You guys *do* know how to make friends, because Stef used to make friends.

It's just a matter of being careful who you make friends with.

The solitary life does have its good points.
                                                                                     - Forest.

This is Brandon and Freddie.

We're very lonely. I don't think we'll ever be able to make and keep friends any more. And I don't think we can live the life that Forest lives, all alone.

We'd give just about anything to be able to turn to a friend at times like this.

I never knew I was a wild land.
Didn't know I was a land at all.
I thought I was a conscious being,
Sister to my brothers here on Earth.
But now it seems I was misled.
So now I'm conquered, claimed,
And farmed and strip-mined,
Left in subdivisions.
I run dry now, and my brothers
Search for greener planets
To subdue and conquer.

Let t hem go then. At my molten core,
I long for wlldness to return.

Gage has opted to be placed in a medical coma, with no artificial feeding or breathing. He's hoping he will die.  We hope the same for him  -  not out of any resentment towards him, but out of mercy for him. (We believe in euthanasia. We would euthanize him, except it almost never works to kill anyone off inside here.  It's not like these people are characters. They're more than that.)

Anyway. We suspect his painful emotions will leak out through the remaining fronters, and when we feel these things we'll know it's coming from Gage. But that's all right. There are six of us to absorb the rage, it won't all be on Alex any more. Everybody's volunteered to do their part.

As far as what Gage will experience, we hope to keep him in a soft bed, with continually running TV shows and movies and music that he likes (there will definitely be some rock and roll involved in that one)  - and we hope to maintain him at the point of the most blissful high we ever achieved during our get-high days. He certainly won't suffer, if we cam do that. He won't be aware of his scars any more. He'll feel soft and floaty and wonderful, and very loved.

We thought of trying to communicate to him, but he said no, that would only keep him in this world. So we wont' do that.
But we will go in an give him hugs and back rubs, that sort of thing. Some physical affection, since he might still be aware of the physical world around him. Because we know how much it means to Brandon, and also Freddie, to have that physical comfort on a regular basis.


Now. Our posture. A neighbor brought it to our attention that we're really 'spazzy' lately. In fact, she asked us if we were all right! She's right, we are a bit spazzy in our movements, without being aware of it. KInd of like, we're not completely aware that we're in out own skin. We think it may be the Prozac. So today we're going to start weaning off it again.
Also, we had the damn thyroid test to make the doctor happy, so now we'll be weaning off that as well, going back to the herbal supplements that don't have all those nasty side effects. I think we'll all feel much better.

So maybe there is a God after all, and maybe He has mercy on aging rocker chicks.

This absolutely gorgeous young guy (I'm not making this up) started flirting a little bit with me today. And it felt *so* wonderful to be flirted with.
It didn't hurt that the guy looked exactly like Roger Daltrey. I was so struck by the resemblance, that I had to ask him to tell me his name again, so I wouldn't be calling him Roger. He said, "Why don't you call me Daltrey? It sounds so...." and I swear, I don't know what he said after that, because I couldn't listen to him for looking at him.

I'm sure he was probably just trying to be nice. But, God bless him, he succeeded.

If I didn't feel so bad about my body these days, I might keep going back there and see if he was just being nice, or if he was serious. But, I have no intention of actually doing that, because I *do* feel bad about my body.

Still. It's a nice thought.

All you young guys out there who flirt with middle-aged women, God bless your hearts, every one of you. Because some of us have husbands at home who are real assholes.

Exhausted, unpacking. My arms hurt so bad from carrying things up and down the stairs at the shelter.

We're all actually excited about this celibacy thing. We know we shouldn't even hope that he'll stick to it.....but we've so got our hopes up that he'll stick to it.

Gage is saying, "Of *course* he won't stick to it! We can *never* trust him to be telling the truth!"
But we're not ready to let it go yet.
There was a time when we didn't feel like we could trust Russell....

Second day. Time to regroup.
First of all, we don't have to analyze or justify our decision to come back to Rusty. We're only strong enough to do what we're strong enough to do, and we're only sure of what we're sure of.
We got really sick and threw up all night, got the runs as well.....got really grateful early this morning when we could finally poop and not puke!


