When a World No Longer Holds You

 For the past fifteen years, Second Life has been part of my every single day. It was my safety blanket — the place I always returned to. A constant, a comfort.

But something has shifted. Yesterday, for the first time in over a decade, I didn’t log in at all. Not because I was avoiding it, but because I was too absorbed in something new: creating with my own hands, with help, with love. Part of that shift comes from the medications I’m on now — they’ve changed how I see myself and the world around me.

And here’s the surprising part: I didn’t miss it. The people I meet there, the energy — it doesn’t hold me the way it once did. It feels like I’ve outgrown it.

Even the things I used to buy there don’t fit me anymore. What I shopped for never really reflected the things I use in my daily life, or matched my style. Apart from lingerie, most of what’s out there just isn’t me. I used to shop every weekend, filling in that gap. But now? I haven’t gone shopping in over two weeks. And I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything — because I don’t need to. I can create my own things, and they finally reflect who I am.

One big shift came when I finally got the wheelchair I had wanted for over fifteen years. Seeing myself in Second Life with it — moving as I truly do in real life — changed everything. For the first time, my avatar wasn’t just an image, it was a reflection. I could really see myself. And once I did, I couldn’t go back to the things that didn’t feel true anymore.

When Second Life introduced actual mirrors, everyone rushed to them. People were excited to see themselves in a new way. But I didn’t care about those mirrors — they never showed me the truth. My real mirror was my wheelchair. That was the moment I truly recognized myself, and that reflection meant more to me than any surface ever could.

And then another shift came: the moment I realized I could create things with my own hands. With the right tools, it wasn’t nearly as complicated as I had feared. Suddenly the question became: What else can I do? What else am I capable of? The spark of creation turned into possibility, and possibility turned into freedom.

It’s becoming clearer to me each day: I’m outgrowing something that once kept me grounded. And yet, I don’t feel sad about it. I feel free.

And maybe the next spark is already waiting for me.

Seeing Myself in Second Life: A Surreal Breakthrough

Last night was one of the most emotional experiences I’ve ever had in Second Life. It wasn’t about some big event, a new sim opening, or meeting new people. It was about me. For the first time, I saw myself in Second Life exactly as I am in real life — in my wheelchair, with my backpack hanging just where it should be.

It hit me harder than I ever expected.

I’ve used wheelchairs in SL before, but those were just objects — something I wore or sat in. They weren’t mine. They didn’t carry the small, personal details that make something feel real. This time was different. This time I wasn’t just using “a wheelchair.” I was using my wheelchair, customized, accessorized, and scripted until it felt right. And when I finally sat in it, it was like looking in a mirror.

And that’s when it all came crashing down.

I wasn’t just crying. I was uncontrollably sobbing — waves of emotion hitting me all at once. It felt like a panic attack and yet it wasn’t fear. It was happiness, sorrow, shock, relief, and recognition all tangled together. I could barely breathe because it felt so real. For the first time, I was seeing myself fully, without hiding, and it overwhelmed me.

Because here’s the truth: my wheelchair isn’t my identity. It doesn’t define me. But it is part of my life. It shapes how I move, how I navigate the world, how I live. And seeing it honestly reflected in SL — not erased, not hidden, not avoided — was surreal.

For the first time, I felt like I belonged in this virtual space exactly as I am in reality. Not as a performance. Not as a test of how others would react. Just as me.

And here’s the part that caught me off guard: it almost felt like I was saying goodbye to who I used to be in Second Life. The version of me who stood, who “blended in,” who hid this part of myself. That avatar no longer feels like the truth. Last night was a shift — the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.

I also know this decision may put people off. I saw proof of it already. A friend asked if I was enjoying myself, and I said yes, absolutely. I even joked that it would be interesting to see how many people don’t talk to me anymore. He replied, “Oh, so that’s the test.” I told him, “No. This isn’t a test. This is how I want to see myself in Second Life.” And then he never answered me again — maybe because he didn’t know what to say, maybe because he was busy doing something else. Either way, the silence spoke volumes.

I won’t be sought after the way I was when I was walking. And that hurts to admit. But at the same time, it doesn’t change my truth. This is me.

Last night changed something in me.

I realized that authenticity in SL is just as important as in real life. It’s not about being defined by my chair, but about including it in my truth. And when I saw myself, really saw myself, backpack and all, it felt so real I could barely breathe.

It was shocking, overwhelming, beautiful. Almost like letting go of an old identity and stepping fully into my real one. And it’s something I’ll carry with me every time I log in from now on.

