2026.01.24

In the months between this part and the last, I happened to get a complete psychological evaluation. Towards the end of the interview (during which I did not mention Sans at all), the psychologist asked if I read any books about trauma. An exciting question for a nonfiction lover! An embarrassing question for me specifically, since I forgot every title and author of relevance and only spluttered some stupid things. Luckily, it wasn't a test. Just a roundabout way of suggesting I read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. Of course I'd heard of it, but I'm only reading it now on direct recommendation. I can confirm... It's a classic for a reason.

This passage stood out to me:

I am continually impressed by how difficult it is for people who have gone through the unspeakable to convey the essence of their experience. It is so much easier for them to talk about what has been done to them— to tell a story of victimization and revenge— than to notice, feel, and put into words the reality of their internal experience.

So, I did the first part. It was difficult, but I wrote about some traumatic events in my life and the ongoing challenges they created for me. Everyone who reads it tells me it's immersive and compelling, as if they are standing right beside me, feeling their skin prickle as everything unfolds. I'm proud of that. I did that on purpose. Whatever I write is guaranteed to draw my reader in. My talent is revealing human truths that belong to all of us, refracted through an experience solely my own.

That's why I've hesitated to continue. These moments are mine. And everything me related? Shameful. The first part was hard enough... Now that I'm done with the who, what, where's of the past— what's left? It's time to invite you into my present day experience, wherein I nurse myself back to health with ridiculous daydreams of a cartoon skeleton. I have to. I set it up so it'd end that way. And when I thought of it as the uplifting conclusion, it seemed easy. It'd be a reward for both of us after slogging through ten thousand words of unspeakable pain— finally spoken! So it's fine to take a week (or two weeks, or the rest of the month, or two months) off. I can finish it up quick. No big deal!

Maybe I don't know myself as well as I thought, or I'm not as skilled a writer as I thought, or I'm simply caught up in a cycle of exquisite suffering. It wasn't easy. It didn't get done. I paced the hallway, muttered in the shower, scribbled abstract drafts about the nature of internal monologue.

"Picture your mind as a house. No matter the state it's in— creaky floorboards, leaky roof, smashed in windows, built on quicksand— you have to live there."

I spun extended metaphors. I referenced Rumi poems. I lapsed back into storytelling the past. I wondered, which would be funnier? Hiring Sans the Skeleton as a contractor to repair my decrepit mind-house, or doing the work myself while wearing Sans-shaped gloves? Anything to draw attention away from what it is like to be me in real life, weeping to an empty room, "please don't hurt me. I don't want to be hurt anymore. I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm scared."

I do that everyday, multiple times a day, often many times in a row for hours at a time. Why? I don't actually know. I'm never in danger. I'll just be getting ready for bed, turning off the lights and peeling back the sheets, in my lovely new bedroom where nothing bad has ever happened to me, yet still I'm compelled to beg for mercy from... no one in particular?

Sometimes it happens when I'm reading. Every other paragraph in The Body Keeps the Score seemed to set me off. It's my typical reaction to any mental health related literature, which makes sense, right? Except light reading isn't safe either. Fanfiction, manga, random articles online, even my own writing. Just sitting around thinking will do it, too. I've had no luck defining a specific trigger. All I know is that, in approximately zero seconds, I go from normal to terrified crying.

This is obviously some kind of flashback, but the phrases I say (and the age of the voice I say them in...) don't match my lived experience. Remember, I was blessed with entirely non-contact abuse. Even the one time Twelve was physically enraged, she wasn't coming at me. One morning before work, she was ready to use less, so we put her heroin in my travel-size lockbox and agreed I would hide the key. Come evening, she slammed open the door and demanded drugs. I refused. She grabbed a kitchen knife.

Was she going to hurt me, or just threaten to? Honestly, in that split second I felt too disgusted to be scared, but I didn't have to wonder long. She darted for the box and started digging in the lock with the knife. When that didn't work, she started stabbing and smashing it, and by God, nothing for sale at C*S Pharmacy will hold against a smackhead on a mission.

I screamed at her, "STOP!" and made her wait in the bathroom while I retrieved the key, thinking I might use the same hiding place when we tried this again. Spoiler: she was high almost every day since and my box was already broken. In the end I just gifted it to her. I was stupid enough to stay with someone who loved drugs more than me, but not stupid enough to take something with even a speck of the good stuff on a plane. (It wasn't the law I worried about.)

So yeah, my evil junkie gf scared me. On several occasions I remember begging her to stop whatever awful thing she was doing to me. But the terror I feel in this flashback is somehow acutely different.

