Carrion Comfort + A Birthday Transformation
- Yennephy Gaming
- May 10
- 16 min read
Updated: May 22
There has been a very strong momentum driving me towards balance in all areas of life recently. Whether observed through cleaning out friendships that were no longer aligned with my goals, clarifying my desires towards a more inclusive and leftist community, or in paying more attention to the content that I am consuming and the thoughts traveling through my brain- this time period has been littered with an intentional scrubbing. In spite of the deep clean, I am moving gently and carefully through each of the areas of my life with enormous compassion. It's sobering to grieve people that are still living, and humbling in ways that I don't regret because they continue to teach me. The rest of my life could use a complete resurfacing until I am the person who aligns with the things I truly want, and for once in my life I feel no resistance to that idea anymore, it can all fade away until I am nothing but clay to become what I must to get where I desire to be. At the same time, no shortage of events have emerged to pull me off course to try and dip these scales in a manner I have found personally horrifying.
On Monday of this recent week, after therapy, I was minding what I thought to be a normal day of tidying the house when my head moderators rallied due to inappropriate activity happening to me in a stream I was lurking in. What unfolded was entirely unacceptable- a public harassment and stalking attempt with the aggressor located close enough in physical space to me to be considered a viable threat. Law enforcement was contacted, I streamed anyway in the face of the affront to my privacy and safety, and finished a broadcast where I said nothing to the audience only to find messages from people I am no longer close with letting me know that the behaviors were repeated inside their spaces. My body, which is normally very at ease with high stress situations, picked precisely that moment to reject all sustenance and revert me back to a state of being unable to eat anything without immediately vomiting it back up. For an entire week, I could not eat, and I could not settle down as electricity jumped from my gut to my extremities with constant anxiety.
Though one might consider the situation handled with law enforcement contacted at this point, I am left deeply unsettled by the events that transpired so soon after I concluded No One Gets Out Alive, a book that deals heavily with themes of stalking and intent towards violence. So before we begin this week's update, I have to tell you, my energy is a bit off right now as I sit here writing this post. For weeks I have been nothing but abundant and feeling positive, and this entire event threw a wrench in my self perception and experience of reality. This is not happening because I don’t want to discuss the marvelous book I am reading with you all, but because I had a birthday that was punctuated by fear and feeling intensely unseen as I sat on a camera in plain sight, and it has now prompted some serious self reflection. For 33, I think the gift I will give myself this year is stronger discernment and a whole lot less of one thing in particular: projection.
*****
In my spare time I have been digging into my family’s association with asylum culture, as both in Italy and in The United States several members of my family found themselves interned indefinitely in such facilities as Greystone Asylum where they were subjected to physical torture. It has been a daunting task to sort through so many old memories from my relatives, to hear their testimonies about witnessing the aftermath of lobotomies, electroshock therapy, and other barbaric methods that have since been outlawed in the scientific community. The terror and trauma that my family’s lineage has been subjected to on two continents from being neurodivergent in one manner or another is enormous, and the weight of my dead relatives sits heavily upon me as I choose books to read. in some nebulous way, I know that they chose this one for me as a means of confronting this legacy as well as the enduring effects of the systems that they were interacting with.
*****
In either late January or early February, I attempted to pick up Dan Simmons' Carrion Comfort and I was not in the right headspace to start it. Dealing with a lack of support in multiple areas of life, the text felt dense and while the prose was beautiful and riveting, it was a struggle for me to connect with the lead character. Melanie, our protagonist, is a mind vampire that is meeting up with her old friends who are fellow cognitive feeders to discuss how many human lives they've ended that year. It's an old game for them that originated in Vienna, a "good old boys" club for the uniquely gifted. While the annual tradition is rooted in intimacy and sport, as I first read about it all I felt was a hollow echo of recognition from my own interactions with people that I no longer speak to. There are no old friends for me to meet up with and reconvene that way anymore, and even new ones are not permitted to get too close.
After many rounds of experiencing the humiliation ritual of life in the public to some degree or another, I am tired, and my bandwidth for human connection is limited as a result. So the note that this novel began on was one that in January, I could not resonate properly with because I was still in the environment and not quite ready yet to face the reality of my social circumstances. You see, I'd simply refuse to respond to the invitation to gather altogether rather than be in company I couldn't stand, rather than speak about anyone snidely as Melanie does priavtely in her internal observations. Yet, the book lingered in the back of my mind like smoke after a long finished cigarette, and in my own quiet moments I privately vowed to keep exploring it, because something about the scene felt unique and cozy in a way that I've secretly always longed for: intimate friendships.
