The story of Vampyrecat
By Tess (Vampyrecat)
 

Okay. Well when I was a kid - I started school late - because mum wanted me to gain more social skills at kinder (although that didn't help much), I was always picked on for some reason. The other kids never wanted to be friends with me, and even when I tried to be friends with them, they always laughed at me and called me horrible names like Tess-ticles because my name is Tess - and they just didn't like me.

When I moved from Melbourne down to where I am now (I was 10 at the time) I hated it. I was missing home terribly, and my brother decided he wanted me to be more miserable then he was, so he brought my old nickname from Melbourne with me to school.

I made only a few friends - and they were all guys except for one girl who (I now realise) I was totally in love with. My guy friends and I would hang out every other day, and then me and my only girl friend would hang out on the other days.

I wasn't totally happy, but I was coping okay. And It was around this time I was fairly sure I wasn't 100% into guys - although I lied through my teeth everytime I was asked who I liked. In year six, the girls bullied me a lot because my guy friends had moved on to high school, and I think they were jealous of the fact that A) I had a half decent set of boobs already, B) I didn't mind playing soccer with the guys & C) I was a lot smarter then they were. More bullying ensued and by the time I left for highschool myself, my self esteem had taken a severe battering. I'd completely withdrawn into myself, and I was very very shy.

Around the time I left for high school - I had a bit more of an inkling that I liked girls - and so I threw myself into dating guys. You have to understand, this is a very small, very catholic, very judgmental town which has stayed pretty much the same for the last 180 years. Admittedly - in my first and second year of high school I was a bit of a slut - but there's more to that later.

I had a friend called Jess and a friend called Steph, and my friendship with Steph was highly poisonous. While I was silently struggling with my sexuality, Steph made a huge drama out of every little thing. When I had Glandular fever (mono), I missed the whole holidays and two weeks of school because I was sick. When I got back to school, thin and pale and still not healthy, the first thing Steph said was "Why didn't you call me? You promised you would you selfish cow - and I can't believe you wore that stupid top yet again - you look like a fat pig!" And I just walked away and burst into tears. All I was thinking was that life was really not fair - my best friend cracked the shits at me and, (I was refusing to admit I was a full "dyke") I was bi as well and nobody knew.

Eventually I told Steph to get fucked after she got her older friends to threaten me and beat me up, and I got her kicked out of my form group so I wouldn't have to deal with her bitching and sniping at me every time she looked at me. Lucky for me - Jess and I are still great friends - she doesn't approve of what Steph did, but then Jess is a lot more forgiving then I was.

So I started year 8, miserable, depressed, having ONE friend, and not eating. I got so stressed I just couldn't eat, and every time I did eat, I felt sick and threw it up. It got to the point where I went from being 54 kgs to 42 kgs inside 4 months. And then I deliberately stopped eating because I realized it was the one thing that made me feel I had some resemblance of control over. It caused a lot of fights between my family and myself and I still feel really guilty for what I put them through. But I simply couldn't bring myself to admit that I liked girls. I don't know why but somehow, I think losing Steph as a friend really made me look at myself and see who I am.

And I was repulsed by who I was. I don't know how it started, but suddenly, I was cutting myself every night before I went to bed. The feeling of the blade slicing through my skin kind of felt to me like a .... physical representation of how fucked up and depressed and hurt I was feeling inside. I kept going until one day I just started crying in the middle of class and I was sent to the counsellor who took one look at my arms before calling my mother - who took me to a doctor, who then diagnosed me with depression.

And that was all it took - I needed a wake up call - and I got it by being forced to show my mother what I had done to myself. She looked in my bathroom drawer and saw 5 months worth of tampons and pads stacked inside neatly. She freaked out and screamed at me asking me "What the hell are you doing to yourself?! Why won't you talk to me??"

I could only cry. It was stupid - I've left out a LOT of details which I believe are unnecessary but I felt like I was this... disgusting, repulsive...WRONG person, and it all just suddenly poured out of me.

From that day - I stopped cutting cold turkey, and I tried to force myself to eat again. It took a long long time to get back up to 54 kgs (I only reached it earlier this year), because I got sick a lot cos I fucked up my immune system by not eating for so long, so I'd be putting weight on and then losing a little, putting a little more on and then losing a little. I have not cut myself since July 19th of '06, but it has been a long journey.

In september of '06, I half came out to a friend I'd made, who I really trusted. I wanted to tell him so much I was gay, but I couldn't bring myself to hurt his feelings that badly, as we were dating at the time. So I told him I was bi. He just gave me a little hug and said he still loved me as I was. He broke up with me later though. But it was for different reasons. We're still really good friends today actually.
From the time I started highschool to halfway through last year, I had a total of about 5 or 6 boyfriends. I moved quickly from one to the next, trying to find someone I liked, someone I was not only emotionally connected to, but someone I was sexually attracted to. I was feeling very conflicted and confused, and I really didn't want to hurt people's feelings, but I found myself hurting people around me all the same. I felt like a cruel person for doing what I did. I was toying with the boy's affections, letting them take me out to the beach or to the movies - and while it was clear they felt that "something" for me, I felt nothing in return.