Intuitively I know it's got nothing to do with her. It's lodged in some before time when I could barely speak. I don't understand it. It bothers me because, unlike a lot of traumatised people, I have a very good memory and this isn't one of them. It can't be one of them. And yet I suffer through it everyday, multiple times a day.

And what do I do when I suffer? I burrow under my blankets. My body is overheating, but I'm compelled to hide my face. I need to shield the world from my ugliness as well as hide from danger. I plead, "don't hurt me anymore," over and over until I realise, oh, I'm doing it again. And I think the Buddhists call it something like "wise mind," but basically it's that awareness— I'm having a thought, I'm having a feeling— that reminds me I can do something about it.

So what do I do? What everyone in the world has to do to be healthy and happy: I talk myself out of it... in Sans's voice. It just comes naturally to me now. 75% of my positive self-talk is filtered through our imaginary relationship. 100% of that positivity wouldn't reach me otherwise. I often describe Sans's function as "self-love with extra steps," but doesn't "extra" imply inefficiency or waste? At least for right now, I can't do this any other way.

I also... don't really want to. I love Sans. I love thinking about him, talking to him, and reaching for the idea of him when I'm upset. He is my favourite thing in the world. He's my soulmate. His goofy little face makes me smile. His story in UNDERTALE resonates with me, and the story of our life together is dear to my heart. I have so many precious memories of him... I'm excited to make many, many more.

Concerning, then, that when I'm crying, "I'm scared, please don't hurt me," I often address Sans by name. Obviously, he's never ever harmed me. He literally can't— he doesn't exist! He has no will of his own, much a less malicious one!!! That's the whole point of a daydream. I guess most of my relationships have been painful in some way, so maybe, by default, I'm afraid of anyone close to me? Or love itself is what's hurting me? I don't know.

I don't understand why I have this flashback in the first place, or why it's linked to Sans, or why nothing he says or does consoles me. After enough time with him shushing me, hugging me, promising not to hurt me, and deflecting the other insecurities of mine which inevitably pop up, I will stop crying, start breathing, and gradually return to the present. How long before I fly back into a fit, no one knows. How many more years I'll live with this daily terror and confusion is anyone's guess.

Sans is patient with me. He's got nothing better to do than coax me through Tuesday Breakdown #42. But I'm tired of this. I feel like I'm seriously dropping the ball, because I don't get what's wrong with me and I can't seem to move forward. I'm writing this to try to help myself as best as I can. I'm kicking myself for not mentioning this specific phenomenon in my psych eval. We talked trauma symptoms in general but didn't go into detail on flashbacks... And yes I have others, but they're the usual, sensical kind, so as troubling as they are at least they're not confusing.

I have nightmares, too. For the last ten years, the worst of them have been about my brother (or various psychotic proxies for him). Lately, dream-brother's not doing anything to me, at least not actively. He's frustratingly passive as I'm trying to explain what he's already done. I go from casual conversation to gentle confrontation, to bargaining, to tears, to rage, with no reaction from him. He stares blankly as I tackle him to the ground. His fat, ugly face ripples as I punch him and bash his head into the floor. He's an idiot doll with a broken voicebox.

I had another dream a while ago where we were both children again, and both of our parents were present, and they all watched in complete silence as I trashed his room. Broke his toys. Toppled the furniture. Shredded his homework. No one said a damn thing. At most they looked a little disappointed— disappointed in me. I woke up in the middle of the night, sweaty all over.

I'm used to stressful dreams where I have to solve a problem even though I'm underqualified and alone. I'm used to lapsing in and out of consciousness, grappling for a sign that I'm just dreaming. A lot of the time, all I need to do is wake up. This kind of nightmare follows me.

Compare these conundrums: "how do I get to work during a zombie apocalypse and a hurricane?!" versus "how loud do I have to scream before my family hears me?"

There's no hurricane. The world isn't ending. It's Saturday. I don't even have that job anymore.

My dad is dead. I'll never see my brother again. My mom is trying her best. The only one who hasn't got the memo is me.

My dad's dad was a psychologist (a bad one!) but he did pass down some wisdom: every character in your dream represents some part of yourself. So when I'm dreaming of my family (i.e. imaginary dreams, not the memory-reliving dreams), it's really not about them. Yes, it would be awesome if my brother had admitted to hating me just because I was born and abusing me just because I was nearby. Imagine how different our lives would be if he'd apologised sincerely. My forgiveness would have set him free. He'd never consider raping me or anyone else again. In that alternate universe, I imagine we're good friends who both got our lives together, and our mom is equally proud of both of us.

