Catharsis
A few days ago I was talking to someone about a comment I'd left on ONTD a while back about the sad sad story of Zach, often referred to on LJ/Twitter as "the evil-ex"... I remembered exactly which post it was, mostly because it was an Amanda Seyfried post with a more or less memorable title "Amanda Seyfried Scared Of Sex".. Anyhoo found the post right away, was going to go through it, then just...left it in a tab and eventually closed it. Just remembered it, and had to go through the pages of the post to find my comment. Naturally it was towards the end of the post. 13 pages in. Why didn't I start at the beginning!?
My 'relationship' with his is long, pitiful, pathetic, stupid, toxic, inexplicable, and quite melodramatic when told from my point of view. Sorry.
So, here's a copy-pasted version of the original comment:
So u guyz my best friend liked this guy, and then I started liking him too. And I kept thinking it was more ok for ME to like him, because my friend had a long-term boyfriend. In fact, she fucked the new guy THE NIGHT BEFORE her boyfriend moved from home to be with her. So then like a month or two later I lost my virginity to the guy, but then found out he'd actually screwed my best friend like a few hours before and well that sucked.
Oh and so we were like fighting over him off and on for quite a while, with my friends poor boyfriend being in some sort of state of denial about the whole thing. I mean when your girlfriend wants you to drive her over to some guy's house because she doesn't want her best friend to be alone with him... well you get the idea.
So then I "won" because her boyfriend found out and that fucked up her whole two-timing thing. But really I lost because obviously the guy was an asshole for screwing two 18 year old best friends while he was 25. So my best friend and her boyfriend get married, because he's canadian and needed to get married to stay with her. Meanwhile I get the fun of being into this guy that's always finding some new chick to fuck on the internet.
Then she started cheating on her boyfriend who was now her husband with this guy, again while I was seeing him too, and he fucking lied about it, and one of my friends was the one who told me. So I went to this house to deck him, but I lost my nerve and cried, and he made me leave because he had a date.
Then my best friend and her boyfriend broke up because she started seeing ANOTHER guy, and then she got pregnant with his kid, but kept ordering her boyfriend-now-husband to do shit for her because he still lived with her. Meanwhile the poor guy gets more emotional damage. Then he finally gets his own place and has this big crush on me, but I'm still wrapped up in the guy I lost my virginity to, who this whole time has had random girlfriends and comes to me for squishie time in between relationships.
But eventually I start dating her boyfriend-now estranged husband (after us suddenly having sex the day after my birthday), and we were really good together, except all our collective baggage ruins everything and he falls out of love with me and moves back to canada.
this spanned from 2002 to september of last year.
...you can't make this shit up people
(why the fuck did this witch between past and present tense?
The mean, evil guy is named Zach. The one who left me two years ago that isn't evil, and isn't really a focal point of the story(although every single thing in here prior to our relationship added baggage that affected our failed relationship), is named Justin.
I might mention that a lot of this is out of chronological order, but it's not that important.
Back to that comment I'd left on ONTD. A few people said the logical "STAY AWAY FROM THAT PRICK GURL" statement that I've always been too stupid to listen to, a few people remarked on how much it was like a soap opera (ikr?), a couple responses were just "wow/woah" and two people thought it was some weird thing I copy-pasted from the internet. "THIS IS FROM ME. I STARTED TYPING AND I COULDN'T STOP. THIS IS THE LAST 8 YEARS OF MY LIFE TY"
Of course I left out lots of things in that comment. How much I hated myself for going out of my way to keep in contact with him, no matter what went wrong, because I needed his approval, and because I thought at some point he would appreciate the fact that I had stuck around longer than anyone. How I went from being me, to being a me that would fight with her bet friend over a turd of a guy. My justification had always been that at least I was single, but I'll never know for sure that it still wouldn't have if she hadn't had a boyfriend. How many times I would feel so empty inside when he'd be affectionate or more to that best friend right in front of me, without worrying about any wrath because I was so timid, and never doing it the other way around because my best friend WOULD show her anger. How I became a me that would beg a guy to talk to me again every time he stopped talking to me, no matter how in the right I might have been, no matter how much it made me hate myself even more. How I became a person who grew more and more comfortable with being manipulative as some sort of form of self defense/preservation, some sort of skill I picked up along the way. It's become so ingrained in my personality, that half of the time I'm not even doing it on purpose. And that is present tense. That's something that's still a disgusting part of me.
I left out the New Year's Eve when I was having fun with all my friends, and I got a phone call from him at a party to say "I just wanted to reiterate that I don't want to have a relationship." I had to put him on hold to go throw up. It was utterly completely unexpected. At some point during my inevitable begging and pleading, I realized I could hear his friends fairly clearly in the background. He hadn't even had the decency to make the call in private. Later I put together the pieces and realized he'd made that call to make sure he didn't feel guilty when he went home with her later that night. Over 8 years later and I still hate New Year's Eve, and I still get upset when I hear/see the word "reiterate."
