, I would also be physically living with said family, so I suppose my experience of all this is different in comparison to the treatment I'd usually get.

As I said before, Greek, Gaulish and Celtic cultures tend to be very communal, so me not really having anyone to talk to physically isn't impacting me very well.

Though I do seem to have a new Greek penpal, so that's a plus.

Maybe the whole reason I've been thinking of school, and teachers, and my relationships throughout my life, is because there's something about relationships and my needs that is in severe need of healing right now.

I would agree with that.

I turn.

Oh, hey mophead.

He smirks.

You've got to stop calling me that.

I grin.

Never.

Olly emerges from the doorway, shaking his head.

You don't like asking for help, do you?

I bite my lip.

Nope. 

I look up.

And you know why.

He sighs, and takes a seat beside me.

Just because multiple people have given you shitty experiences in your social life, doesn't mean that you're going to experience them with new people now.

He's right, but I'm still very guarded about it.

And you can take your time with it. This doesn't have to be immediate, Lin. You may need to take this whole thing gradually.

I nod.

I know. I guess I'm just terrified that every time I try to get my needs met, and make sure that I don't step on anyone's toes at the same time, that I'll end up being alone.

You do realise that you're literally basing this on two friendships that drifted apart, partially because of the distance you've kept, because of two abusive people, right?

I pause. That's something he's also right about. bin boy accused myself and my nice neighbour of being in some kind of sexual relationship, which kind of put me off, despite the fact that it wasn't true. Then the neighbour before my new neighbour, I had to avoid because of rickmansworth, and the potential danger that could have been caused to this neighbour had I made the decision to stay in contact with him whilst that danger was apparent to me.

None of this was entirely my fault, but I did do the most about it in those two respective situations, mainly because I couldn't stand the idea of being held responsible for either of those people's discomfort or pain, or even potential deaths, if it got that far.

Today is not the same.

Da walks in, and wraps my throw around me, sitting on the opposite side to Olly.

And neither will tomorrow be.

Olly nods, and I find myself welling up again. Da says nothing, but hands me the tissue box, and lets me hug him when I ask.

Trugarez, Tadig.

He nods, gently rubbing my back.

Take it easy, Lin. You've experienced a lot.

I hug tighter, and he sighs in the most reassuring way possible.

Everything's going to be ok.