Chapter 1 Ren

[Ren]
Hello, everyone. This is the first time I've done something like this before. I wanted to write it down because there's a lot, and I didn't want to miss anything. And some parts of this might be a little bit uncomfortable to listen to, but I wanted to stay as true as possible to the story, not miss anything. For the sake of people who might be going through something similar, or for the sake of people who aren't, but want to help understand a little bit more.

I promise that everything in this story is 100% true. Nothing is exaggerated for dramatic effect. Some names I don't mention, and some details I don't go too far into or downplay them for the sake of the people around me.

Timelines might occasionally be a little bit off, but that's just because I´ve had to write everything from memory, from a time that was quite hazy.

I ask, before embarking on this journey with me, that you will respect the privacy of myself and the people around me. You might be compelled to reach out to some of the people I mentioned, cast judgment, praise them, criticize them, and I ask you kindly not to. It's my choice to be in the public eye, and it's mine alone.

This is the first time my story's on the public record, in a concise way. Being in the public eye is strange. The more that I give to you, the less that I get to keep for myself. I don't find the experience of sharing particularly enjoyable, I don't so much like the questions that follow, and I'm not a medical expert, so I don't like to be seen as somebody with all the answers because I don't have them. And because of the empathy that I feel, I'm compelled to try and help as many people as possible. But the last time I opened myself up to this on a one on one basis, I was surrounded by a lot of death and there simply weren't enough hours in the day. So I ask you if you need support, please reach out to a professional or use my music as your companion.

I share my story in hopes that somebody who needs it finds it. That it provides hope, that it might ease the suffering for the people like me. I like my solitude, so I ask that anyone who respects the work I make and respects my contribution to the world to respect my solitude.

A lot happened in my teenage years, and I didn't live the most normal of lives. But I'll save that story for another time. The important thing to contextualize the story is that I was full of life. I was full of a burning desire to change the world, the flaws in how we interact seemed obvious to me. I believed in people's power to change the unnecessary suffering we inflict upon ourselves. I was also enamored with music. Music is the closest thing to God that I have. It's a gateway to the unexplainable, and it's a way of communicating the inexpressible.

There's just one moment I want to share with you from the years before I got sick. I was 17, and I felt indestructible. I'm not sure why, but my whole life I had this feeling inside myself that I was meant to do something important. Not for myself, not for praise, not for personal gain, but something that would change the world for the better. It's hard to describe it without coming across like an egomaniac or having some sort of god complex, but I felt like I had some sort of divine purpose.

And I remember feeling this so strongly that one afternoon after school, I stood in the center of my bedroom and I spoke loud into an empty void. I said that I would single handedly take on and defeat the forces of evil, and I welcomed them to try their best. Throughout the years, that memory stuck with me, taunting me sometimes.

Flash forward to 2009.

I remember the first day I knew something was wrong very well. I woke up in an unfamiliar room in Cardiff, feeling like a raven had perched itself upon my heart. Every time a heart beat, it's like some part of me was aware of the foreboding death sentence that was to come. Some sort of primal, instinctive dread. Everything felt wrong, and I felt prosthetic, like I could tear my own skin off and observe, though as watching passively from another room.

The night before I'd been in Cardiff visiting friends in university. It was the end of summer, we'd gone out to a few bars, I wasn't really enjoying myself. That year, I'd been struggling with social anxiety, perhaps from years of abusing my brain with a whole pick'n'mix and selection of party drugs. Engaging with society felt like stepping into the ring with a heavyweight champion. Every single fucking question felt like an oncoming haymaker I had to socially navigate, because of my very limited toolkit of charisma at the time.

I don't know why I cared about being liked so much, but the more I cared, the less equipped I became to have a simple human conversation. I used to deal with this by getting fucking hammered. That night was no exception. I got smashed, lost my phone, and woke up in a strange apartment. In the bed opposite mine was a snoring rugby player and his girlfriend.