"I think you should think about counseling," she said.
"Counseling? Yeah, with what money?"
"It doesn't matter. You can get counseling somehow. I really think you need counseling in order to deal with all of this."
"Do you now?"
"You have to recognize the cycles that are going on here..."
Yes, there is a cycle. That is, I turn people into monsters.
It's not that I am attracted to people who are monsters. It's not that ALL people are monsters. It's just that a very large percentage of the people with whom I've had close relationships have turned into monsters. Probably between 30 and 50 percent, give or take.
The thing is, I don't know what I DO to these people... It must be something, and it must have something to do with me...
According to absolutely everyone, Jake was a perfect sweetheart before he met me. A complete gentleman who worked hard, had a great job and a fantastic future. Somehow, he ended up using me, hating me, and screaming at me that he wished I would die. I swear I have no idea what I could have done differently. Sometimes I was kind of snarky, and sometimes I didn't put out, and toward the end, I did happen to sort of realize I was in love with somebody else... But how is it that Jake wants me dead, and all of his other exes -- at least most of the ones I know about -- are still slobbering over him? What did I do that fucked things up so badly? I mean, Jake has been dumped before for other guys, I'm SURE... What the hell made him so horrible THIS time?
Prior to me, Jürgen was supposedly a pretty great guy, too. His exes thought he was so great that they refused to leave him alone. They sent emails and made phone calls and sent letters every single day, telling him how much they loved him and couldn't wait to see him again. Me? Somehow, I turned Jürgen into this jackass who hauled me off into his bathroom one day, bent me over, and beat me across the ass because I'd made some stupid remark about how his creepy (male) neighbor seemed to like him a lot.
Before me, Peter was a fuck-up, but I know I certainly didn't help things...
Before me, Greg was a nice, normal kid. Two weeks after meeting me, he was threatening to kill himself because our relationship was so awful. He also began having hallucinations all the time, and became a jealous, neurotic freak. When I finally broke up with him, he went back to being a nice, normal kid.
It's funny how nobody else seems to think Erich was an asshole... It's funny how he treated me like shit, and when I broke up with him, he dated damn near every single female friend of mine as some sort of stupid vindication, and every one of them remembers him as "sweet," or "cute," or "there for me whanever I needed him." Funny how the women who were closest to me never saw him as the patronizing asshole who guilt-tripped me at every move, who was a junkie before he graduated high school, and who didn't take no for an answer, ever.
I always wondered why my family sounded like everything was fine and dandy all the time when I was n Santa Fe, and then I came back and everything was in chaos; my brother tried to beat me up, and my dad yelled at me a lot.
I kind of wondered about Brian, too... We exchanged emails for well over a year -- sort of the mushy kind. And then when we saw each other again, it was nice and all, and then he informed me that he had no intention of having any sort of ongoing relationship with me, and then he left. And spoke to me as a casual acquaintance from then on.
What the fuck do I DO to these people?
"It's not your fault," she says.
Yeah, well then whose is it? What could have possibly possessed Jake to spontaneously wish I were dead? What could have prompted him to tell me I was a horrible mother and that I'd kill the baby? Why would he call me a slut and a user? What did I do to this sweet person to make him into THIS? People don't just BECOME mean and nasty and violent and generally horrible.
"Then why?" I ask.
To this she has no answer. So she repeats: "Maybe you should get some counseling and try to learn about some of thes patterns and resolve them."
Exactly. Jake went through counseling, and they patted him on the back and said he was perfect, and sent him on his way. I am the one who needs counseling, because I am the fuck-up. I am the one who turns good people into monsters. Maybe if I were in counseling, maybe I could learn to be a good girl and not be such a fucking bitch that it ruins otherwise-wonderful people.
If I can somehow inspire this kind of horribleness and negativity in so many grown-up people, how the fuck am I supposed to raise a child without influencing him in all sorts of wicked ways?
I am not prepared to be a mother. I can't do this. Jake was right; I am not strong enough. I am already a bad mother.
The only thing is, I cannot give my baby up for adoption. It would probably be the right thing to do, especially since I'm broke and homeless and I have absolutely no prospects, in addition to the whole thing about hurting people until they become cruel and nasty... But I can't do that, because then the Jensens would file for custody, and they'd win.