I left out how many times in the middle of the night he would make me get out of his bed (jesus you're in your 30s upgrade your mattress) and leave or sleep on the floor because he wanted more room to sleep. Or how many times he would kick me out completely as soon as he woke up, even though I was always, always the one to take the bus there, or ride my bike half an hour or an hour across town in the middle of the night to see him. Or how many times I would catch the bus with him at the same time, and it was suddenly like I was invisible. Or how sometimes he would want me to stay around, and how much that meant to me, and I would tidy up his apartment while he was gone, and feel so validated when he'd come back and be surprised and grateful.
I left out how I became his interim "lover" more or less. The person he only paid attention to between girlfriends, or when he needed someone to give a fuck about his woman problems. And I gave him the best advice I could, as neutral as possible, because of that need for approval. Because if I gave him advice that was self-serving he would never want me. I had to try not to go off on him too much when he was with no doubt being an asshole to whoever he was seeing, because if I was TOO harsh with him, he would never want me. I had to hide most of my distaste the few times I saw him interact with his mother, and how dismissive of her he was, just like he'd been to me. How her neediness to spend time with him was so much like mine, and exactly what that meant I was to him. But if I said TOO much to him about how he should be nicer to his mom, he would never want me.
I left out how at one point, he moved in with a woman for about a year, and dropped off the face of the planet. Then one day I get an e-mail from him, wishing to re-establish contact with me. He hadn't wanted to be with her for quite a while before that point, but was still living with her. Once he did break up with her, he didn't have anywhere to go yet, and she let him stay until he could get his own place. She had lovers over, and he felt sad and hurt without getting attention, even though he didn't want to be with her. As soon as he wanted me, even though he hadn't even bothered to ask how I was doing, I came flitting back to him as always.
I left out the 'Tent Incident.' I can't remember how long ago it was, only that it was in the summer. I'm estimating 6 or 7 years ago, much later, after his last big relationship had ended and he'd had whatever small amount of women he saw in between. At that time Zach was seeing someone he was really crazy about, and I was playing my usual role. I often wished that someone would repeatedly break his heart so he could know what it felt like, and maybe change. And aside from the woman he lived with, Windy(who the hell names their kid Windy) was that girl. To make a long story short, he felt amazing when he was with her, but over the course of a few months he (and therefore I) became very aware of how something wasn't right. She always contacted him. They always went somewhere, or to his house. This can only mean one thing of course. She had a boyfriend that she was living with. You know how these things go. "I love you more than he does, if you were happy with him you wouldn't be seeing me." "I don't know why, but I just can't bring myself to break it off." That sort of thing. But he was still spending time with me during that. I can't remember to what degree though.
Anyway, one day he was going to a barbecue or some such with some co-workers, and for some god-awful reason, he asked if I wanted to go. I didn't really, because I'd have to interact with strangers and such. But I didn't want to go home and be lonely either, so that was that. I don't remember a whole lot some of the time I was awkward and not talking to anyone, and some of the time I was a social butterfly and having my first jello shots. Zach was having fun and drinking a bunch of wine. It got too late to catch the bus home, so a few people stayed out in the back yard in a few spare tents. After it seemed to be quiet enough we started to fool around. But he stopped when we were undressed, and...wait for it...wait for it... got up and threw up in the corner of the tent. Yeah mood killed. What bothered me the most wasn't that he'd just thrown up, or even that there was blech in the corner of the tent(it was a big sized tent, but still) it was that most of it was just wine. It was all I could smell. I drink every so often, but I hate the smell of alcohol, and I really hate the smell of wine. So even though the other things were mood killers, that was why I was absolutely done(although I REALLY can't imagine having continued without the wine smell). It was trapped in the tent with us, so I just wanted to go to sleep. But it wouldn't be a real incident without a sudden turn of events, and it wasn't the wine. He kept at it. I told him no and that I didn't want to, but I don't remember how many times I said something, or how adamant I was that he knock it the hell off. But well, someone forceful, but not violent unauthorized sex was had. I don't think I fought him at all maybe a push or two before things got icky? I really don't remember. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to handle this sort of situation. Did I yell, and end up waking the other people? I didn't want to do that. I didn't want things to be more uncomfortable. I didn't want to make Zach get mad at me. I just didn't know what to do at all, and I started crying. Once he realized it, he stopped. I have this vague sense that he might have apologized and hugged me, but I can't remember that either. At some point I fell asleep, feeling betrayed and still disgusted by that smell of wine in the air.
I've always likened to experience to someone being annoying on purpose to some degree. When someone kicks the back of your shoe, and you tell them to stop but they keep doing it anyway, or jabbing your arm really hard in the exact same spot to make get a bruise. Telling someone to leave your room and them not obliging. When those things happened I always tended to get more upset than most people, and would almost cry with the frustration of having someone not care about my feelings. It felt a little like that, but obviously worse. It was an important thing that I was asking him not to do, loudly or adamantly or not, and an important he kept doing anyway.