While we were sick, we watched the top 100 hard rock videos on VH1....and Gage forgot all about his appearance and forgot about hating anybody and forgot about all those bitter experiences. So now we know what he loves, and what floats his boat. (That's a relief. We've never had anybody in here think about murder before, even in passing. Suicide, yeah  -  but not murder.)
Well, I'm happy to report that this morning, Gage could no more kill a loved one than the rest of us could. It's scary to think that he got that tripped out....but, that was what it was. He doesn't have some deep, pathological difference from the rest of us, he's not a sociopath  -  but we don't like that he can get that tripped out. That's not okay, to make a gross understatement.
In fact, one of the reasons we chose to write about this here, was as a safeguard. As in, now you would never get away with anything like that, so (as our dad used to say) get that thought out of your mind.
(God. This whole train of thought, started with joking about wishing we could feed our mom some pot brownies to calm her down. It's like, once we opened that door, even jokingly, it was a real Pandora's Box. We've never liked barbed jokes like that, and we had no idea that one of us in here would really be capable of that kind of thinking. Well, it's probably better to know, than to not know.)

Speaking of Gage getting thoughts out of his head, the only effective way we've found to deal with that problem, outside of zombie meds, is through twelve-step programs. So we're thinking maybe AlAnon or Alateen for Gage, if this hard rock thing isn't enough. Brandon and Freddie found AlAnon step work too intense, due to some trauma stuff, so we picked up some Alateen step work books, and that was a lot better.

Dear Gage -
          You've spent so much time thinking about things in life that are worse than death.
          But not all of life is worse than death. Those bad things, are over.
          I don't think you should have been euthanized. I think you should have been helped, and nobody helped you.....but you survivied it and now it's over.
          Now, there are things that could make you happy. Little things. And more than that, you can make other people happy. We have three kids, and Rusty, and a few friends, that we can give our love to. You're a part of us. You're more than the things that have happened to you.
          Inside, under those scars, you're very much like me. We're twins. You are not a monster, you've never killed anybody, you've only thought about it and felt like it. But you couldn't do it. And you don't wish your scars on anybody. You don't really want to hurt anybody. Those thoughts are more of a habit than anything else, I think.

         I don't know, maybe you're stuck with those scars on your skin  -  maybe if Stef has her face fixed, that will make your scars go away and you can see who you are again. I don't know the answer to that.
         But for tonight, things are okay  -  you know we'll do the best we can to take good care of you and not let you suffer. Let's just do tonight, okay ? It's not so bad here, really.
         I like it that you're my brother. I want to see what we become now that we know you're here.

        Rusty has agreed to be celibate. For now, maybe for ever. We're not going to have him in the bedroom any more, so there won't be any gray area there. He will either have no feelings for us, or if he does feel anything for us it won't be a pretense to get sex. So that's settled.
        There's hope that this will turn out okay.

So much for thinking our shelter days were over.
We thought we had this great plan, that whenever we got that upset at Rusty, unless there was physical danger, we would take a couple of extra Ambien and sleep it off.

Well, that was a lousy idea. Turns out when we're upset, Ambien doesn't put us to sleep, it just makes us high as hell.

We're so humiliated and mortified.....we stumbled out of the bedroom stark naked, thinking we had put our robe on (that's how high we were)  -  and our son was home.

Gage told Rusty, "I should have killed you and mom both, back when we lived in the log house." That scares the f******k out of the rest of us. Yeah, on some levels, we hate Rusty's guts. We also love him. And we'd be absolutely shattered if anything were to happen to him  -  not to mention if it was our fault. We can't even wrap our brain around that idea. And that's not even going in to what it would do to the kids, to lose their dad. We know how that one feels, our dad passed away about fifteen years ago, and some days his physical absence is still a fresh hole torn right out of the middle of us.

(Deep breath....this is going to take a few entries to sort out, we're very tired right now.)

