Summer 2018 hangs bright and warm over the city of Berlin. The sunshine makes my depression easier to cope with, yet I am still in the midst of my eating disorder.
That evening, the self-help group I’ve been attending for months convenes on the balcony of our assigned room. One face catches my attention: male, early 30s, scrawny, with a blue zip hoodie over a plain tee and wearing the same model of glasses as I do. He’s one of an influx of new members that would shortly dwindle again, yet when he talks, I notice there is something different about him.
Tentatively, it seems, he mentions lucid dreaming and I join in. A friend of mine from Las Vegas only just explained to me how she would train herself to become aware of the fact that she was dreaming during one.
As he will tell me later, my validation of his interests is among the first he has ever received.
When another group member asks us to accompany her to a free workshop, we go along. During the event, a young woman flirts with me — at least according to him. I don’t notice these things, I explain, plainly and simply. Should he ever feel any sort of romantic interest in me, I reckon, he would know to be obvious.
. . .
After that evening, we text and talk. We’re both vegan and there’s a new vegan restaurant in our Kiez (Berlin slang for ‘borough’).
I could talk to him for hours — and I do. He is full of tales and information, world-wise and experienced without ever having traveled much outside Germany. He has seen a lot in his 34 years on Earth, and I can’t help but be drawn to him.
I have no clue where this is going. When I shiver in the evening breeze, he lends me his zip hoodie. I bury my face in it on the way home, inhaling the pleasant scent, grinning from ear to ear, wondering if this is what romance feels like.
It’s deeper than that, though.
He begins to open up as I open up, and I eagerly listen to all he has to share. He’s spiritual, you see, but there’s a bigger picture to it. A TOE, a Theory Of Everything, he explains — or tries to. It’s complex and extensive, but we spend several hours delving into it, walking in the sunshine.
MBT, My Big Toe, “unifies science and philosophy, physics and metaphysics, mind and matter, purpose and meaning, the normal and the paranormal”. The author and scientist behind it, Thomas Campbell, shows how everyone is governed by fear and belief. It’s all ego — the antithesis of love.
The concepts and philosophy behind MBT are infinitely deeper than I could ever explain in a few short paragraphs, so take my summary with a grain of salt. The way I understood it, MBT suggests that our world is one of many, and we’re here in this one to grow up. To learn. We’re all units of consciousness, coming together in the big game called life, making decisions and trying to improve the system.
The goal of it all is low entropy. Existence governed by love. At the fundamental level, there is no difference between people, no categories of gender or sexual orientation. There is consciousness, pure and simple.
To this day, I doubt I truly understand it. I like to think that I got the essence of it — that love is the goal and that everyone is equal, that all religions and spiritual teachings are basically one and the same using different metaphors — which resonates with me more deeply than I can express.
. . .
He goes from acquaintance to friend very quickly. He shares details of his life, of his struggle, that barely anyone knows. I feel humbled by him confiding in me, and cherish the time he takes to tell me about his past.
Right now, he is more or less stable. He spent three years in bed, literally, too depressed to function. When I get to know him, he is returning to his meditation practice. He does daily yoga. He seems balanced, happy almost. He’s a role model to me, as I remain deeply depressed and buried in bulimia.
Yet while I have found my passion in telling stories, he is still adrift.
He works a job he hates and is nowhere near fulfilling his greatest wish, to find The One and become a father.
It is that revelation that proves to me that he and I are not meant to be. Not romantically, at least. What we become is something more profound; he feels like the brother I never had.
When I decide to change my name and embrace my trans*, nonbinary identity, he supports me. When I struggle, he listens. When he despairs, he reaches out. I am the one to console him when his cat, one of two companions of the past decade, leaves him for good. I am the shoulder he leans on when the darkness returns, when his meditation practice stops, when the tentative balance he found starts to crumble.
It feels right, somehow. At the beginning, it was him who supported me. Now, I get to return the favor.
. . .
Summer 2019 brings heat and absences. He decided to take a holiday, to fly to Costa Rica, to take out a loan and go on a retreat. He hopes to find answers through psychedelic drugs. I’m intrigued, but know that I’m not ready.