The concept of Simmons' Mind Vampire is simple: there are a group of individuals who retain their immortality by remotely detonating human beings via their prefrontal cortex to carry out all manner of violence and self-destructive behavior onto others and that retains their youth. As a result, all of the group are kept young and they are operating outside of a larger network of fellow Mind Vampires who run a sort of secret society for the elite doing the same thing in the public eye. The deaths are recorded by this tight little group of friends, who use the violence to sustain their youth while the larger dominant group observes their goings on and keeps tabs on their progress.
A wrench is thrown into things for Melanie much like it was for me, as it just so happens our protagonist has decided to give up the game in favor of allowing herself to age. I relate to her immensely, Melanie has discovered that the game is really just this very banal and horrid dance and she wishes to find a different way to satisfy her needs and move forward. It is not an easy place to be, and Melanie is forced to learn this lesson the hard way when her dear old friends are thrust into a game of now killing each other simply because the stakes would be higher and more fun to see how many of each other they could successfully hunt by manipulating their talents for mind control. As a result, chaos kicks off the story and Melanie is thrust into a new emotional world in which she is also the target of her longtime friend Nina.
Where this book connects for me to asylum culture is that, simply put, when you come from a family line that is filled with all manner of severe mental illness and your connections begin reflecting toxicity that truly pales in comparison: it gets old. You get tired of lies, intrigue, people who say that they're done and aren't, family who will forever coddle those that will simply not speak up about a pattern that's been bothering them for ages. The concept of eternal youth is a poison, and it is one that many will gladly chug in favor of never having to be responsible for their decisions or being held accountable for the way they show up to others.
My paternal grandmother was fried alive inside a tube by doctors who had no conception of the damage they were doing to her nervous system. My uncle perished in an ambulance fire strapped down to a gurney in which the attendants refused to try and aid him due to his Schizophrenia. My grandfather was subjugated to every manner of private and public humiliation known to mankind for his mental illness, in spite of being a pianist Frank Sinatra admired. The bloodline is littered with intense and deeply passionate people who were snuffed out by a system that seemed fixated on piloting them towards "typical" futures, while they tried very hard to swim against the current and speak up about it.
After some time it becomes embarrassing, tedious, a great stinking elephant in the room to keep having connections who make those experiences seem comparable due to their own poor choices. It does a disservice to mental illness to constantly speak about people who refuse to behave in a manner that is befitting of adulthood in the same way we speak of a disease that ravages one's life. However, the first step to ending the cycle is to acknowledge it, and there is simply no way for me to describe to you my dear reader how difficult that task is. There is any and every level of fallout one might expect from addressing these patterns by stepping away- and they can include everything from receiving a well placed knife to your neck down a moonlit walk, to suddenly discovering that your private reflections are circulating the internet with great speed. Both ends of this dynamic have been shown to me through the behavior of others, and when I tell you I want nothing to do with either of them again- I mean it.
I relate to the desire to simply stop lying about what the dynamic is that we have with ourselves and our role in preserving these structures. At some point, it becomes necessary to note that the most depressed people in the room are probably not the best ones to ask for uplifting commentary, that the most manic are likely not the ones you want planning a vacation, and that some folks are simply addicted to cycles they refuse to admit to themselves and use those patterns to fuel their daily life. I understand, for I too have been deeply addicted to a cycle of projection regarding myself and others that has finally come to a head to be addressed through this beautiful novel. Melanie and her exodus forced it out of me, that I might finally look in the mirror and reckon with myself that I am tired.
Carrion Comfort has been a gift, in every single sense of the word, that I never realized I needed for my birthday this year. It forced me to look in the mirror at how tired I am of the same cycles: cringing in fear from texts that I dread answering the moment I see who sent them, waking up and feeling the compulsive need to monitor myself and my presence publicly, feeling as if something is missing from myself after conversations. The ghosts from my past that I long for are spetres I still find out new details about and cringe, painfully, as my illusions of their goodness are ripped out of my hands and smashed.