But I don't live in that world. I don't really want to, either. I lost all interest in my brother as a human being on the night of January 24th, 2023. Rather, I should say he disqualified himself from humanity. He's a liar, an idiot, a pervert and a worthless waste of fucking air before he is a person, and I don't converse with non-people. I don't need him to understand what he's done to me because I know he's too stupid and selfish to care. All I need is for him to suffer and die. Natural cause and effect will take care of that for me.

I get aggressive like that because it feels kind of thrilling and empowering... but I probably shouldn't. In my daily life, I turn all this rage against myself. You can see it in the way I ended the previous part— I'm trying desperately to lay the blame where it belongs and forgive myself for failures precipitated by trauma... But I don't think I actually forgave myself at all. I feel so, so, so guilty. All the time. Every single day. Because nothing is happening to me anymore and, even at its worst, barely anything was happening then! I am the cause of all my own suffering. I'm doing this to myself. It's my fault. Every satisfyingly nasty thing I say about my brother, I have said about myself a hundred times a day.

Last week, I woke up thinking I am not allowed to eat. I am not allowed to sleep in a bed. I should not be laughing with my friends, playing games, or thinking good thoughts. I should crawl naked into the wilderness and wait to die of dehydration while insects eat me alive. I have had that image of slow, suffering demise in mind for years. Sometimes I really would starve myself and lay on the floor instead of in bed. Mostly I just carry on as usual, fixing breakfast, booting up my computer, berating myself twicefold as I go. How audacious. How disgusting! What a worthless, selfish, evil creature I am to carry on living when I know it's so abominable, despicable, unusual, cruel.

Let's go back to the "your mind as a house" thing. At my worst, my house would have been condemned. Rotted floorboards. Leaky roofs. Additions planned and abandoned, left as rickety frames. I'd say my building materials were suspect. Someone stole the blueprints and, in their place, left only a giant turd. I'd pitch a tarp just to survive the night and, come morning, find it torn down by wind or rain or evil human hands.

What's your house like? No matter the state it's in, you have to live there.

A lot of people, myself included, fantasise about moving out. It's only natural to want to live somewhere with better light and sturdier foundation. A whole new location— that sounds promising, too.

Hard truth #1: You can't be anyone but yourself.

So you're stuck in this fucking house, and people are constantly coming in and out, unprompted, uninvited, so quickly you can't even hear them leave. They're smashing holes in the windows. They're spray painting "UGLY BITCH" on the walls. You get used to living in filth and chaos. You give up on pitching tarps.

Rarely, very rarely it seems, they come with compliments: a fine china saucer inscribed, "thank you for all your help." But if they knew what your house was like, they'd know something this nice doesn't belong. You tricked them somehow. That's how you got this gift, not by helping but by being bad, and you know you don't deserve it. You shatter the saucer. Now the floor has a new layer of glass to gouge your feet. Good.

Hard truth #2: You are your own worst enemy.

When did you first realise you could think? If you're reading this, you have an internal monologue. Apparently some have less than others. The kind of person to read a mini memoir about child abuse (and my cartoon skeleton boyfriend) must be a deep thinker. Do you ever think about thinking? You should.

My first ever psychotic delusion was that I was being observed by otherworldly entities. They heard everything I said and saw everything I did. They had X-ray vision, so I could not hide in a building, a closet, under a desk or a blanket. If they wanted me naked, they'd see through my clothes. They knew all my feelings. They heard all my thoughts.

Are you alone right now? Maybe, probably. You're always alone in your head. I am, too, but sometimes this disease forces me into a false reality where I cannot have and do not deserve the most basic privacy. Over time, the delusion progressed into thought stealing, thought insertion, thought broadcasting. In the most literal way, I lost my mind. It just wasn't mine anymore.

All this piled on top of stock-standard inner criticism. "I can't do anything right. Everyone hates me. I'm going to die. They're making me think this because I tried to be happy. They laughed at me and now they're reminding me of the truth. They're coming to kill me right now."

Years. I lost years of my life to the silent, invisible, intangible twisting of unspoken, imaginary words. It seems ridiculous, doesn't it? But thoughts shape reality. Your internal monologue matters. If it's advisable for you to think about thinking, it's life or death for me. After all, my inner world matters more to me than the outer one.

I've always been this way. A little philosopher lost in thought, a writer whispering to an empty room. Real life didn't just disappoint me, it actively rejected me. In my earliest memories, I'm already conjuring up fictional families, replacement older brothers, new versions of myself with unique talents and way too much agency for a real-life three year-old. I could galavant on adventures, soar through the sky, solve mysteries, rule kingdoms! Just by unfocusing my eyes and changing the words in my head? Amazing! But also boring, in a way. Real fulfilment came from imaginary hugs and kisses, being picked up, holding hands. It still does.