He isn’t the first person I encounter to go down that path. On a business trip to Malta, I met a wonderful man who had been changed forever by Ayahuasca. It purged him of his bad energies, of his selfishness and greed.
Back then, I wasn’t ready.
When he offers me to join him in Costa Rica, I am still not.
He takes me backpack shopping, since I am the organized one of us who can make swift decisions. He’s the dreamer, the researcher, with an awe-inspiring ability to dive deep, but asks me for help to keep him on track. I gladly do, because by this point, he is my brother.
While he is gone, I sit his flat as well as his remaining cat. I hope reverently that the experience will provide the answers that he seeks, that he will return with new-found vigor and strength. That he will learn where his purpose lies, that he will find out more about The One, that he can finally be happy.
He returns transformed, sure, yet not as extensively as I had wished for him. To me, it seems he expected all the answers on a silver platter, that the psychedelic agent would fix his life without requiring any action on his part. What he got instead were lessons. Lessons to trust his intuition, to listen to the quiet voices within. Nothing straightforward about it.
And he tries, he really does. But by this point, he has been dealt one disappointment too many.
Of course, that’s when he loses his job, because his boss is an egomaniac who cannot cope with unresponsive subjects. Shortly after, he reconnects with the love of his life, whom he has passed by like ships in the night three times in the past already. He also meets a second woman who could be The One.
The details are complex, but the results are not. He ends things with the second woman, considers to take a chance, at long last, on the love of his life… yet she stays with the father of her children, her husband of several years.
He has nothing left and in the silence of my mind, I reluctantly agree. I know the depth of depression; I know what it’s like to feel like ending things might be preferable to going on.
Only difference — he has acted on this in the past.
As a consequence, I am on high alert. I’m glad to have his mother’s phone number for I can check with her when I don’t hear back from him while I’m out of the country. I make sure to message him regularly, to show him that I’m here, that I care. I ask how he is doing and he evades the question. I show up as much as I can while I fight off relapse and adjust to a new reality without my eating disorder.
As 2020 dawns, I remain optimistic.
By April of that year, everything lies in shambles.
. . .
It starts with Wuhan. Covid-19 is but a distant threat to Germany in late January 2020, yet he is on the fence. He shows me footage of hastily-built hospitals in China, maps of regional carbon emissions on record lows.
This is big, he says, and I…
I don’t have the energy to care. Every ounce of what I have that isn’t consumed by life goes to staying relapse-free, or to paying my rent, to staying alive. Something deep within me chimes in agreement as he warns me of a pandemic, but I lack the will to listen.
When I finally find it, it is late February 2020. He shows me the data, explains the differences to the flu. I realize with a start that he is right. I’m only back in Berlin for two days, so I make the most of it. I stock up on canned foods and other supplies. I order sanitizer for my family in Bavaria.
There is more to the story, he says. Far-reaching, pervasive, shaping the very essence of our world. Deep down, I know he’s onto something. I want to listen and learn, to read the links he provides and watch the documentaries, but there is only so much I can process and I keep putting it off.
I go back to Bavaria for work. I intend to stay until March 19, but COVID messes with everyone’s plans. I lose my main source of income, a side-job at a Berlin cinema, and decide to bunker down in the idyllic village my parents call home.
He messages sporadically, mostly with pictures of his cat. I enquire after him, but his replies remain elusive. He seems better, though, endowed with new energy in the face of this global crisis. He says himself that he doesn’t feel suicidal anymore since he can finally help.
I wait for the day that he joins the neighborhood assistance squads or starts distributing pamphlets about the importance of PPE, but it never comes.
I celebrate going one year relapse-free, and there is no comment from him. I don’t want to beg him to congratulate me, so I say nothing. I film a video for my YouTube channel and write up a blog post, since I feel like sharing my story might help others going through similar darkness, but figure he is too immersed in his own stuff to have the energy to remember the anniversary of my recovery.
Six days later, I find out how wrong I was.
. . .