Because in Second Life, people often fall in love with the idea of you, not the reality of you. Last night, I chose reality.

Rising From Abuse: My Story in Second Life

 

⚠️ Trigger Warning: abuse, gaslighting, emotional manipulation, coercive control

I’m a resilient person. No matter what knocks me down, I get back up. I’ve always told myself and others: if something bends you, you’re not broken — and there’s no reason not to rise again.

People often ask how I can be so “untouchable.” The answer is simple: I don’t care what others think of me. Their perception is their problem, not mine.

---

Gaslighting and Control

I spent three years with an abusive partner in Second Life. His real-life brother pretended to be my friend, but behind my back he pressured my partner to leave me — especially when I became pregnant in SL.

One day, my ex told me point blank: “I don’t like how pregnancy looks on you, so please just have the baby right now.”

For some, Second Life is just a game. For me, it’s an extension of myself — freedom despite my real-life disability. So when he said that, it cut deeply. It felt like he was telling me to end something real, not just pixels.

What his brother did only amplified the abuse. But the truth is, my ex was a narcissist. His brother’s interference made it worse, but the abuse came from him.

---

A Moment I’ll Never Forget

One experience changed me forever. The three of us were working on a project in SL while I was also writing a blog post. A song came on called My Brother’s Girlfriend is Now My Girlfriend. His brother laughed and said, “Oh, this song really reminds me of something.”

I laughed too, because before I was only with my ex, I had been in a polyamorous relationship with both of them. That had worked well — until my ex ruined it because he wanted me all to himself.

So there we were, months later, the song playing, both me and the brother laughing at the irony. And then, in the middle of the conversation, my ex IM’d me privately: “Shut up.”

I told him never to speak to me like that again and I left. When I got home, he was furious. He raged in caps, accusing me of ruining his honor, of making him look like an idiot. And then he said something I will never forget:
“You’re so blinded by your self-pity. You disgust me.”

Those words cut deeper because he knew I’m disabled in real life, and he also knew there isn’t a “pity me” bone in my body. I’ve never wanted pity, because pity doesn’t help anyone.

---

Living by His Rules

He constantly told me I didn’t prioritize him, that I didn’t love him. The irony is that for three years straight, I shaped my entire life around him. By 6 p.m. every evening in my time zone, I made sure to be at home in SL, waiting, because that’s when he might log in.

If I wasn’t there, he would accuse me of cheating. So day after day, year after year, I stayed home before 6, trapped in this routine to avoid his accusations. Eventually, I spent hours every night doing nothing but waiting, because I knew it was the only way to keep him calm. And still, he said I didn’t put him first. How is that not prioritizing?

---

When I Tried to Build Something for Myself

Another experience stays with me. I had a job I loved, working at a hotel in SL. It functioned like a real hotel: serving dinner, doing room service, checking people in.

I asked if I could work on Valentine’s Day, knowing he never celebrated holidays. He agreed — but then abused me in IMs all day, demanding “proof” I wasn’t in someone’s room having sex. He even made me take a picture to prove I was really working.

---

Finding My Power Again

I went through all of this, and finally knowing I wasn’t crazy — that this was actual abuse — made me feel empowered again.

I still think of him from time to time and the moments we shared. Even though they were few and far apart, there were good moments. Those are the memories my mind goes back to, because in those moments I felt safe and secure.

Those moments of love-bombing made me feel like he was the love of my life. For a while, they erased the thoughts of “Why don’t I leave him? Should I leave him?” The love-bombing blurred out the bad — and that’s why I stayed as long as I did.

---

The Truth

But here’s the truth: love-bombing isn’t love, it’s manipulation. He broke me down, but I got back up. And now, while he’s nothing more than a bad memory, I’m still here — stronger, louder, and impossible to silence.

What This Was: A Checklist of Abuse

Sometimes survivors doubt themselves and wonder, “Was this really abuse?” Let me be clear: yes, it was.

Here’s how what I went through fits into recognized patterns of abuse:

• Gaslighting: making me doubt reality, insisting I didn’t prioritize or love him, calling me “self-pitying” when I wasn’t.

• Emotional & psychological abuse: constant accusations, rage in caps, shaming me for laughing or being pregnant in SL.

• Control & isolation: forcing me to be online by 6 p.m. every night, demanding proof of my work, trapping me in routines.

• Coercive control: shaping my entire daily life to avoid his anger and accusations.

