Why so sad?

or A Tale of Two Women

"Oh S***!" (2017) - © Sadistic Scribbler


I almost sub-titled this post: “or How I Embarked upon the Road to MGTOW” but though very relevant, what I wanted to talk about here only covers a small part of the reasons I went MGTOW. So I’ll save that tale for another post.

Before talking about the Two Women in question I should probably first explain the title: Why so sad?

If this is the first time you’re reading about me I should add that I suffer from chronic depression. I was born this way (thanks to also being born autistic) and it does have a habit of becoming critical and leading to suicidal attempts. Don't panic, this is not a post about any of that (but you can read other posts of mine that deal with this via the sidebar if you so wish). Instead, by “sad” I am referring to the emotion that often gets mistakenly conflated with depression: feeling blue. Of course I acknowledge that this can also be a precursor of a depressive episode, but it shouldn’t always be seen in that way.

So am I sad because of the (unnecessary) worldwide lock-down due to the Wuhan Virus pandemic? No. I’ve had the virus already (maybe the topic for another day) and as for the scare-mongering surrounding it, for now check out Dave Cullen's series on Youtube (Part 1).

The Women

What has prompted my current melancholy is down to the relationships I had with two women, both of whom were best friends since childhood. The image that introduces this post is a painting "Oh S***!" which I made from 2017 of one of the women: Gemma (before I cut it into 12 panels to be individually hung on the wall). The reason for this is that this painting links both women nicely… more so than the artwork "Boundless" I created of the other woman: Callie (below) which has now, thanks to Gemma, been tainted.

"Boundless" (2014) - © Sadistic Scribbler


The two women were like chalk and cheese. Both beautiful, both incredibly intelligent and funny, but where one was beautiful on the inside as well as on the outside: loyal, kind, sensitive, and very loving; the other was beautiful on the outside alone, and rancid, poisonous, and destructive on the inside. Unfortunately first impressions being what they are means that many men have succumbed to the violent toxic woman (just as Johnny Depp did with Amber Heard) at the loss of finding fulfilment with the other.

So who are these women, and why am I feeling seriously sad today? The first woman I met was Gemma who, as you can see below, appears to encompass all of a man’s desires. I’m not going to go into the sordid details, suffice it to say that we ended up in a long-term relationship after I fell deeply in love with her.

Gemma when I first met her


We were together, on and off, for about 8 years. During this time I enjoyed some of my all-time highs, as well as the worst moments of my life. I was so in love with her that I would have died for her. Unfortunately she tried to test this to exhaustion, and almost succeeded. Without going into any more details, I think it clear that my experience of Gemma has left me scarred, and has destroyed my ability to trust anyone… let alone trust anyone with my heart.

Callie, by contrast, was selfless. If you already are MGTOW you will understand when I say that Callie was not a unicorn, but was actually a man inside… which is a compliment, and by that I mean that Bruffault’s law did not apply to her. For her, she wanted to find the right man whom she could trust, care for, and sacrifice herself for. As MGTOW already know, this was an impossibility that plagued her to the end.

I met Callie through my relationship with Gemma. We became fast and strong friends, just as happens with other male friends that one really connects with. There was nothing romantic, nor sexual, despite how attractive she was (see below), and this friendship lasted right up to her sad and premature death just before her 25th birthday.

Candid shot of Callie


Callie was living with me when she died. She took her own life after feeling total despair with, and total futility of, her life. I know intimately what she was feeling as I have myself been in that same place. Unlike Callie though, I had someone who stopped me just before I went through with this ultimate deed. Let me explain.

I have already mentioned how Gemma (while simultaneously having toxic affairs with other men) thought to entertain herself by trying to drive me to kill myself in 2013, and would have succeeded if not for Callie. Just like the recent case of the girl who was found guilty of having driven her boyfriend to kill himself, I am ashamed to admit that Gemma had similarly driven me to the point of my killing myself and I would have if Callie had not unexpectedly turned up and physically stopped me.

And this wasn’t the only time that Callie saved my life…

More recently in 2017, after I had recovered from hitting rock bottom and had rebuilt my life from scratch, I developed a bad case of pneumonia. I was living alone and became so ill that I actually died (on the way to hospital). I would have died permanently at home if not for Callie who, just like when she stopped me killing myself, had somehow sensed I was in trouble and travelled quite a distance to save me. She found me unconscious on my floor and called an ambulance, and stayed there until I returned over a week later to look after my home and feed my cat.

I am forever indebted to Callie for saving my life twice and this is why I feel so guilty that I couldn’t have saved her’s when the time came. I won’t say more here, especially as her story has already been told by the BBC on their Panorama programme that can be watched online, but as you might surmise this is part of the reason I am feeling deeply sad today as the second anniversary of her death is fast approaching and I still miss her dearly.