But let’s rewind. On April 8, he sends me a number of PDFs and a few links to videos; places to start reading up on the ‘bigger picture’. The ‘more to the story’ that he had teased and that I kept at the back of my mind.
According to him, this is the last attempt he will make to get me to listen. He spent hundreds of hours researching so that I wouldn’t have to. I never asked him to, but I’m humbled he wants to share his insights with me. I care about him, about what’s important in his life. I start reading a bit, even though it feels like he’s giving me an ultimatum.
Then, on April 13, I receive a message that is, unbeknownst to me, the beginning of the end.
He accuses me of feigning interest. Of pretending to care about this bigger picture out of sheer politeness. He says he should have seen it earlier: I’m lying to him.
Besides, I obviously care more about the opinion of strangers on the internet. He says we could have celebrated my year of recovery, could have met online, done something — and yes, I see that I could have spoken up. I regret that I didn’t, but back then, it felt like the right thing to do.
In his message, he touches on so many topics that I have difficulties to follow. He wants his keys back, he says, and that he won’t waste any more energy making me see the truth. I’m only lying, anyway. He loves my soul. He can see that, at the core, I am wonderful. But the layers of ego and fear and belief are too much for him to stomach.
I respond, after taking the time of my morning routine to process. I tell him that I mean it when I say I want to know, but that my capacities are limited. That I’d rather focus on action than research.
The way I understood his message, he broke ties with me. Later that day, he calls me. I miss his call and I’m grateful for it. I realize that I’m in no place to talk to him; I’m still bleeding from the verbal wounds he inflicted in his text.
He respects my wishes and composes an email instead. I see it in my inbox, but have no emotional capital left to read. On WhatsApp, he sends a photo of his neighbors’ cat that has found its way onto his balcony. It feels surreal, as though nothing he accused me of ever happened.
Then I read his email.
Let’s rewind.
. . .
A few days prior to his first message on April 13, he sends me a screenshot of the WhatsApp thread between him and his mother. She is very set in her beliefs, and so is he. His attempts to convince her of more spiritual approaches to her life have fallen on deaf ears for decades. That day, he had enough. He told her never to contact him again.
He texts me this, along with a note that he never managed to do anything right as a son.
He’s done, he writes, and says goodbye.
I panic.
We’ve talked about this: He knows that if he hints at committing suicide in my presence that I will call for help. No matter how much I can understand his decision. No matter how much I want to respect his right to choose. I will not stand idly by.
His phone is switched off, I find when I dial his number. I call the crisis hotline, because my therapist recommended them in case I ever feel like he is going to harm himself. The hotline can’t help, unfortunately, because they don’t follow third-party leads. The police would be my only option if I can’t drop by his place in person. I’m in Bavaria, and teleportation has yet to be invented, so no.
It’s my Mum who recommends asking the people staying at my flat. One is part of a queer group chat and asked, back in March, whether anyone had a couch for them to crash on because they had rented out their flat while they are on tour. Only now they’re back in Berlin since everything was cancelled due to Covid. I offered my flat; it would only sit empty while I’m in the South.
They got the keys to my place from him, so they know him a little. I reach out and ask them to swing by, and see my intuition confirmed when they don’t hesitate to help me out.
Checking fell to me since his mother can’t drop by. She’s recovering from chemo and won’t go on public transport or grab a cab. Besides, she once called the police on her son when she feared for his life. He never truly forgave her for that.
I know the risk going in. I also decide that I’d rather ensure he is okay than do nothing for fear of his reaction.
In his message from April 13, I learn that he didn’t know why these people visited him… at first. Once it became clear, he grew frustrated. He has been trying to explain, he says, that he isn’t suicidal, yet I don’t seem to understand.
In my reply, I had asked him why he doesn’t take action. Even something small, like volunteering close-by. To me, it seems that all he does is research, concludes what’s ‘the truth’, and then tries to convince those close to him of it. He has dreams of working remotely, of leaving ‘the West’ behind, and before all this, he admitted to being too afraid and paralyzed with indecision to act.
He gets defensive then, tells me I insulted him by saying all he does is sit around and research. At the end of his very long email, he says he provided all the info that I needed to see ‘the truth’. He urges me to join him on this side of knowledge. Not verbatim, but that is the bottom line. He provides another few links.