• Love-bombing & trauma bonding: rare “good moments” and bursts of affection kept me hooked, erasing the abuse temporarily.

Online or offline — abuse is abuse. The pain, confusion, and damage are real. And so is the strength it takes to survive and reclaim yourself.

I have to figure out where to go from here.

 

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. Again, things have just been a roller coaster. I don't know how many of you have read my post titled “What the hell happened?”

Long story short, I was ghosted by a 26-year-old boy. I say boy because he was not mature whatsoever. Go back and read the post if you want to know more.

 

His ghosting put me on a downward spiral, to say the least.

I talked to my real-life husband about going for a checkup at the doctor's, where they test for everything. About a week later, I get UTI infections that I've had about 150 times in my lifetime so far. So I went to the doctor and got prescribed antibiotics; however, the doctor wanted to run a few more tests to ensure nothing else was wrong.

And that's when the hospital circus began. The doctor got the test results back, basically told her that I was in the acute stages of anemia, and every single test that she ran came back abnormal.

My B12 is almost nonexistent, my folic acid is nonexistent, and my blood count is at a three. You should have between 70 and 150.

I also had a kidney stone, and I also have 0.8 percent fatty liver.

So there has been much going back and forth to the hospital, doing a bunch of tests, trying to figure out why my body is like this.

I have been under the impression that because of my disability I can't be on birth control due to the risk of blood clots so my periods have always been very very very heavy so they put me on birth control for the first time in my life to try to control bleeding from my menstrual cycles because as it turns out I have been bleeding so much that my menstrual cycles should have killed me. I always thought that I just had him be periods, but that was not the case.

So I'm now on birth control for the rest of my life, probably, but I would rather take that than be dead.

However, this doctor listened to me and understood what was happening.

I have religiously been tracking my body and its behavior for the past two years or so because I was so sick and tired of people not taking me seriously in the medical profession, so I took matters into my own hands.

We went through the folder that I had with me, and trust me, this is not a small folder; this is huge.

I don't know how to keep myself from bursting into tears, but somehow I did.

He continued, saying, “You can't do anything about this without medical help; your body simply doesn't know what to do on its own.”

He also said, “You no longer have to fight against your body. I will help you. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?”

 

Thirty minutes later, I walked out of the doctor's office with the medication waiting for me at a pharmacy and with the diagnosis I had been suspecting my entire life.

 

My entire life, I have told the medical professionals over and over and over again that there was something wrong with my body, and every single one of them has just swept me under the rug without listening to me.

 

I don't think I'm ready to disclose more than this right now, because there was a stigma around this topic, and there was a stigma around having this disorder.

 

Because my life is yet again on this new path, I have felt increasingly out of touch with my second life.

It has become mundane and boring; there are glimmers of hope for a second life. Still, nothing more than that, I feel myself drifting away from second life more and more. I feel like I'm just tired of the bullshit, and nobody seems to hold themselves accountable for anything that they do anymore.

 

So this is sad to say, but I have slowly but surely started to fade second life away from me.

This started to happen when the 26-year-old boy decided he couldn't handle being an adult, so he ghosted me to avoid probably getting his ear chewed off by me and my real-life husband.

I gave that relationship every ounce of my being that I had left from being severely abused by my ex for three years before the 26-year-old boy came along.

My heart has just shut down now because either I get abused, somebody else gets chosen over me, or I'll just get ghosted on. So I have literally just given up on everything that has to do with second life and happiness because that clearly does not exist in second life.

So yeah, I have to figure out where I am going from here because my life will never be the same.

/Tessa

To Love and be loved.

 Click the photo to make it bigger.

/tessa

Midnight whispers.

 

Click the picture to make it bigger 

💔What the Hell happened?💔

 

That's the question I would like to have answered, trust me.

 I have only my gut feeling; otherwise, I have no clue.

Everything was so wonderful, perfect, romantic, and loving, but that all changed in the blink of an eye.

When I went to pick up my second life husband from the bus station, I was so giddy and nervous, I couldn't wait to see him.

In the back of my mind, I had a lingering feeling that something was going to go wrong; I didn't know what or when, but I just had a sinking feeling.

I decided not to think about it too much.

He held my hand the entire car ride home and told me he loved me.

When we got home, my real-life husband and I walked around the neighborhood while my real-life husband cleaned up the last few things in our house.

My second-life husband and I went to the water and shared our first kiss.

The butterflies in my stomach were so strong, I didn't know what to do with myself.

It was very romantic.