I have such vague memories of the next morning. It's really frustrating. My memory is fuzzy and selective all of the time. I just remember random details. Him spraying out the tent with a hose the next morning and apologizing. A walk to the bus stop, that I can't recall the level of conversation during. Doodling in my sketchbook on the bus ride back to his place, trying not to think about what happened, but wanting to go over it in my head at the same time. His room being dark because the lights in the apartment were off and the makeshift curtains were closed. I'm not entirely sure if it was that day, but I BELIEVE that day I asked him why he did that, and he said something along the lines of because he was angry at Windy and because I'd been pissing him off that day. That REALLY threw me. I thought he did it because he was just being selfish or rude, like that analogy. I didn't for one second consider any sort of malicious intent. As far as I can remember, that was that. I think I mentioned it a couple of times in anger, (always in an IM argument, NEVER to his face, too uncomfortable) I kept hanging out with him, not quite sure how long after, but kept having sex with him, more of the same. I didn't forget about what had happened, but if I let him have it, I knew I wouldn't get a real apology and discussion, just him not speaking to me, and then me apologizing for bringing it up. So I didn't let him have it. I didn't stop seeing him, because that need for him to want me didn't go away.
I wobbled back and forth between my definition of what to call what happened. In fact, that continued for years. To me, rape was someone being taken advantage of while unconscious or roofied. It was someone dragged kicking and screaming into an alley. It was something lasted a long time at knife point. What happened to me was nothing like that. I felt like calling it rape was being too dramatic, and using the word would just to get more sympathy and for attention. I guess in a way I had the right to do both. The word made me uncomfortable sometimes, and other times not. So sometimes I just would refer to it as the Tent Incident. I know it minimizes what happened in a way, but it's easier for me to say, and anyone that knows that story knows what I'm talking about. It was hard telling the people closest to me about it. How do you even bring something like that up? But I did. Sometimes after I would for some reason decide to randomly say something about it as a joke. It made everyone really uncomfortable. I guess that was me wanting to talk about it, but also not wanting to actually have a conversation. I was actually seeing a therapist at the time, and I talked about it at my next session. She said it was rape, and nothing else. I mentioned something about rape statistics, and how at least I'd gotten mine out of the way, and how it could have been worse. She agreed with me and smiled and all, but looking back she must have been at a loss for a response. I talked about it online a lot sometimes. Whenever that sort of thing came up on ONTD. And I always asked if they considered it rape. They always did. It's amazing how much validation I need to call it that. But it's a big word. A serious concept, I don't want to use it lightly.
One of the hardest things was knowing how everyone must feel about me, going back to someone that has hurt me so many times in the past, and then hurt me in a way like THAT. I knew there was judgment they were trying to not to express, disappointment, and they always went with something straightforward but not too abrasive. "Why don't you just stop seeing him? He doesn't care about you, and you deserve so much better."
Among the other things I left out of that comment on ONTD at the beginning of this long post, was a HORRIBLE secret that he told me. At least a year before the Tent Incident. I told him it was ok at the time, because I knew it was hard for him to say, and I knew he genuinely felt bad about it. I've told a few people, but I'm not going to say it now. It'll just make me look even more pathetic for continuing to see him. Which would be a very reasonable reaction. So I'm not going to say it, and shan't be accepting any guesses. But I will at least say that while it didn't involve killing anyone or anything, it was sickening and much worse than the Tent Incident.
I also left out how I had one sweet, beautiful, crushing incident of revenge last year, when he I said he was being mean, then he said I was being mean, and I told him he didn't know what me being mean was. We were in a guild in World of Warcraft together. Among other things, guilds have their own chatroom. Immediately after my response to him, I started talking about him in guild chat. About all the thoughtless and selfish and even cruel things he'd done since I'd known him. But I didn't once mention his name. I just referred to him as a guy I know. So he got to sit there and see me talk about him and all the supportive and disgusted replies from the others in the guild, and he couldn't say a thing about it, because then they would know who this horrible guy I was talking about was. That was me being mean. I can't remember the last time, or a time since that where I've felt so invigorated. I'm pretty sure I made him cry. But it could only last so long. Guilt set in, fear of losing him set in, and weeks of begging and what were more or less sincere apologies on and off ensued until he would see me again.
I left out the fact that my fear of phones and any real-time conversation that a lot of you know about started with him, and how obsessive my personality is. I talked about it in a post 2 years-ish ago, but it's really snowballed since then. It might surprise you to know that I used to love talking to my best friend Shayne on the phone.(Shayne is NOT the best friend I fought over Zach with) We'd spend hours on the phone nearly every day, even if we had JUST been on the college campus together. I was a phone whore. But when Zach became more and more apt to blow me off, that changed. If I was waiting for him to call me back, every time the phone rang I was hoping it was him. Every time I got an e-mail notification, or an IM window popped up, I would briefly hope it was him. When I was waiting to hear from him, I would leave my IM open when I didn't want to talk to anyone just in case he messaged me. But when it was never him I started going on invisible constantly, and setting him on my visible list. So I wouldn't have to deal with that disappointment when I was waiting. I very often would have to contact him about things more than once to get an actual answer. He seemed to decide that no answer was good enough answer in itself.