I find myself grateful that he took this time and explained himself in such detail. I understand him a lot better now, I think, and have realized where our miscommunication stems from.
We both have the same goal: a world governed by love, not ego or fear or belief. He thinks information is the key to getting there; I believe that action will transform humanity.
Which is fine. I love how diverse humanity is and how many different ‘truths’ can coexist. I hope he will be able to accept me as I am, accept my pace and my ability to process, for I do feel he is onto something.
That night, I sleep easier since I think I soothed the waves between us.
By noon the next day, that hope has crumbled.
. . .
Anything I said is completely off topic, in his eyes. He’s back to accusing me of never having had an interest in the first place. In his opinion, I’m ignorant and lazy. I MUST look into these things, he says, because it’s about how dependent we are on bigger forces, how easily we are manipulated.
Several of his statements show me that he already forgot a lot of what I shared with him about my own journey. He never even considered that I maybe I do see the trajectory of where we are headed, and that I am taking a conscious risk to ignore the warnings.
When I point his out, he invalidates my opinion.
Again.
He wants his stuff back. He lent me a camera as well as a book. He wants to call when he’s at my flat so I can point him towards it.
By this point, I am too hurt to even consider talking to him. I need to process, it’s all too raw and messy. I tell him this. He can’t understand why I won’t pick up the phone. Says I’m behaving like a child.
I refuse to reply. I now know that it won’t make a difference.
I tell the person staying at my flat to expect him, that he wants to get his keys and the camera and a book. He does.
And then there is silence.
. . .
Until the next day. At noon, I receive an email that spans six standard pages, replying to certain sentences from my previous email.
He once again accuses me of lying, of play-acting, of telling strangers that he is sick when he has been trying to make me see that mental health issues are only in our heads. They aren’t real.
Besides, he says, I’m not a true friend. I’m too superficial in my caring, never ask about him. I don’t share important things with him. I don’t tell him when I think he’s just sitting around being idle. While he opened up and gave me trust, I met him with masks and lies.
By that point, I am more hurt than I remember ever being.
When I finally open up about this to other friends , they urge me to not take what he said as a reflection on my character, but on him and his issues. He, who is attempting to feel powerful again, who lashes out with the intent to hurt. He, who is not in the right mind.
He was a different person when we met. He has been slowly deteriorating, and the enforced isolation that has come with the pandemic only made it worse.
I did everything I could think of. I know calling social services to have him committed won’t help a bit; he despises all things Western medicine.
So what’s left for me is to respect his wishes. He asked me not to reply in his latest email. I am only to send back the SD card I forgot to put back into the camera, nothing more. I put it in the mail, the physical one, this morning on April 21. It should reach him tomorrow.
After that… I honestly don’t know.
He might remain quiet for the rest of our lives. He might email again, and again, and again. I have yet to decide how I will react in that case.
He might take his life.
He might stabilize eventually, and reach out again to make amends.
And I… I have no idea how to feel about it all beyond the veil of hurt and sadness. And that’s okay, I guess. It’s all I am capable of right now.
. . .
Closing thoughts
I mention what happened to others close me to me.
“You’re meant to learn from this,” they say, and I hope they’re right. I’ve grown too spiritual to interpret life any other way.
Inspired by the crash landing of our relationship, I wonder about how I approach my friends, how I show them I care, and I make an extra effort to communicate how much I value them in the following days. Sometimes directly, sometimes through more subtle means.
I check and double-check whenever I’m about to talk about myself, for maybe I’m just being selfish and hogging the time. While I know I care about the other person and am interested in their life, I stop assuming they do, too. I ask more question, where I simply used to wait for them to share.
Above all, though, I am grateful.
His jibes and bitter words came at the same time as my realization that I am not essential to this world. Synchronicity, eh? It’s like the universe conspired to make me explore the principles and philosophies that guide me.
Now that it’s over, I feel more sure of who I am, what I want, and how I want it.
I lost a brother in the process, though.
—
This post was previously published on Medium.
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