more therapy i guess

It never stops being weird to think about, the way my life's been. I'm supposed to be in my thirties. I grew up listening to Rush and Michael Jackson when they both were still releasing singles that got played on the radio. I grew up watching the likes of He-Man, Jem and the Holograms and the Mario Brothers show. Captain N was my jam and that wasn't even a very good show. I was normal, Anya was normal, my mom was normal. It wasn't a very spoiled life, but it was a good life. Just the three of us, when video games were first taking off and the hair was to the ceiling. I still have the NES we got for Christmas in 1986, with a copy of the very first Legend of Zelda, gold cart. Still works. That's really weird to think about. I loved that thing to death, hell, I still do.

I've always loved music. Since I was young I remember wanting to pick up an instrument. Tried the piano, didn't work out. Too plinky. Tried the drums and not only did the neighbors want to kill us but Anya took to them so much more. Then I happened to get my hands on a copy of an album called Nevermind. You know, the one with the baby wiener on the cover. It was not a happy album, but suffering as much as I did from my own anxiety back then, I was not a happy girl.

Nirvana was one of the reasons I picked up the guitar in the first place, back when. I wasn't all that old then, just old enough to start getting little tiny pre-teen hard-ons. I wanted to bone Kurt Cobain when I was thirteen, is what I'm saying. Then I got put in the hospital thanks to anxiety meds. That week, as I was lying there hooked up to an IV with only my sister keeping me conscious, news came out that he'd shot himself. I thought I'd had a fever dream till I got out of the meat pen. I was as upset as you'd expect a hormonal thirteen year old to be. And then, that night that I got out, was my First Change. That was my initiation into the world of being a freak. I later learned that First Changes are supposed to be big, destructive rampages. I was too weak to move.

I hated myself after that. Not helped, of course, by the weird tribal recruiters that started tracking me down. Only took one catching my scent to get them all on my tail. At first, I thought I should keep it a big secret, after all, only Anya had seen me that night. It was a miracle that that delirium lunacy bullshit didn't set in for her. She might be that kin thing, I don't know. I was promptly informed by those recruiters that that was a sin against whatever the fuck, telling my mom, a 'filthy normie', and told that they could re-educate me. I became a shut-in, and my mom was never afraid to give them what-for, werewolves or not.

Years passed. Anya and I went to school, got our own place. The recruiters all but stopped hassling me because I was never out of the house besides to go to class, where it was too public to be talking about werewolves. One or two cropped up at my door, I closed it and they left. Destiny, they said. It was my destiny to be at one with nature, taken away from human society. The only one-ness I needed was the weed, and I definitely wasn't abandoning Anya. Not then, not ever.

Sometime toward the end of that span, visiting our mom who had moved to Seattle, we met a scruffy blind sixteen year old with a bum leg who called me out on what I was the minute we found her in a dumpster. It was Anya who really started trying to break the ice. By break the ice, I mean she practically begged her to see someone about that leg. She refused, of course. We learned her name, at least so she said, was Midnight, and she became a close friend despite what she called herself. Hunter, she said. And she hated every minute of it, according to her. But she appreciated Anya's caring about her, maybe even more than she let on. They got really close. Life was alright.

Anxiety is powerful, though, powerful enough that the good times pretty much halted all at once. If it weren't for the little bud I had at the time, maybe that incident would have been even worse. The self-hate was getting worse, and my grades were starting to tank because of a bad teacher. And then, it happened. I came home from a night class to find the door unlocked already. When I came in, it was too late. I found a stranger, with Anya's body in her arms. It was one of the only times in my life I had ever come so dangerously close to frenzying, but if I had, she would just be dead, outright.

No, instead I had a breakdown while she got back up. That other person had given her just enough that she wouldn't flip her shit, and indeed, flip her shit, she didn't. A lot of that week was a blur, as she was dragged around getting inducted into vampire society while I continued to die inside with no one to reign me in. There was a lot of self harm that week. It's not a time I like thinking about, for a lot of reason. This musical staff tattoo I have on this arm covers up a few scars. Even with super-healing, sometimes things still leave scars.

Eventually, though, she came back to me. I don't think she was too happy about how she found me, either. It's actually really hard to remember specifics, I just know one night she came back, and I remember her being upset. The one clear memory is of her crying blood. It was the most jarring thing I think I'd ever seen at that point. But of course, once that was over, came the whole problem of my mortality. We were both painfully aware that I was going to die one day and she wasn't. It's just hitting me now, how familiar that sounds. Lucky for me, there was an easy way out in my case... well, in a sense. It took us another week to figure that out, I guess all she had to do was ask.

Of course, that's about the point where living in Victoria started getting... bad. Baaaaad. She quickly learned that the political environment was strict, strangulating and awful. She didn't like the chantry there, and she hated, absolutely despised the Prince. And me? Well... the recruiters came back in full force. They smelled vitae on me, and immediately connected it to her.

They started getting aggressive. Catching me alone when I had to go out during the day, or outright breaking in. They would try to leave curtains open in the morning, I caught a few setting up mirrors once. I didn't want to get violent, but I did. It was all they would listen to. Even when the chantry made Anya sire someone, which was not a comfortable subject to me for obvious reasons, she was put at risk, too. Eventually, once we were sure she would be okay, we had to leave.

We came back to our mom's home, in Seattle. We knew that the local sept wasn't as bad, at least not now, we knew they kept the crazier ones out of town. I avoided them for a while anyway. The Prince was supposedly a lot looser with his rules, but Anya didn't manage to shake that prickly anti-establishment thing for a while. It got her into a few fights I wish she hadn't gotten into, because I like him. I like all of them. I noticed she started getting feelings for Midnight somewhere along the lines, and I saw the same pain I saw when we realized I would die without her. Except this time she couldn't help. Nowadays I'm inclined to believe that the regent knew all along. Sometime you should ask her about why. It's a doozy and I don't remember it all.

Even still, she seemed happier overall. The regent is a nice lady, you know. I started getting brought to chantry meetings, and I was really surprised that they held them in... well, places you wouldn't expect. As much as the regent has a fondness for you guys I don't think she wants that information getting out.

I think back to before my First Change a lot. Things are okay now, but I still think I'd rather be normal. Ignorance is bliss, and whatnot. Sometimes I think to myself, maybe if I were normal, none of this would have happened at all. I could be a famous musician and crazy werewolves wouldn't have tried to kill my sister. But then I guess I realize that maybe she would have been Embraced either way. And I know her, she would have turned me, too, to save me. I love her, and I don't want to leave her, but I don't think I could live like that. And especially not at that point in my life. I would have just sunned myself.

I'm sorry if you don't understand a lot of this, ma'am. I know it's a totally different perspective than you're used to. You probably get a lot of normal clients. You've probably never had a werewolf spill her guts to you before. But Midnight said you were good at what you do and pointed me in your direction. Maybe now I need some outlet for this more than ever. It's like a chest tightness, it feels like. This kind of... I guess you'd call it depression honestly. My life's pretty good, I have a house now, I have a boyfriend, and the sept here is great. I even have a job, and I never thought that'd happen. But I still really just kind of want to be normal. I wish my life had gotten the chance to go somewhere. I still want to be a musician, very badly.

I guess I just don't know where to go from here, with the supernatural bullshit stacked on top of everything. How do I even start?