It wasn't. I didn't know he would or wouldn't get back to me. It was really frustrating. But I was still okay with IMs when I did feel like talking. It was the phone thing. I began to dread the sound of the phone ringing, because it was rarely him actually bothering to get back to me. Then I began to hate the sound. Then I began to fear it. This was all very gradual over a handful of years. I stopped having a phone in my room because I just hated the sound so much. But that didn't help much. Because when I heard the phone ringing, if I heard my mom's door open right after, that meant she was bringing the phone to me or my brother. There was dread and anticipation and all kinds of feelings in the short moments it took her to get to whoever's door. By then it had begun to stop being about Zach. When I wasn't seeing him anymore at all, and Justin and I had moved back into my house, I still couldn't stand it. And I couldn't stand initiating most phone calls either if I could help it. Which meant I would never be the person to order a pizza for example. And after Justin left and I moved in with my mom, it got even worse. Phones are loud, and this home is small, so I always heard it. We at least had caller ID, so I could see who it was and decide if I wanted to answer or not. I only answered when it was my mom. We had voicemail, and she was the only friend/family person I was willing to talk to(apologies to my big brother, aunt, and grandparents) so I would just leave it be. But then we realized that our phone was interfering with the wireless signal. We had to stop using it and go back to just a normal touchtone phone. I don't know why we never just got a caller ID box to connect to it. My mom and I happened into a system, more or less on accident. If it was her, she would let it ring the full amount of times, and then call again. No one else did that, so it was perfect. But at some point I didn't even want to talk to HER on the phone. At some point last year I shut off the ringer for good and we just started using e-mail instead.
I pick up the handset one a day-ish to see it there's a voicemail and that's about it. It's just this thing I rarely use unless HAVE to for some reason(like calling in for med refills or scheduling appointments).
I used to be able to talk to my WoW guild in Ventrilo(group chat program) or Skype, but only if it was more than one person, unless it was my friend Jesse. He was easy to talk to for whatever reason so we chatted on occasion when he was at work and bored as fuck. The only downside was he burped into the phone(I'm a lady!). But when I was in group chat, I would get really uncomfortable once it was just one person left. I became really bad at goodbyes for some reason, so it became fairly well known that once it was just one other person left I was going to disconnect. I made it fun by doing it in the middle of the sentence(well it was fun for me). There were so few people that I was even comfortable using Skype with. I think my friend Ryan was the only other one. My other friend Adrian was more or less in that bubble too, I just never had a reason to. Then at some point, I stopped using it with them too. Not due to some falling out or anything, it just sort of stopped. And once it did, I didn't know how to get back to it, and soon everyone was out of that bubble, and somehow I had gotten uncomfortable with all real-time conversation with nearly everyone. A new bubble. Ryan, Jesse, Adrian, and a few other people that are very rarely on are the only people in that bubble now, when I'm willing to talk at all. But I did discover a website where you can send free texts to people(doesn't work with some phones and I have no idea why.) and I use that with my mom now when she's at work if there's something quick to say, or an e-mail if it's longer. That's been nice. Not real-time conversation, but I know it comforts her to know that I'm more reachable. I went way more into detail than I meant to with that, sorry. It upsets me to no end when I think about how this out of control aversion started merely because I was bad at waiting to hear back from Zach. It started out during a time when I was beginning to show symptoms of some mood disorders, and I think that really is what made it escalate. It blows my fucking mind how something that started so small could spiral out of control like that. I just wanted him to take the time to get back to me whether the answer was favorable or not.
The thing that drove Zach and I into a fight nearly every time was a chicken/egg type of thing. I would be clingy because he would be so dismissive, he would be dismissive because I was being too clingy. Generally I believed it was his fault. Couldn't he just try harder to be nicer to me? Couldn't he take the time to get back to me for whatever reason instead of blowing me off? Couldn't he just be a little more understanding? Couldn't he appreciate me for being the only person that had never gotten sick of him and gradually fell out of contact with him for months years, or permanently? Couldn't he see that he treated me worse than he did any friend or girlfriend he'd had? Couldn't he care more about what I wanted and needed? And every time those questions and needs became too much for me to keep in, it would all come out. He would tell me why it was my fault, and how he'd done enough. He would get mad and stop talking to me. I rarely agreed with him, or wavered too much in that I thought he was more in the wrong than I, but sticking to my guns would just make things worse. Then after the fighting and he would break up with me(I don't know what else to call it. Zach broke up with me a lot over all these years for someone that was never actually my boyfriend.) I would beg him right away, or some number of days, weeks, sometimes months later to just start talking to me again.
Here's the thing about the comment in italics at the top of the post. It was from May 2010. That was my frustration with my story up until that point, which was two months before a conversation with Zach triggered a major issue I have by telling me I "wasn't worth the keystrokes it takes to type this message", which sent me on a major downward spiral that left me cutting again and an even more broken version of my former self. My own fault for letting myself stay in that situation, even seeking it out when we'd have a fight and stop speaking. In fact the only reason we aren't speaking now is because HE stopped talking to ME. Over 50 cuts, 10 months, one trip to the ER for stitches on my thigh, and who knows how many bad ambien trips later, nothing's improved aside from me thinking about him less, and aside from me not having looked at Justin(aka the not evil ex who stopped loving me)'s twitter since October. The lack of looking at that was a big step to letting go, and the fear that someday I would look at it and see him talking about a new girlfriend was choking me. He had confessed to reading mine at some point last year, but I don't know if he still does. Those are my two of few notable accomplishments though. Although I guess only the second one is intentional.