Anyway. We went to a shelter in another county, until those thoughts and feelings passed. We got to interact with Gage a lot, and find out some of the particular things that trigger him. Forest went ahead and made him officially one of the fronters, because obviously that's what he is anyway, there's no point trying to keep him sheltered in the house somewhere away from what's going on in the outside world.
We need to take care of him, the way we take care of Brandon and Freddie. We need to take care of Lige that way, also, but we forget that because he acts so capable. Actually, he's no older or stronger than the other three boys. So what we have here, is four boys who have been through a lot, and who need to be cared for.
And while we're on the subject of boys, Alex seems to have age regressed a bit since Gage showed up. He's still an adult  -  but he's back to being a young adult. He's lost what he had achieved as far as maturity  -  he was middle-aged. Hopefully this is a temporary age-slide for him...we're not sure how old he is now, but....
Oh. He says he thinks he's 27.
That's the age we were at physically, when Stef had her nervous breakdown and ended up in the mental health system. And of course it's that notorious age when rock stars tend to commit suicide.

Forest is the only one of our fronters who hasn't age-regressed. (We're glad *somebody* hasn't.)

Anyway. Back to the boys.
While we were at the shelter, it *really* hit Brandon that Gage is, as he puts it, his 'twin'. (Brandon, Freddie, Lige, and Gage, are quadruplets. At one time, originally, there was only one of them, and it was Brandon. He was the original of the four boys.)
It also came to all of us, particularly Alex, that at one time, Alex was also Brandon, or a part of Brandon. Even though Alex doesn't look like the quadruplets, he has red hair and green eyes and the four boys have brown hair and blue eyes (except for Lige, sometimes his eyes are green, like Alex. Some kind of symbolism there, I'm sure.....but what it is, I don't know.)
We've never really thought of Alex as an older version of Brandon before.
Brandon was really taken aback by that. He's still reeling from Gage, in the first place.....now he's looking at Alex, and going, "You mean that's what I grow up to be ? I thought I would grow up to be Lige!" He's okay with the thought of someday being like Lige, his capable worker-provider brother, Mister Social. He's not okay with becoming Alex, who has some rage of  his own, and is rather antisocial and even paranoid, and feels safest among people who are actually somewhat violent and dangerous, particularly motorcycle gangs.

We've been wishing for a way to get Gage's scars to leave him, without physically removing them and causing him pain. On the drive home, Forest hugged him and went through the motions of stroking his hair, as he would do with Brandon.....and Gage's hair appeared. Also, some undamaged skin reappeared on his back and his arms. Enough so that he could feel that he was being hugged in a loving way. We wish we could make *all* his scars disappear, just by wanting it or imagining it....but things don't work that way in here. None of us expected *any* of his scars to recede, we're almost afraid to be happy about it, afraid of jinxing it. But I guess gateful is the word we're looking for. Yeah. We're grateful that at least now Gage can feel that kind of warm, comforting affection. Forest would have given it to him anyway, and Gage would have *known* it.....but now he can actually *feel* it.

This is the kind of thing we long for, from Rusty. We always have. As something apart from sex. Just a hug, and some affection. If we could feel safe with him and trust him, we'd be perfectly willing to give him sex.....but God, we feel so used, that he would pretend to give us affection in order to wheedle us into sex. I mean, he's free to just *ask*, for God's sake! And, he knows how we feel about this, how much we long for hugs and affection that we don't have to pay for sexually. We don't understand why he has to have it this way, why h

Dinner with our neighbors was actually fun.

Then we came home.

We were relaxing on the bed, Rusty asked if he could join us. We said sure. We were talking, relaxed.....Branond asked Rusty if he would pet him. (Which means stroke his hair, usually  -  just some form of physical comfort. Rusty likes getting his back scratched  -  and seems to like getting hugs, although we're not sure if the hugs are supposed to lead to sex. Brandon often longs to have somebody pet his hair or give him a hug  -  just some nonsexual physical affection.
So Rusty was stroking Brandon's hair, we thought everything was cool for now (we knew it wouldn't be for ever, but it seemed okay for tonight....) then Rusty came out with it.
"Question," he said. "Are we ever going to have sex again - ?"

