I met Elise when I was around 14 or maybe 15 in Runescape. I had seen her walking around and I oddly liked her character and we were doing the same thing: mining and going to the bank to deposit our rune essences. I finally got the courage to speak to her and found talking to her to be incredibly easy. This may have been the first time I talked to someone without a tremendous amount of effort.
We got to know each other and I felt so good about myself that I started to feel worse and worse whenever I was away from her offline. I only had the notion of romance from books or games and no healthy relationships in my life to model what I wanted with Ellise after. I just knew that I loved her. And I told her that eventually.
She had said she was waiting for someone to come back and rejected me at first. I weirdly took that well now that I look back, and I gave her time until asking again months later to which she agreed to be my girlfriend. I was elated. I was given hope. I had renewed life. I had someone to live for. I lied about myself multiple times out of shame of my family situation--both financially and emotionally. I wanted her to love me but felt so broken offline that I didn't know how anyone could see me in any sort of positive way.
We would talk almost every day for maybe 2 hours at the most. I had started to wake up around 5 am to walk to my mom's house to use their internet so that I could talk to her before she went to bed. Those were the best parts of my day. I eventually did end up telling her the truth about myself which she reassured me that that was nothing to be ashamed of. I did anyway but now felt that maybe she did love me for who I was but I couldn't let myself believe this. I felt like I was being lied to. I didn't love myself, how could she?
I ended up leaving the game for a while with an old online ex who I felt on a similar level with. We were both self loathing and had a rough home life. We spoke about our want to self harm and eventually she (the ex) disappeared--only to reappear years later.
Ellise and I got back to talking but I had broken her trust by then and things felt a little different. I felt a little different. I had just spent a while with someone who reinforced my disdain for myself, so it took me a bit to readjust to someone hopeful. Someone kind. I almost wish I hadn't gone back to talk to Ellise because I was so far gone and a lot of the words I said about myself, a lot of the distrust I had in her words, too, hurt her--this further made me feel like a failure.
I spoke to Ellise about all my wishes for myself from then on. How I wanted to be happy and live a fulfilling life. How I wanted her at the center of that. How I wanted kids eventually. How I wanted to love her differently. She liked that. She brought that out of me. She reassured me over and over and I knew I had to listen to her if I wanted to be with her--I had to go against my brain.
She told me she believed in me. She didn't ridicule my dreams. She was kind and patient with me. She was my best friend.
I want to point out that I was pretty religious back then, as was she. He had a lot of faith in general. And I felt like she brought out the best in me.
I was 17. About 3 months away from 18. She was 18 and just had started university. I felt so inadequate compared to her. I felt unprepared. She was the first person to even mention a higher education to me. I never considered it before. No one had talked to me about it. So I tried to prepare myself for that by talking to my high school advisors and my social worker.
I started to make more and more mistakes. I spoke to another friend and I felt so badly for her situation and she had expressed interest in me. I felt like if I rejected her, she might harm herself or make her just feel bad. I was a notorious people-pleaser for so long. It was a stupid mistake that I felt even as I was accepting her proposal.
Ellise found out about this through her friend group and started to talk to me about it. I panicked. I acted without thinking. I felt so horrible. I hurt Ellise, the one person in my life that made it feel worth living. I told her that. I didn't want to live if she wasn't in my life. I told her what I wanted to do to myself and she repeated it back to me.
She had called me on my phone a few times in the past years. I loved our calls despite the reception. I loved her voice. I had never spoken to someone on the phone. I had been too afraid to. But this last call was seared into my brain and I still hear it. She said my name. She told me she loved me and then there was static. I struggled to speak. My body went still. My mind was racing because I wanted to stop her but knew I couldn't.
After a few days, I learned from her friends that Ellise had attempted to take her own life. She wasn't going to talk to me. The guilt built up inside to unmanageable levels. I buried it. I would play Runescape a little longer until every other friend had quit the game. In the meantime, I would consider how to harm myself to punish myself. I felt like I should have done what I said I'd do or not say it at all. Why did I have to say it? I felt my life falling apart. I felt sick. I hated myself for what I felt like I caused.
Ellise's friend slowly stopped talking to me and giving me updates. My guilt kept rising. My attempts to hurt myself kept going until I felt like pain was my only reprieve. I'd relive our conversation over and over throughout the years knowing that I could have done better. Knowing that I could have done our whole relationship better. I couldn't tell anyone that I loved them anymore. I couldn't feel. I grieved in silence because I felt shame telling anyone this. I felt like, how other friends in our group, they would say that Ellise wasn't a real person. It felt insensitive. I never learned if she was or not. I just have our conversations and phone calls. I have our memories. The felt real.
I would eventually get to a bearable state and start college and have friends. I would start a relationship. All the while, I was thankful to Ellise. She built me up. She gave me blueprints to things I wish I had already known. Things I should have known. I still did everything for her despite being with someone else. In the back of my mind, she was pushing me forward when I felt I was falling back.
I didn't talk about her until I was around 28. She came up in my therapy session. I still talk about her at 36 in therapy. She was a pillar of hope when I had none. I knew I'd never get back with her even if she reappeared and wanted to. I was too different. I stopped being religious. I was more reserved. I had my arms up at all times to defend myself emotionally.
I let myself grieve. I told my parents about her almost 20 years later. I wrote to her, apologizing; I wrote poems to her memory; I still sometimes write to her because writing to myself feels silly.
This was brought back on because I found an old email from Ellise's friend telling me that it's okay to move on--it's okay to live. She said that Ellise would have wanted me to just be happy.
I love her memory. I can still see her. I can hear her. I can see her words in my mind. I loved her. She changed me into someone better. She is the reason why I can wholly love my partner now. I love my partner more than anything in this world along with our son.
Whether you were “real” or not does not matter.