But here's something no one knows. Right at the start of April, in another night of ambien-haze, I sent him an e-mail. Some of it terrible inappropriate(I WAS HIGH OKAY), but this is the rest:
can I see you again, or are you still of the mind that I am literally worthlless? or have you come to miss me too? i think it's been far over half a year since we saw eachother last
respond quickly, and do be honest(it would be a bad time for an april fool's day prank) so that I have no chance of missunderstanding ....
Shockingly he got back to me on the same day:
yeah, I don't know. Not that I haven't thought of you, just not sure what you expect to find from trying to resume our friendship.
I'd been asleep most of the time in between, so I wasn't on pins and needles waiting for a reply. But I responded. I'll spare you the embarrassed apologies for even sending the first e-mail, but this was my response to his actual(and I'm sure you saw that it was very well thought out reply):
In any case, I don't expect anything. I guess that sounds negative, but it's true. I know, we have this volatile toxic antagonistic thing going on, and have for what, 9 years now.
I'm not making this very appealing, am I... But I might as well be honest, yes? I haven't changed aside from a growing sense of apathy towards everything, you probably haven't changed, but I miss you anyway and wish we could go back to hanging out and me letting you win at videogames.(he was a sore loser. MEN.)
I didn't know why I was saying any of those things. I didn't want to see him. I didn't want to talk to him, spend time with him, have sex with him, nothing. I hate him. But of course it was about that need for him to want me. Even if I couldn't stand him, if he wanted to see me then I would go. But after that, he didn't reply. And there it was again. All he had to do was mail me back and tell me he didn't want to talk to me. That it was a bad idea. That he wasn't ready at the time. SOMETHING. Another terribly well thought out sentence. But nothing. After a little over a month, I sent another e-mail. I have no idea if I was sober or not. It was incredibly brief and I think reasonable, even thought what I REALLY wanted to say was quite lengthy and unkind:
Could you tell me your reasonings for not responding to me? i think maybe having information like that would help me in the future.
as always, be honest. even if it makes me look bad, or it makes you look bad.
Nothing of course. I can assume if he got back to me, I'd come running, even though right now he lives over 2 hours worth of bus rides away. But I get the sense that isn't going to be an issue. Right now I'm trying to stop cutting(it's not a constant every day thing), I'm trying to stop being irresponsible with my ambien(no such luck, but I'm almost out of my very last refill anyway), but what I'd like at this moment is to NEVER suddenly think of him or even the mostly kind but cowardly Justin again. Even that's not a constant thing, but I don't know what will suddenly cause me to think about one or the other, and my subsequent moods vary, depending on what exactly I'm reminded of, and how I was feeling before hand. All in all it's not nearly as intense as it was before, but as I mentioned in that e-mail to him, I have an ever increasing sense of apathy. Maybe that's the cause. I can't stress enough how much I hate him. I wish him only bad things. I wish he would be plagued with dreams of our past but from my point of view.
Anyway. I don't know why I've typed this all out I didn't think it would get this long, but I couldn't stop. Believe it or not, I left quite a bit out. But I think this is far more than plenty. I have on occasion told large chunks of the story at different times in the past, to different people, for different reasons. But at the moment I don't know exactly. Maybe it's catharsis or maybe it's for the pity and support that I actually get uncomfortable when I receive. There are only a few responses people can give without being an asshole. That I'm better off without him. That he's scum and I deserve better. That I'm not worthless. That you hope I can get past this some day. That I need to stop taking ambien, or to take it more responsibly. That you love me. That I'll never have the love/respect of someone until I can love/respect myself. Or other comments that WOULD put you into asshole territory. I guess I just wanted you guys to know who/what I really am. But if you really read all of this I guess it would help if you let me know. Just so I know who among you knows who I really am, and who took the time to read all of this, because considering how insanely long this is, you'd best believe I appreciate it.
To end on a positive-like note, I do have a third accomplishment. I can be quite the social butterfly(although people from ohnotheydidnt might have a different term) online with plenty of people, but like I said, not real-time. The third accomplishment is mostly because of my trio of PROFOUND BOND friends from a Supernatural fan community. I'm getting better at having a quick dialog on twitter (more or less real time), the occasional lengthy text conversation, and a few times some lengthy IM conversations. If you're reading this, Female-J2 and Sarah thank you!
My 'relationship' with his is long, pitiful, pathetic, stupid, toxic, inexplicable, and quite melodramatic when told from my point of view. Sorry.
So, here's a copy-pasted version of the original comment:
So u guyz my best friend liked this guy, and then I started liking him too. And I kept thinking it was more ok for ME to like him, because my friend had a long-term boyfriend. In fact, she fucked the new guy THE NIGHT BEFORE her boyfriend moved from home to be with her. So then like a month or two later I lost my virginity to the guy, but then found out he'd actually screwed my best friend like a few hours before and well that sucked.