Right now Rage, doesn't want a human name. He wants to be called Rage.

We told Rusty we're not prepared to have sex with him, and may not ever be. We told him we realize he has certain needs, and we would understand if he got those needs met elsewhere, as long as he was discreet and careful and didn't disrespect us about it. (LIke, just go get laid, dude! But quite pretending you love us just so you can get what you want! God! We've *begged* you to stop that, for so long!


THIS IS RAGE NOW.
YOU KNOW WHAT ? I DON'T GIVE A SHIT WHAT YOU PEOPLE READING THIS, THINK ABOUT US! YOU DON'T LIVE IN OUR SHOES, WE DO!
BRANDON JUST WANTS TO BE LOVED, THAT'S ALL! GOD! THESE PEOPLE IN HERE HAVE DONE SO MUCH TO KEEP THIS ASSHOLE SEXUALLY SATISFIED!

I FUCKING HATE PEOPLE, I HATE YOUR FUCKING OPINIONS, EVERYBODY'S A FUCKING LIAR!
BRANDON JUST WANTS A FRIEND OR TWO, A HUG ONCE IN  A WHILE!
(Okay. An*********e, you did send him a free hug. Thank you. I hope you won't turn your back on him, for not kissing Rusty's ass. Sorry for putting it that way, but goddamn, is there one person on the face of this earth outside our own skin that we can be fucking honest with ? Did you ever just want to feel accepted, even during a bad moment ?
We've given this guy sex. Lots of it. Whether we wanted to or not. Right now the only reason he's being nice to us, is he wants to get laid. I Fucking HATE hi for teasing Brandon with the promise of love and affection, for no other reason than to ge some honey on his stinger. That;s not fair. And then when we *do* fuck him (which mostly falls to Freddie), where is all that "affection" ? Gone, baby! Out the fucking window! Because he's got what he wanted, so piss on us!

Yeah. I could be wrong. I know. That's me. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I'm just a walking, talking bundle of wrongness.

But, you don't have to hate the others for how I feel. You can hate me. Go ahead. I don't give a shit any more.

And my name is not Gage. It's Rage. I am NOT human any more. And i don't even remember whether i was originally male or female. Moot point, really. Now I'm a hideaous monster. I didn't do this to myself, but here it is, and here I am.

So now I wonder how many people are going to turn their backs on us because we hate what Rusty just did, the dishonesty of it.

So Brandon feels sorry for me ? Well, Ifeel sorry for him, too. Really sorry. Because he tries to be a good person, he only wants to be loved and accepted, and he's got a lot of love and affection to give in return. But.....the thing he wants most, he'll never get.
I think I'm much better off than he is. Because I dont' WANT anybody's stupid, phony affection any more. I know I'm not going to get it, and so I don't lose any sleep worrrying about it.

I know that people FUCKING SUCK!!!!!

Brandon is getting a bit tripped out about Gage now.
So is Freddie, but to a lesser extent  -  Freddie sometimes has some spiritual resources that Brandon doesn't have.

Anyway, the deal is this:
Symbolically, to Brandon, when he looks as Gage's scars, he's thinking, "What does that mean for me ? It was me that had all those burn-dreams, me and Freddie."
And then he's thinking, "Symbolically, it's like this: because of where Freddie and I have been and the effect it's had on us, no one is ever going to love us or really even like us again. People will find us repulsive now, once they start encountering our scars. We're screwed."

There's a lot that plays in to this  -  Stef's early depression around feeling 'unlovable'.  Doing (and doing, and doing) that AA Fourth Step until we'd uncovered all those deep-down character defects.....and finding out we actually are pretty f*****ked up inside. And then, going on Internet groups for multiples, watching mostly Brandon but also Forest and Freddie and even Lige make some close friendships.....and then watching those friendships crumble during our near-divorce, as some of our uglier emotions came out.