Last year (this is hard to talk about), I met a guy through a friend. We'll call him [the guy I met] J. Now - I was still very shy at this point. But I was a healthy weight. I wasn't cutting. I'd lost the rings under my eyes from crying myself to sleep. I thought I was on the mend. I was definitely comfortable with saying I was Bi - even though I knew I was gay. My friend knew I was bi (I'm sure he suspected I was gay though), but he introduced me to J anyways, and we started talking.  I was trying to set J up with a girl he liked, and we got close-ish. I definitely felt a bit of an emotional connection. And suddenly - on valentine's day, he asked me out. And I was so stunned I just said "yeah okay" without thinking it through.

J knew I was bi - I told him when we got together (meaning went on a mini date) the very first time. He didn't mind. But then we started doing sexual stuff. First it was just a kiss. Then it was making out. And then suddenly - I was having sex with a guy I wasn't even attracted to. And as soon as the sexual stuff started (like, even when we were just at the "first kiss" stage), J became very possessive and clingy.
He would go out and get drunk every other weekend, and I honestly didn't mind if I wasn't there, because I thought he was entitled to spend time with his mates as well as me.

But when I got invited to spend the night at a friend's place (who was a guy) for his birthday, even though the whole class was coming, he got really jealous. Like - insanely jealous. He kept calling me and telling me to tell me where I was so he could come get me or so he could keep me company. I got really annoyed and told him to back off - it was the first time in over a year I'd been invited out anywhere, and I wasn't going to bring my school life with him. I wanted my own friends, and dammit I was making them!

I had a great night - without him. My friends and I had a couple of drinks each, and did the usual party stuff like going out on a Junk Mail Run. J got really mad at me the next time I saw him. He grabbed my wrist and told me people would think I was a slut for hanging out with so many guys. I told him to just back off - it was well known at my school that I wasn't overly fond of the (mostly) stuck up girls.

A few weeks later - he sexually assaulted me. I'd asked him to give me some space for a few weeks, and it was the first time we'd seen each other since I asked for space. God I can remember this so clearly. We were watching Mean Girls on TV. His parents weren't home. His hand crept across my stomach and I told him to stop - I wasn't in the mood. He just left it there. A few minutes later I felt it sliding down and then he forced himself onto me. I won't go into further details as to what happened except to say that he wouldn't stop until I was crying and slapping him in the face. I ran out of his house and called my mum - I didn't tell her what happened until later though. I called him the next day to tell him to fuck off and never ever talk to me again.

Did he listen? no - he stalked me. Every time I went into town he'd be there. He'd trap me in stores and try to talk to me. He'd call me at like 1 am and then hang up the phone. He texted my MUM telling her that something was wrong with me. He gave letters to my friends for me - one slapped him in the face after he asked her to read it and called him an arrogant fuck who deserved more pain then he was getting.

I wasn't doing so well. People would say it clinched it for me - but it really didn't. I was stupid. I let it happen. I didn't have the strength or the courage to turn him down when he asked me out. I already knew (very deep down), that I was gay, and I was beginning to come to terms with it when he asked me out. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, and I wanted to see if this guy could do anything for me sexually. Even though we had sex, made out, I really was not in any way attracted to him.

I came out to my mother soon afterward. I wrote her a letter after coming out to a guy in my class who was a good friend of mine, and shit I was nervous! I waited all day for her to text me and it turned out I'd missed her chair when I threw the letter into her study in the morning - it had fallen under her desk instead. I came home the next day to both my parents giving me a huge hug and telling me they didn't care - they still loved me. I cried a lot when they said that.

It was a huge relief for me - I was finally able to say it to myself and to my parents, and even to a few friends - and I felt like I was finally being open and honest.

And I've become a lot happier ever since I came out. I've made more friends, lost a few along the way who couldn't deal with my sexuality, and ultimately - I've become a lot of who I am meant to be I think. I'm a lot more outspoken and outgoing. I'm shy still, but once people get to know me then I'm really laughing and jokey.

So yeah - that's my coming out story. I'm really sorry it's so long - but you have to understand that even though I can't really convey HOW - the events that happened before J really did influence how I accepted myself. I mean - if a friend can't even accept me because I've been sick - how could I have possibly accepted myself for being a lesbian? I truly thought being a lesbian was a disease back then - and I really didn't want to believe it - so I became very depressed before I had a cup of concrete to harden the hell up (metaphorically, not literally). I know I've left out heaps but if I put any more in - you'll have a novel to read.