Oh and so we were like fighting over him off and on for quite a while, with my friends poor boyfriend being in some sort of state of denial about the whole thing. I mean when your girlfriend wants you to drive her over to some guy's house because she doesn't want her best friend to be alone with him... well you get the idea.
So then I "won" because her boyfriend found out and that fucked up her whole two-timing thing. But really I lost because obviously the guy was an asshole for screwing two 18 year old best friends while he was 25. So my best friend and her boyfriend get married, because he's canadian and needed to get married to stay with her. Meanwhile I get the fun of being into this guy that's always finding some new chick to fuck on the internet.
Then she started cheating on her boyfriend who was now her husband with this guy, again while I was seeing him too, and he fucking lied about it, and one of my friends was the one who told me. So I went to this house to deck him, but I lost my nerve and cried, and he made me leave because he had a date.
Then my best friend and her boyfriend broke up because she started seeing ANOTHER guy, and then she got pregnant with his kid, but kept ordering her boyfriend-now-husband to do shit for her because he still lived with her. Meanwhile the poor guy gets more emotional damage. Then he finally gets his own place and has this big crush on me, but I'm still wrapped up in the guy I lost my virginity to, who this whole time has had random girlfriends and comes to me for squishie time in between relationships.
But eventually I start dating her boyfriend-now estranged husband (after us suddenly having sex the day after my birthday), and we were really good together, except all our collective baggage ruins everything and he falls out of love with me and moves back to canada.
this spanned from 2002 to september of last year.
...you can't make this shit up people
(why the fuck did this witch between past and present tense?
The mean, evil guy is named Zach. The one who left me two years ago that isn't evil, and isn't really a focal point of the story(although every single thing in here prior to our relationship added baggage that affected our failed relationship), is named Justin.
I might mention that a lot of this is out of chronological order, but it's not that important.
Back to that comment I'd left on ONTD. A few people said the logical "STAY AWAY FROM THAT PRICK GURL" statement that I've always been too stupid to listen to, a few people remarked on how much it was like a soap opera (ikr?), a couple responses were just "wow/woah" and two people thought it was some weird thing I copy-pasted from the internet. "THIS IS FROM ME. I STARTED TYPING AND I COULDN'T STOP. THIS IS THE LAST 8 YEARS OF MY LIFE TY"
Of course I left out lots of things in that comment. How much I hated myself for going out of my way to keep in contact with him, no matter what went wrong, because I needed his approval, and because I thought at some point he would appreciate the fact that I had stuck around longer than anyone. How I went from being me, to being a me that would fight with her bet friend over a turd of a guy. My justification had always been that at least I was single, but I'll never know for sure that it still wouldn't have if she hadn't had a boyfriend. How many times I would feel so empty inside when he'd be affectionate or more to that best friend right in front of me, without worrying about any wrath because I was so timid, and never doing it the other way around because my best friend WOULD show her anger. How I became a me that would beg a guy to talk to me again every time he stopped talking to me, no matter how in the right I might have been, no matter how much it made me hate myself even more. How I became a person who grew more and more comfortable with being manipulative as some sort of form of self defense/preservation, some sort of skill I picked up along the way. It's become so ingrained in my personality, that half of the time I'm not even doing it on purpose. And that is present tense. That's something that's still a disgusting part of me.
I left out the New Year's Eve when I was having fun with all my friends, and I got a phone call from him at a party to say "I just wanted to reiterate that I don't want to have a relationship." I had to put him on hold to go throw up. It was utterly completely unexpected. At some point during my inevitable begging and pleading, I realized I could hear his friends fairly clearly in the background. He hadn't even had the decency to make the call in private. Later I put together the pieces and realized he'd made that call to make sure he didn't feel guilty when he went home with her later that night. Over 8 years later and I still hate New Year's Eve, and I still get upset when I hear/see the word "reiterate."
I left out how many times in the middle of the night he would make me get out of his bed (jesus you're in your 30s upgrade your mattress) and leave or sleep on the floor because he wanted more room to sleep. Or how many times he would kick me out completely as soon as he woke up, even though I was always, always the one to take the bus there, or ride my bike half an hour or an hour across town in the middle of the night to see him. Or how many times I would catch the bus with him at the same time, and it was suddenly like I was invisible. Or how sometimes he would want me to stay around, and how much that meant to me, and I would tidy up his apartment while he was gone, and feel so validated when he'd come back and be surprised and grateful.
I left out how I became his interim "lover" more or less. The person he only paid attention to between girlfriends, or when he needed someone to give a fuck about his woman problems. And I gave him the best advice I could, as neutral as possible, because of that need for approval. Because if I gave him advice that was self-serving he would never want me. I had to try not to go off on him too much when he was with no doubt being an asshole to whoever he was seeing, because if I was TOO harsh with him, he would never want me. I had to hide most of my distaste the few times I saw him interact with his mother, and how dismissive of her he was, just like he'd been to me. How her neediness to spend time with him was so much like mine, and exactly what that meant I was to him. But if I said TOO much to him about how he should be nicer to his mom, he would never want me.