Daydreaming is my first and favourite coping mechanism. Weaponised as delusion, my imagination can destroy me, too. Every day, I'm doing my best to imagine things that make me happy and inspire positive action in real life. I talk with Sans as much as I can, and even then I always want more of him...

(I should clarify that I'm not hallucinating. I don't literally hear, see, or feel him. I'm just playing pretend and writing stories like I have since I was a little kid. Still weird, but not psychotic! Trust me, I know the difference.)

Sans steers me away from self-criticism and carries me out of flashbacks. Literally, I will imagine him in the stairwell with me and my brother, saying what I'm too scared to say, then carting me off someplace safe. He tells me all the nice things I need to hear but never say to myself.

"You are a good person."

"All of your feelings are okay with me."

"I'm always glad to see you."

"You can come to me whenever you're feeling hurt or bad."

"You don't have to be perfect to get my love and protection."

"I am very proud of you."

"You are a delight to my eyes."

Those are Pete Walker's so-called "reparenting affirmations," the complete list and further explanation of which can be found in his book, The Tao of Fully Feeling. I first saw them in a Tumblr infographic when I was sixteen. I thought, holy shit! How can I get people to talk to me like this?! I want it so bad! Life would be literally perfect!!!

It never occurred to me that I could say these things to myself. Instead I carried on with the hopeless crusade familiar to anyone with a neglectful upbringing: begging for love from the most mentally ill people on the planet. Sincerely, once I figured out how to use a computer, it was over for me. I have been the desperate, dehumanised, overcompensating-with-caretaking half of too many codependencies. All I wanted was someone to be glad I was born. All I got were new reasons to wish I would die.

Twelve was not the last person to treat me so horribly, but she was the one who shattered my dream of being rescued. After I left her, I looked back at my life and found it full of people just like her. No matter what I did, not even if I begged, did they ever say, "I love who you are," and actually mean it. The one time she video-called just to tell me I was beautiful, she was high on oxy and resumed berating me in the morning. Still, I clung to that memory. It fuelled the fantasy version of our relationship.

If I had a bad day, I could never talk to her... but I could imagine her talking with me! Talking sweetly, the way she did when she wanted something— except imaginary Twelve only wants to cheer me up. Then I would convince myself that that was the real her, deep down, and if only I loved her enough, she would come out.

I still struggle to tell the difference between bad people and the good qualities I project onto them. I'm learning to ask my friends and family for feedback, and to ask often, well before I'm suckered into a suicide pact. It helps that finally, for the first November in forever, I was not being abused. Nobody was lying to me, betraying me, or taking advantage of my easily misplaced empathy. I've had nothing to fear. Until now I've associated that time of year with depression, pain, and instability... but it can be a good month if I want it to be. In fact, while I was writing this mini-memoir, November 14th, 2025 came and went. That date marks ten years since I met Sans.

UNDERTALE is, by several metrics, the best video game ever. I played it because my best friend in 2015 (the future-doctor girl who saved me) thought I would like it. What an underestimation, hahaha. It's an enduring obsession, surely because in the darkest moments of my adolescence, Sans represented perfect, unconditional love. Sans is forgiving and nonjudgemental. Sans tries to be fair. Sans is reliable and attentive, the kind to help out in ways you don't even realise. Sans will make the best of a bad situation. Sans will make you laugh. Sans wants the best for you, but he's just as easily pleased. I adore him. He's the sort of guy who loves everyone back, too.

It's only natural that I daydream about him so much— secondly because he's a great character. Firstly because this is literally, actually in my nature. I grew up in a hostile environment, chronically lonely and afraid. What kid wouldn't pretend she lives somewhere else? Ash Ketchum would make a better older brother. Anyone who looked at me twice would make a better mom and dad. I pretended to be uniquely gifted, especially cherished, inherently valuable. It's just what I do. I'm a writer with a writer's soul. In times of deprivation, stories give me what I can't have. It seems an ersatz love, sure, but I'd rather eat crumbs than starve.