So, I read this novel and woke up and realized I deeply desire a community that laughs more than they complain. I desire a community where we are happy to see each other and there are silly little jokes that are harmless, where the internet is once again a lighthearted place for me. I realized that my deepest desires are for peace, for comfort, and for the simple protection of friends who do not pass around my name cruelly in rooms that I am not in. In fact, I desire never to be in a connection again where I am worried about being slandered or having my life mishandled and spoken about without my direct consent. There has been nothing as painful and defeating as the chronic cycle of interacting with people who do not see my inherent value as a human being, and the process of realizing that I cannot convince others of my humanity- I simply am valid because I exist.
The projection addiction that I have had for most of my life is the firm belief that this is not possible for me, that spaces like this simply cannot be welcoming to me, and that I am not worthy of existing safely in them. I have spent so long fixating on this idea of needing to strive towards the goal of creating a community I don't want to run away from, frantically feeling I need to work at the thing- but the truth is that the medicine is in the trust fall of accepting that I may never actually see what I want. In the process, everyone who seems to have the thing is someone I was dumping tons of fear and power into as I placed them and their communities farther up on pedestals I could never project myself into reaching, instead of fueling myself with the calm and steady reminder that it takes time to work towards the outcomes we desire. Now I am smashing those pedestals, I am smashing those illusions, I will deconstruct my projections and I will arrive wherever the current takes me and do so with a sense of calm this time.
*****
So at 33, in the most insane turn of events possible, I find that I am Melanie. Others ask me what on earth I am doing by making all of these changes and growing, and in truth my dear reader I have absolutely no idea. I am trying things out, I am choosing to radically love what I love, and I am walking away from anything that feels like it can't take a joke and also assumes the worst of me. There are a lot of cursed things and dark humor I have been repressing for years because the only safe person I could share them with was one very delightful man that I miss a whole lot who taught me a lot about myself. Though I can't say I will ever know if I will see or speak to him again, I can conjure his memory back into the room by returning my personality to myself and laughing freely again as the energy courses through my veins, I can return to the memory of who I believed he was in that time period and also apply the lessons I have learned since then. I can sever the connections that make me feel like I need to play small, be small, and continue patterns in my life where intellectual dominance is prioritized over real warmth. Change is possible for me, in a healthy direction where I stop projecting my insecurities onto everyone else and allow myself to have my actual personality back so that maybe- just maybe, the right connections can find me by hearing my calls through the fog.
When I saw Melanie's exodus, even with all of its chaos and the implications of this gruesome and terrifying story- I felt in my soul that I understand her desires intimately and it struck such a loud chord that I have been crawling through the novel to savor it. The novel is dark and gritty, with Epstein references that make a reader pause and wonder if Simmons knew long before the news outlets ever broke the story what the size of the hulking beast was behind the scenes. If you have never sat in a room holding your drink, gazing at your companions for what you know must simply be the last time, I envy you- for it is both heartbreaking and liberating at once. I had my heart cleanly ripped out just before my birthday by the realization that I am in the wrong room with the wrong people to truly see me, and it gutted everything about my life. There are things I can't unsee now, ways that I was not handled properly and they haunt me- because I know how I show up and I am done with the mask.
So, here we are, and now I am reading Carrion Comfort in the firm belief that more is possible for me, even as I hold gently to the reality that it may also all never come to pass. The two things must exist at once: the idea of success and the acceptance that failure is equally possible on this spectrum. Perhaps I am not a good streamer, perhaps I will never reach the goals I so desire in the current vehicle I am operating, perhaps I will go nowhere and be insignificant with no one to love me. All of it is simply okay, because at the end of the day it is me that I am choosing. Being alone is forever preferable to being in the wrong company, without question.
*****
Nina and Melanie clearly have a history of the classic sort: old flames that didn’t work out, centuries of interpersonal strife, the usual detritus that gathers in long term friendships.. The social situation of these three feels stale long before we know it’s going to go south, for reasons unknown to us as the reader but largely run along the same lines- pettiness. Contempt oozes out of the early posh settings, the wealth and influence accumulated historically by vampires is distorted here to be understood as social capital. Willy is a quite distinguished film producer, Nina is a social acolyte operating in Europe, and Melanie has risen to elevation in the Charleston social scene in her own right to come across as old money. The entire situation is compelling and veiled in shadow from the early pages as it challenges our own modern standards for the wealthy elite, and as we witness Melanie’s escape into the streets of Charleston to avoid her murderous friend, we are left with the impression that she is the lowest hanging fruit on the tree to pick off.