I left out how at one point, he moved in with a woman for about a year, and dropped off the face of the planet. Then one day I get an e-mail from him, wishing to re-establish contact with me. He hadn't wanted to be with her for quite a while before that point, but was still living with her. Once he did break up with her, he didn't have anywhere to go yet, and she let him stay until he could get his own place. She had lovers over, and he felt sad and hurt without getting attention, even though he didn't want to be with her. As soon as he wanted me, even though he hadn't even bothered to ask how I was doing, I came flitting back to him as always.
I left out the 'Tent Incident.' I can't remember how long ago it was, only that it was in the summer. I'm estimating 6 or 7 years ago, much later, after his last big relationship had ended and he'd had whatever small amount of women he saw in between. At that time Zach was seeing someone he was really crazy about, and I was playing my usual role. I often wished that someone would repeatedly break his heart so he could know what it felt like, and maybe change. And aside from the woman he lived with, Windy(who the hell names their kid Windy) was that girl. To make a long story short, he felt amazing when he was with her, but over the course of a few months he (and therefore I) became very aware of how something wasn't right. She always contacted him. They always went somewhere, or to his house. This can only mean one thing of course. She had a boyfriend that she was living with. You know how these things go. "I love you more than he does, if you were happy with him you wouldn't be seeing me." "I don't know why, but I just can't bring myself to break it off." That sort of thing. But he was still spending time with me during that. I can't remember to what degree though.
Anyway, one day he was going to a barbecue or some such with some co-workers, and for some god-awful reason, he asked if I wanted to go. I didn't really, because I'd have to interact with strangers and such. But I didn't want to go home and be lonely either, so that was that. I don't remember a whole lot some of the time I was awkward and not talking to anyone, and some of the time I was a social butterfly and having my first jello shots. Zach was having fun and drinking a bunch of wine. It got too late to catch the bus home, so a few people stayed out in the back yard in a few spare tents. After it seemed to be quiet enough we started to fool around. But he stopped when we were undressed, and...wait for it...wait for it... got up and threw up in the corner of the tent. Yeah mood killed. What bothered me the most wasn't that he'd just thrown up, or even that there was blech in the corner of the tent(it was a big sized tent, but still) it was that most of it was just wine. It was all I could smell. I drink every so often, but I hate the smell of alcohol, and I really hate the smell of wine. So even though the other things were mood killers, that was why I was absolutely done(although I REALLY can't imagine having continued without the wine smell). It was trapped in the tent with us, so I just wanted to go to sleep. But it wouldn't be a real incident without a sudden turn of events, and it wasn't the wine. He kept at it. I told him no and that I didn't want to, but I don't remember how many times I said something, or how adamant I was that he knock it the hell off. But well, someone forceful, but not violent unauthorized sex was had. I don't think I fought him at all maybe a push or two before things got icky? I really don't remember. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to handle this sort of situation. Did I yell, and end up waking the other people? I didn't want to do that. I didn't want things to be more uncomfortable. I didn't want to make Zach get mad at me. I just didn't know what to do at all, and I started crying. Once he realized it, he stopped. I have this vague sense that he might have apologized and hugged me, but I can't remember that either. At some point I fell asleep, feeling betrayed and still disgusted by that smell of wine in the air.
I've always likened to experience to someone being annoying on purpose to some degree. When someone kicks the back of your shoe, and you tell them to stop but they keep doing it anyway, or jabbing your arm really hard in the exact same spot to make get a bruise. Telling someone to leave your room and them not obliging. When those things happened I always tended to get more upset than most people, and would almost cry with the frustration of having someone not care about my feelings. It felt a little like that, but obviously worse. It was an important thing that I was asking him not to do, loudly or adamantly or not, and an important he kept doing anyway.
I have such vague memories of the next morning. It's really frustrating. My memory is fuzzy and selective all of the time. I just remember random details. Him spraying out the tent with a hose the next morning and apologizing. A walk to the bus stop, that I can't recall the level of conversation during. Doodling in my sketchbook on the bus ride back to his place, trying not to think about what happened, but wanting to go over it in my head at the same time. His room being dark because the lights in the apartment were off and the makeshift curtains were closed. I'm not entirely sure if it was that day, but I BELIEVE that day I asked him why he did that, and he said something along the lines of because he was angry at Windy and because I'd been pissing him off that day. That REALLY threw me. I thought he did it because he was just being selfish or rude, like that analogy. I didn't for one second consider any sort of malicious intent. As far as I can remember, that was that. I think I mentioned it a couple of times in anger, (always in an IM argument, NEVER to his face, too uncomfortable) I kept hanging out with him, not quite sure how long after, but kept having sex with him, more of the same. I didn't forget about what had happened, but if I let him have it, I knew I wouldn't get a real apology and discussion, just him not speaking to me, and then me apologizing for bringing it up. So I didn't let him have it. I didn't stop seeing him, because that need for him to want me didn't go away.