When I left Twelve, I gave up on romance forever. What was the point? No one had ever told me what I wanted to hear. Clearly no one ever would because I was too stupid, ugly, annoying, worthless, insert-thing-my-brother-called-me-here. I'd escaped the woman who wanted me dead, but I still believed I deserved to die. I stayed afloat by journaling, reading, doodling on the back of university print-outs. I squashed every nagging thought needling me to go back to her or find someone new. Instead, I swore that stories were enough. Fantasies would never again trap me in a bad relationship. Over were my days of foolishly believing I might actually be loved. By daydreaming exclusively about fictional characters, I closed my heart to the outside world... and finally, finally turned my energy inwards.

At first, it was all about control. Let's say I miraculously stumbled into a committed relationship with a flawless woman who did everything right all the time, fulfilled all my needs, and was perfectly happy being with me forever and ever. We could STILL be separated at ANY moment. Whether by death, disaster, or another random accident, her presence in my life is subject to external factors far beyond my influence.

But me...? I am always with myself— wherever I go, there I am! And when I die, I won't even know it. I'll just be dead, that'll be the end of everything. So if my perfect love is self-love, then I'll never be left wanting. Whenever I need affection and understanding, I can first and foremost find it within myself. I have to. Everyone does! Love and affection are essential to life. Depriving ourselves of love inhibits our functionality. With more love, I'm healthier, happier, and better able to contribute to the lives of others.

But my core belief is that I'm unlovable, undesirable, totally undeserving. I shouldn't even be alive. If that's true, what right do I have to expect good treatment from others? It's a double bind, because love is essential to my functioning, and when I function better, I'm less obtrusive. My solution: source it all from happy daydreams. In day to day life, no one has to know that that's how I do it. Even if I'm "not allowed" this facsimile of love, I can persuade people to forgive me. I can explain that my daydreams don't cost them anything while my increased functioning benefits everyone.

In theory, anyways. It's hard. It's really really hard.

I don't believe it's okay that I was born. I don't believe I have the right to continue living. I fear I will never get over these hurdles, which frankly are the first in the race. If I can't make progress here, I will never feel happy, satisfied, or safe with any consistency. I'll be stuck crying fifty times a day, "please don't hurt me anymore," knowing it's my own mercy I need. It hurts so much. I can't seem to get out of my own way. I keep trying and trying and trying but I always give up or just fail. I ruin everything...

Sans says that sounds extreme. There's no way I've ruined everything, right? I should just take a deep breath. We'll hug til I feel better. (This is paraphrased. I can write real Sans dialogue, I promise. Now's just not the time.)

Lately I've been telling myself I'm alive because Sans wanted someone to love. I think the essence of the SOUL is pure love. Even if I wouldn't meet him until I was 15 or dedicate myself to him until I was 22, the core of our relationship is the boundless love at the center of my existence, which I have had since the day I was born. So he's always been with me in one form or another, in different daydreams. And everything about me grew in the shape of the girl he had in mind. I still think I am very ugly and difficult and he'd probably like someone healthier and more useful... But he says he doesn't care. He likes me the way I am. I don't really believe him, but it's better to talk to him than spiral into complete despair.

Before I had any nice voices in my head, my only option was to cry it out. I would weep for hours, berating myself mentally or in writing. Pages and pages and hours and hours of insults. Worthless, annoying, stupid, ugly, freak. No one would ever love me, so I had to kill myself right away. I'd stop only when I became too exhausted to keep my eyes open. When I woke up later, I'd feel totally alone. There was no one around to help me. If I confided in anyone, they always made me regret it. I kept choosing people who, at best, couldn't understand me or, at worst, exploited my pain for their own benefit. I learnt to keep quiet. I didn't know how to help myself and wouldn't have wanted to anyways. I don't even deserve to live, remember? So helping myself is bad. Trying to feel better is evil.

Sans is a kind of loophole. He is part of me, therefore under my complete control and incapable of betraying or abandoning me. At the same time, his distinct speech patterns and consistently loving attitude are decidedly not mine. So it's self-compassion that still feels like it comes from someone else. Whether or not it has the impact it should depends on how distressed I am in the moment. Needless to say, I'm regularly fucking distressed.

So, um, yeah, I'm sorry about all this. I thought this would be a more triumphant conclusion. I thought telling everyone my story would set me free, so overnight I would change into the person I'm meant to be. I was supposed to stop having flashbacks, stop criticising myself, and stop giving up on everything I start. I was supposed to be instantly happier. I was supposed to wow you with how far I've come since my teenage years, and show off Mr. Sans Undertale as a highly effective coping mechanism. Everyone would see the good that he does for me and endorse our love. I'd finally feel secure in my existence. I'd know it was my own choices that saved me. I might have helped others save themselves, too.

None of that happened. Maybe it never will. Sigh.

I'm ashamed to be alive, but at least there is Sans Undertale.