Willy’s death is astounding, it rocks the foundation of the book as we settle into Melanie’s paranoia and sudden intuitive knowledge that Nina is behind it. At first, we think Melanie is simply paranoid and this will be a horror tale where old hurts cause the self destruction of a subspecies- until Melanie’s servant is the one being manipulated through Nina exactly as she has predicted. What distinguishes this tale, throughout the story, as unique in its vampiric properties is the harsh medicine that implies so many of our own worldly elites are likely among what we would consider to be mind vampires. From gaping in horror at depictions of young starlets being blackmailed into sexual favors, to staring into the face of our own evisceration as a society- Dan Simmons’ Carrion Comfort will not hold your hand. We are catapulted through what feels to be a retelling of the Epstein Files, with the psychic twist of villains that feel eerily personally relatable at moments and themes that extend far beyond the confines of the final pages. This is a tale that will stay with you, and will change your notion of what vampirism appears as in your own life, perhaps even simply to have you question what the dominant voice is that you hear in your own mind when you tell yourself things in the mirror.
What is astounding about Carrion Comfort is that it possesses the ability for you to instantly reevaluate your own social circle at great speed. What felt solid prior suddenly becomes nebulous, what felt dangerous suddenly becomes easy, and the conversations and themes that arise from completing this novel are wholly unique to each reader. For myself, the book acted as a mirror in which I knew with sudden dire certainty that I had to flee connections where I may be being placed on a pedestal- but I certainly am not being seen or valued. For others, the themes will be heavier, especially those surrounding consent- and so I do caution the reader to take this book with a healthy grain of salt and come prepared to be thoroughly disturbed by the consequences of what happens when we revoke consent from the room entirely. Though vampirism has never been about the victim operating with a semblance of bodily control, it is fair to say that in this tale there are modern themes that collide in a wholly upsetting way that must be cautioned about.
*****
So reader, it's been a week or two since I first began writing this post the day after my birthday on May 9th, and I have some reflections from the novel that I'd like to conclude the post by sharing.
This has been, largely, the most transformative time that I have ever physically experienced as a person and I largely think Carrion Comfort kicked off that process. Something inside me has been screaming for awhile that things are wrong, that I need to take a stand, and that it is time for me to really self reflect and there was no better time for it all to come to a head than my birthday. Instead of making a pinterest board for this book, all I can think to do at this point is share songs that have been really coming out the gate strong for me as I read the book and experienced these dual processes.
Ever since the release of the first batch of Epstein files, my guts have been roiling and feeling as if I wish I could do just about anything- and reading vivid scenes where a parasitic film mogul inflicts himself upon young vulnerable women did something to my brain that was not admittedly pleasant. For weeks I have been walking at least four more miles than usual trying to shrug off the images, and I feel as if I can't really do justice to just how disgusting it feels to live in a society right now where the question on the table is whether or not we can all call what we've discovered "normal" and carry on with our day to day lives.
Objectively, I know that there are people out there who go to the grocery store and don't feel persistently haunted by Virginia Giuffre and her testimony, people that don't hear any news surrounding the world and feel disgustingly reminded that elected officials consumed infants and recorded the taste for posterity. However, I am not someone who can put these things to the side and carry on with my daily life, I feel too much about it and Carrion Comfort has brought all of it right up and out of me. We need to demand that more is done, we need to rally, we need to do just about anything as a global populace- if for nothing else but the sake of the rest of the population so that we can all live with ourselves.
That being said, I am not the spokesperson for the entire world- and the only person who can reasonably do something and make change that I can interact with here is me. So here I am, in a freshly transformed new version of myself, and all I want to do is claw down the walls that I have been hiding behind for the sake of palatability and decency. I don't fucking care after reading Carrion Comfort if everyone in my life thinks I'm crazy, or that I suck- maybe I am and maybe I do but I can tell you one thing for sure: none of what I read in either this book or the files is something I am capable of being calm about. Much like years ago at the facility when I realized the scope of the horrors I was witnessing, here too I feel there is another crossroad I face: either be complicit and silent or start making some serious noise.
Perhaps, reader, I have finally entered my true era for screaming.