I returned home and don't know if it was the shock of the actual size of my house or something else, but I could feel that something had just shifted.

I had to prepare him because I don't live in a vast house; it's relatively small. My home would be like a one-bedroom apartment if you compare the sizes.

We kissed a lot, and we both enjoyed each other's company, finally

I won't go into much more detail than that.

We sat in front of my computer when, suddenly, my second-life husband told me that he did not feel comfortable with the fact that my real-life husband was meters away from us, sleeping, and that it felt like my real-life husband had set this up somehow. He used a sexual term for it.

I just sat there in shock, unsure of what to say or do, except to tell him that this was not the case.

When he said that, I wanted to say,” Well, if you think that way about our relationship already, then this is over.”

 I didn't say it, I just sat there quietly. I almost started to cry when he asked me if I was OK I nodded, but that wasn't OK I was far from OK.

We kissed again, and I tried to put what was said back in my mind, thinking that maybe he was just nervous.

When I woke up the next day, my real-life husband had gone to the big house to have coffee, so my second-life husband and I were alone. I quietly woke him up, asking if he wanted to cuddle with me in bed. I was not prepared for the answer he gave me.

He said he was sleeping and just rolled over to his bed.

 

I have never felt more unattractive in that moment, I felt like I was the ugliest woman in the entire world! I felt like I was a woman who had a deadly disease. I can't explain the feeling other than to say that I felt extremely unattractive.

I started to silently cry because I knew in that moment that he most likely was never going to come back.

I even texted my real-life husband that I was kind of sad because I don't think my second-life husband is coming back after this.

After a little while, my second life husband called out of bed and went to the bathroom. Once again, he asked him to come and lie down on the bed with me, but he didn't do that again.

 

I took my phone and texted my second-life husband on Discord, asking if everything was OK between us.

He said yes, they are. I knew he was lying to me; I could feel it with every bone in my body. I wanted to cry most of that day, to be honest, but I didn't. I wanted to cry because everything was so different between us.

 

That Saturday evening all my fears and the feelings of rejection was confirmed because he didn't even want me to touch him in that way anymore, he gave me some Bull shit excuse that he was not feeling well.

I still wanted to hold out hope, but everything in my body said he was not returning.

On the Sunday when I left him at the bus station, he said, “I will see you in May, maybe.”

In my head, I was going,” Why would you say that when you told me that you want this to continue and you want this to keep going? Why would you say maybe?”

When my second life husband got on the bus I broke down sobbing I was sobbing so hard that I couldn't even get the words out to my real life husband At first but after a little while I was able to say to him” he's not coming back, he's not coming back I know it”

 

My real-life husband, of course, tried to console me and talk to me about things that I was feeling.

 

The ghosting started slowly.

With him not responding to me for a few hours, which was very unusual because we had this relationship where we spoke to each other almost on a minute-by-minute basis when we could

I didn't think much of it.

Then he started talking to me differently, typing to me differently, not being as affectionate or attentive as he used to be.

I would type to him on Discord, but he would not respond for six or seven hours.

SIX OR SEVEN HOURS, People!

On April 17, 2025, he sent me a message saying that he was working and was stressed. That's the last message that I ever got from him.

 

I told my real-life husband what my now ex-second-life husband had implied when he was here.

My real-life husband responded with “So what does he think that polyamorous is all about?"

“It's about having full-blown relationships with other people without hesitation or holding back.”

My real-life husband is furious that my now ex-second-life husband even came up with that idea.

 

He also said, “Now I know what he's doing, he's ghosting you because he can't be man enough to tell you that this was not something he was comfortable with.”

“I am furious  because he told you things that you took straight to your heart, and now he's just stomping on it like you never existed in the first place.”

I've tried calling him, I've been attempting to text him,  I've wanted to talk to him on Discord, and I've tried everything in my power to get any sign of life from him. I even texted his mother, but I still haven't received a response.

My real-life husband even said,” I've heard about ghosting before, but this level of ghosting? Like dropping from the face of the earth kind of ghosting? I have never seen or experienced in my entire life.”

Today, April 23, 2025, I sent him the very last text message.

I removed him from my apartment in Second Life, removed him from my rental boat in Second Life, removed him as my partner in Second Life, removed him from my friends list in Second Life, and removed him from my Discord.

I took him off everything.

I have never felt so empty as a woman, and I have never felt so unattractive as a woman.

If I could only tell you word for word what this man has told me, what he felt for me, what he wanted to do, everything, I'm