I became hyper sexual at the age of five. That’s as far back as I can remember, when I first became conscious of myself. I can’t pin down what may have caused this shift in my development. Was I molested by a family member? Did I suffer some trauma early on that I simply repressed out of memory? I have no clue. I found myself fixating on violence, acts of malice that yielded greater and greater suffering as my bipolar obsessiveness continued to ramp my negative self. At times I would feel as if every cell in my tiny body was a hairs breadth away from bursting into flames, a short lived monument to passion and fury.
I learned to masturbate when I was six, and found a full but fleeting release to these strange feelings I was saddled with. I still remember my first attempt. When it was over I felt like the embodiment of sin, felt such a shame over my transgression as I now was fully aware if even for but a moment of the depth of the shadows I was chasing. As if I had taken on the full weight of the evil of the world, and only by my death would humanity be set right. I promised myself, vowed, to never again chase shadows.
At age twelve I was addicted to porn. I grew up in the country side of the Bible Belt; until the age of sixteen I didn’t even have a phone, such was my parents dedication to their faith. What we did have was an unprotected computer. By this point I was a self-gaslighter. My mind was still young and untested, any idea I didn’t understand I simply tucked away for a day when I did. My sadism chief among them. I found myself relieving tension multiple times a day over the years, the shame and self loathing slowly losing their edge as time went on, replaced by an inky black void, total and complete. But imagination only gets you so far. When I discovered now booming porn industry, I knew I was fucked. But it didn’t stop me. Time on electronics was limited, but on fridays and saturdays we would all be allowed to sleep downstairs by the TV’s together, sibling bonding time. But not me. When the lights went off and breathing slowed to a steady snore, I’d go to work. For hours. It grew to the point where I needed multiple excursions a day to remain functional.
One day I was found out. My parents checked the search history on the computer and my little secret was finally observed. What followed was what can only be described as an hours long interrogation, followed by just shy of religious crucifixion. Finally I had an answer to my questions. A name for my identity: Damaged. I sat at the bottom of a pit of my own making. The fall was bad. The sudden stop was worse. But the worst part was looking up at the disk of light shining out of reach, and watching my mother drop a handful of dirt on my face, turning here eyes from mine.
Fuck suicide. I was already dead.
The stories that followed in the years to come are too many to discuss in a simple introduction, but nonetheless topics I’d like to discuss at a later date. Fast forward to the resolution, I was eighteen going on nineteen by the time I reconciled with my nature. I was on vacation with my family in Florida. In the height of the pandemic we decided to drive ourselves down to what was sure to be an empty tourist trap. If there’s one thing I like about my family, they’re opportunistic. By this point I had repressed my sadism so far into the dark corners of my mind that I’d nearly forgotten about it. But there was still one string attached to it that I entertained. A pair of lifestylers and influencers on Instagram who’s content I found myself gelling with. They weren’t chasms of darkness and serial killer vibes such as I saw myself. Their relationship was artistic, disciplined, loving and tender, but with a shameless desire to destroy and be destroyed. And to then create. Nothing like the sociopathic way I viewed myself. They said on a livestream that they had met on The Cage so I decided to give it a look. And one night, as I was lying in bed perusing and consuming and discarding content, I realized something: these freaks, these damaged individuals such as myself, they didn’t carry this as if it were a weight. They were a community. And something that had evaded observation, that refused to be understood or moved or tamed in any way, simply clicked into place. I wasn’t damaged. I wasn’t evil. I wasn’t the weight of the sin I was told this world carries as recompense for its search for freedom and understanding.
I simply was.
