It feels like it's been forever since the last awkward Kuwoobie problems thread. It's a shame the forum is kind of dead now. I'd really like to see what Ari and Belkira and others would have to say about all this.
About two months ago-- I'm not even sure exactly when it happened. I received a Skype call from a random player needing assistance with my Minecraft server. Rarely does anyone call-- if ever, they will send me a message and I deal with whatever the issue is directly from my console. Since then, she has video/voice called me just to talk nearly every day-- with calls frequently exceeding 9+ hours. With my wife being away much of the time with her new job as an RN, it was great to have someone keeping me company without having to be asked. I ended up teaching her how to play World of Warcraft and we spent a great deal of time doing that together.
When the big update for Terraria came out, we started playing that together instead. Around that time something happened. We began to have conversations that didn't feel comfortable talking about in calls-- problems with her family and personal life, which are many. I can't believe how intelligent she is-- how articulate with her thoughts-- how crass and witty are her jokes, given she is only 11 years old. Basically, she feels abandoned and ignored by her parents, who are now divorced and remarried. She has told me that I am like a father to her now. As for my feelings... I have never felt so close to anyone in my life. We have a strange kind of mutual understand about many things that go completely unsaid. It's a different kind of love than I've felt before, but also very intense. Perhaps it is as if I had a daughter?
Often times, a lot of the things she tells me scare the living **** out of me. She is incredibly rude and crass and will frequently become violently hostile with other people we are playing with online-- which has caused her to have a lot of problems with people in the past. She has made my stepdaughter cry on several occasions with words of cruelty that could wound even the most well-adjusted adults. She says that I make her feel calm-- less stressed. I am probably the only person she talks to, at least online, that she can act friendly towards. She claims to have multiple personalities. One of them, Red, is supposedly some manifestation of her damaged self that comes out when she's lashing out at people. Sometimes I have to speak to Red... she says she will tear me to pieces and laugh while she's doing it. I respond by saying I will let her hurt me all she wants if it will make her feel better. She says it is no fun unless it hurts. There are a lot of things that people say that will "trigger" an emotional response for Red to come out, mostly without warning. Usually it is my stepdaughter, or other online friends who cause this. I get the feeling she doesn't like to have to compete for my attention, and it is when she becomes to most violent. She says that Red is her true self, and the personality she has when she seems happy is a mask of sorts. She says I am one of three pillars of her sanity-- the others being her alternate personality, and her friend from school. If we were to go away, she says, Red would become unbound and take over completely. She is never Red while in voice chat.
I feel like everything in me wants to heal her-- to protect her. She often compares me to a character in her favorite anime, Black Butler, and refers to me as her butler, and herself as Ciel Phantomhive, who, like her, is often vastly underestimated because of their age. Sadly, there is nothing much I can do for her other than be here for her every day. My wife says we could adopt her if not for her felony, and the fact that her parents aren't technically mistreating her as far as we know, and the fact that she lives several states north of here-- that and she would probably murder my stepdaughter if we lived together