Callie (left) and Gemma (right)


Once I ended things permanently with Gemma, Callie and I grew even closer. This was partly in response to when Gemma and I said goodbye, because Gemma chose to ghost Callie. Callie took this very hard, as she couldn’t understand why (as she never accepted Gemma’s true nature), and for the first time in 8 years our intimate group of three became an intimate pair of two. And yes, Callie and I grew very intimate, though I was in no place for a relationship.

But this is not the only reason for my current sadness.

Gemma when she started playing away

It so happens that a couple of Gemma’s ex-boyfriends (additional to those of whom I was already aware… including the one she was with as she tried to have me kill myself) found me and got in touch. Now the only way that I can move on from Gemma is to leave her in my past. You see, intellectually I have severed myself from her. But the damage she did to me is still there and should she ever return to my life, even indirectly through her exes, it would reopen those old wounds and remind me of how pathetic I was, and how vulnerable I still am… thus how much I am still under her power. I might like to think that if she were to walk up to me right now that I am healthy enough to reject her, but when I still react to her through her exes like this, I’m forced to admit that I just don’t know what I would do should she return. And it is this that has caused my fall into existential sadness, perhaps as a precursor to a depressive episode.

So these ex-boyfriends of hers tracking me down and asking me at length about her, together with the reminder of Callie’s suicide and my failure to save her, is having a huge impact upon me. This is why I felt compelled to write about it here, as some form of catharsis.

"When Opposites Attract" (2016) - © Sadistic Scribbler


One might suspect that as these two women were opposites: the Masculine versus the Feminine if you will, the Giving versus the Taking, the Good versus the Evil; that as I loved Callie (in its all-encompassing sense) that I would naturally hate Gemma. But this would be incorrect.

Perhaps because I am autistic, or perhaps because of my worldview (Monist Idealist Thomist Catholic), I do not hate anyone. As the old Catholic maxim goes, "hate the sin not the sinner", so while I hate how I was treated by Gemma, I do not hate her per se. In a more modern sense, Gemma suffers from a mental condition (BPD - Borderline Personality Disorder) which explains her behaviour in a psychiatric way, and is a victim to it as was I. This is why I have no desire to spend any time with her as I will be spending time with an illness that is too poisonous for me to deal with. Any disagreement I have with her personally would concern how I believe that she has a choice and is not bound by her neurological conditioning, yet she chose to embrace her condition instead of growing in spite of it.

Hopefully, this post has answered its initial question. I don’t know if this confession will prove helpful to someone but I hope so, even if it is only as a warning for other men who might find themselves in similar situations. But before I end, I ought to return to the beginning of the post and address the comment concerning the two artworks of mine: "Boundless" the earlier work with Callie as the model, and the more recent painting: "Oh S***!" with Gemma as the model.

The earlier work was part of a series of photographs I had been working on for several years. But it wasn't until Gemma came across the series and recognised Callie from this plate that this work's effect became corrupted by the virus that is called Gemma. Gemma tried to use the image to turn Callie against me (I'll leave the reasoning to you) as displaying some kind of my secret and sordid desire for her. It didn't work of course, but it has tainted what was part of an artistic series into a work that was weaponised by someone I had once loved to hurt me, and to be a constant reminder of how she would always stand between the friendship Callie and I shared.

The multi-part painting however shares a connection with Callie about Gemma, and not the reverse as in the previous example. Before Callie moved in with me, and later after my flirtation with pneumonia death, I painted the work presented at the top of this post. It was less a portrait of Gemma (as I wanted to avoid thinking about her) and more an experimental work dealing with my near-death experience.

Callie - Much loved and much missed RIP


When Callie moved in she instantly recognised Gemma as the model in the painting. As such she questioned why I had created it, knowing my aversion to deal with anything Gemma-centric, and more so why it was prominently hanging in my living area. A valid question given that Gemma was the model, though as I explained it had no effect as she was not the subject.

As I explained to Callie, the painting to me was not a portrait of Gemma, but an artistic expression of an unexpected rebirth, from a suffocating death prompted by my experience with pneumonia, as a mundane phenomenon. Using Gemma, I admit, was a challenge I set myself to see if the painting story was strong enough to combat the grip my past with Gemma had on me. And I am happy to say that it was, and still is. Whenever I look at the picture, like Callie, I recognise Gemma in it but no more than that. It has no emotional connection. Perhaps this is what leads me to have what I now fear is the false belief that I am fully over her. Alas, as my recent experience with talking with her exes has shown that while the picture shows my resilience to her effect on me, her 'nearness' in body or spirit still manages to bring down the melancholy onto my emotional state. Hopefully this is a transitory condition and requires just more time.

Goodbye Callie, I hope you are at peace now.