Not to mention the changes in our marriage....yes, it's still on, and yes, Rusty and I do seem to still have some sort of affection for one another.....but it's nowhere near the thing that it used to be.
Also, our relationship with our two youngest children.....we don't know whether to count that or not, as the kids are young adults and trying their wings, and we remember being pretty distant from our folks at that age. So, maybe that's nothing, no reflection of what we've become.
The one bright spot in all of it, is Russell. We're very close to him, in spite of all the ugliness he witnessed while he was growing up. He's on that other side of 25 now, very much a man, knows himself  -  so he's past that cutting-the-apron-strings stage.

(This makes us sad, around our mom. We still have some love for the woman who's always been our mother. We just don't feel like we can reach her any more, even if we go to her house and wrap our arms around the body she used to live in. It's hard to explain....)

Anyway. We're jsut now beginning to figure out Gage's place, in all this. (Still hard not to call him Rage. But, he deserves a human name. Whatever it was that made him this way, he certainly didn't ask for it. And we know he didn't deserve it, because nobody deserves it.)
Brandon is really tripped out. He's saying, "That's me. I'm him. We've been to the same place. I just don't carry the physical scars, and I got to lose a lot of the memory. He didn't. Underneath all that, he's another me."
That's a scary thing in other ways besides just visually. Gage is dangerous, full of hate, and wants to lash out. At whole groups of people. Individuals who haven't even done anything to him. None of us has ever felt like that before. Like, Gage could be one of those people who could go postal somewhere and hurt a bunch of people. We hate to say it, but he might even be capable of murder if he thought he could get away with it. That's saying a mouth full, for us. Not even Alex, has ever been a murderer at heart. (Which reminds me....Alex won't go anywhere near Gage. Because Gage has affected his emotions before, Alex has soaked up some of what Gage was feeling, and now that Alex knows where it's coming from, he says "I want no part of that action!")

Wow. What to do about this. We know we can't just kill him, that never works. Also, he's here for a reason, though we're not sure what it is. Now that  he's appeared, the rest of us are less tormented by anger and resentment.
It's like, Gage is the sacrifice (burnt offering) for the rest of us.
But....we don't want to sacrifice anybody! Especially not someone so young. (Forest says, "I would take his place if I could. If the rest of you can think of a way, I will take it.")
That's saying a lot, Fo. You might want to think about that one....

Oh. Gage does have a heart! He doesn't want Forest to do it. He doesn't want any of us to carry his scars....the outer ones, or the inner ones.
Gage is volunteering to keep them.

That makes Brandon really sad. Brandon is saying he doensn't think he could carry the inner scars, because they would kill him, he wouldn't be himself any more. But that he'd take the physical scars, and let Gage walk around looking like Brandon and Freddie.
Freddie is volunteering to take *all* the scars, to trade places with Gage, just trade across the board. He says it's not like Gage would get off easy, Freddie's had a hard journey of his own  -  but people do tend to like Freddie. We can't imagine anyone feeling any real affection for Gage. Even we ourselves have trouble feeling affection for him, not so much due to his appearance, as his spite.
(Except for Brandon and Freddie. They seem to feel something for Gage, that is beyond kindness and pity.)
Freddie is inviting Gage to stay with him at his home part of the time, so he doesn't have to be confined to the house and the yard all the time.

I really don't know where this is going to go.

But in the physical world, Rusty and I have a dinner invitation at seven, and it's ten after four right now.
Lige is freaking out  -  social phobia.
Freddie is volunteering to be out front for this one.
There are two other couples invitied to this place as well, so that takes some of the pressure off.....it will be easy to just nod and smile and let everybody else talk. Ask questions, all that.
If it wasn't for the neighbors who issued the invitation, we'd fear this was an Amway thing. But we don't think these particular neighbors would do that.

It's been a very long time since we've been invited to someone's house for dinner. That used to be a common thing, when Rusty and I were first married, and when the kids were young.....going to someone's house for dinner, having people over for dinner. Somewhere along the line, it all changed.....

But tonight, whatever this turns out to be, Freddie has volunteered to front, and Lige is coaching him. We're nervous as hell, because we no longer have the social confidence we used to  -  we've gone from fearing we're unlikable, to *knowing* we're unlikable, an