Title This is a response document to the public letter released by ‘The Tickler’ ✅

This is a response document to the public letter released by ‘The Tickler’. For convenience, the public letter will be referred to as the ‘original document’. There is a two-and-a-half-year age gap between ‘The Tickler’ and I. For convenience, they will be referred to as ‘T’. I did not ever have any intention to, nor did I ever groom T. I did not ever coerce T into acts of any nature they were not comfortable with. The idea of this makes me feel absolutely sick. This will be fully and clearly addressed later in this document. I will be addressing each point in the order they were brought up in the original document. I will, therefore, be discussing heavy topics and themes mentioned in the original document, so please be aware. This response will be formatted to be as concise and as straightforward as possible in order to respect your time. Please read through it all. Thank you. - ‘The Beginning’ T and I first began speaking in DMs on March 19th, 2020. At this time, I had been dealing with an extraordinary amount of gender dysphoria, mental health issues and a cycle of severe verbal abuse from within my own household as a means to shut down the idea that I was transgender. Once I began speaking to T, I realized I had found solace in somebody who was sweet, accepted me for who I was, and that I could trust. This was something I was desperate for in what felt like extreme isolation. T was also in an extremely vulnerable place, having just exited an incredibly damaging friendship that I guided them through the end of. This brought us close quite quickly, while we were both at very emotionally vulnerable points of our lives. In hindsight, this was a recipe for disaster. I wholeheartedly regret how obscenely obsessive I became at this time. I was jealous of my new friend who had everything that I felt like I didn’t have, in tandem with my increasingly aggressive gender dysphoria. I had severe issues with oversharing, especially with somebody I had just met. At this time, my OCD was also, what I now recognize, at its most aggressive. I felt like I needed constant reassurance. This was something I had been doing with several friends leading up to my friendship with T, but with how close and vulnerable we were with each other, I ended up consistently asking T for reassurance for my OCD obsessions. This is the worst thing somebody with OCD can do, and I fell into that trap.
Some of my obsessions (such as my fear of failing to ‘crush’ on somebody) became something I was jealous of my friend for having. This was entirely unhealthy of me. In hindsight, I should have broken off the friendship entirely as soon as I began to notice this happening. Part of me was glad to have somebody to vent to and relate with, and we both reciprocated a platonic love for each other, despite how worryingly codependent the friendship was getting. Another part of me was starting to recognize how toxic things were getting, and only a few months in I expressed this concern to a friend of mine, and seriously considered ending things. I recognize now that T and I were both feeding into each other’s fear of abandonment. I softened my words as I was afraid of hurting them if I ever left, and decided that I could still make things work in a healthy way. I was not in my right mind. I wish I’d been advised to leave. - Early on in the friendship, I began to refer to T as my ‘sister’. This never, ever, alluded to anything more than a sincere platonic affection towards my friend. This was reciprocated quickly by T, who began to refer to me similarly. This is evidenced below.