I wobbled back and forth between my definition of what to call what happened. In fact, that continued for years. To me, rape was someone being taken advantage of while unconscious or roofied. It was someone dragged kicking and screaming into an alley. It was something lasted a long time at knife point. What happened to me was nothing like that. I felt like calling it rape was being too dramatic, and using the word would just to get more sympathy and for attention. I guess in a way I had the right to do both. The word made me uncomfortable sometimes, and other times not. So sometimes I just would refer to it as the Tent Incident. I know it minimizes what happened in a way, but it's easier for me to say, and anyone that knows that story knows what I'm talking about. It was hard telling the people closest to me about it. How do you even bring something like that up? But I did. Sometimes after I would for some reason decide to randomly say something about it as a joke. It made everyone really uncomfortable. I guess that was me wanting to talk about it, but also not wanting to actually have a conversation. I was actually seeing a therapist at the time, and I talked about it at my next session. She said it was rape, and nothing else. I mentioned something about rape statistics, and how at least I'd gotten mine out of the way, and how it could have been worse. She agreed with me and smiled and all, but looking back she must have been at a loss for a response. I talked about it online a lot sometimes. Whenever that sort of thing came up on ONTD. And I always asked if they considered it rape. They always did. It's amazing how much validation I need to call it that. But it's a big word. A serious concept, I don't want to use it lightly.
One of the hardest things was knowing how everyone must feel about me, going back to someone that has hurt me so many times in the past, and then hurt me in a way like THAT. I knew there was judgment they were trying to not to express, disappointment, and they always went with something straightforward but not too abrasive. "Why don't you just stop seeing him? He doesn't care about you, and you deserve so much better."
Among the other things I left out of that comment on ONTD at the beginning of this long post, was a HORRIBLE secret that he told me. At least a year before the Tent Incident. I told him it was ok at the time, because I knew it was hard for him to say, and I knew he genuinely felt bad about it. I've told a few people, but I'm not going to say it now. It'll just make me look even more pathetic for continuing to see him. Which would be a very reasonable reaction. So I'm not going to say it, and shan't be accepting any guesses. But I will at least say that while it didn't involve killing anyone or anything, it was sickening and much worse than the Tent Incident.
I also left out how I had one sweet, beautiful, crushing incident of revenge last year, when he I said he was being mean, then he said I was being mean, and I told him he didn't know what me being mean was. We were in a guild in World of Warcraft together. Among other things, guilds have their own chatroom. Immediately after my response to him, I started talking about him in guild chat. About all the thoughtless and selfish and even cruel things he'd done since I'd known him. But I didn't once mention his name. I just referred to him as a guy I know. So he got to sit there and see me talk about him and all the supportive and disgusted replies from the others in the guild, and he couldn't say a thing about it, because then they would know who this horrible guy I was talking about was. That was me being mean. I can't remember the last time, or a time since that where I've felt so invigorated. I'm pretty sure I made him cry. But it could only last so long. Guilt set in, fear of losing him set in, and weeks of begging and what were more or less sincere apologies on and off ensued until he would see me again.
I left out the fact that my fear of phones and any real-time conversation that a lot of you know about started with him, and how obsessive my personality is. I talked about it in a post 2 years-ish ago, but it's really snowballed since then. It might surprise you to know that I used to love talking to my best friend Shayne on the phone.(Shayne is NOT the best friend I fought over Zach with) We'd spend hours on the phone nearly every day, even if we had JUST been on the college campus together. I was a phone whore. But when Zach became more and more apt to blow me off, that changed. If I was waiting for him to call me back, every time the phone rang I was hoping it was him. Every time I got an e-mail notification, or an IM window popped up, I would briefly hope it was him. When I was waiting to hear from him, I would leave my IM open when I didn't want to talk to anyone just in case he messaged me. But when it was never him I started going on invisible constantly, and setting him on my visible list. So I wouldn't have to deal with that disappointment when I was waiting. I very often would have to contact him about things more than once to get an actual answer. He seemed to decide that no answer was good enough answer in itself.
It wasn't. I didn't know he would or wouldn't get back to me. It was really frustrating. But I was still okay with IMs when I did feel like talking. It was the phone thing. I began to dread the sound of the phone ringing, because it was rarely him actually bothering to get back to me. Then I began to hate the sound. Then I began to fear it. This was all very gradual over a handful of years. I stopped having a phone in my room because I just hated the sound so much. But that didn't help much. Because when I heard the phone ringing, if I heard my mom's door open right after, that meant she was bringing the phone to me or my brother. There was dread and anticipation and all kinds of feelings in the short moments it took her to get to whoever's door. By then it had begun to stop being about Zach. When I wasn't seeing him anymore at all, and Justin and I had moved back into my house, I still couldn't stand it. And I couldn't stand initiating most phone calls either if I could help it. Which meant I would never be the person to order a pizza for example. And after Justin left and I moved in with my mom, it got even worse. Phones are loud, and this home is small, so I always heard it. We at least had caller ID, so I could see who it was and decide if I wanted to answer or not. I only answered when it was my mom. We had voicemail, and she was the only friend/family person I was willing to talk to(apologies to my big brother, aunt, and grandparents) so I would just leave it be. But then we realized that our phone was interfering with the wireless signal. We had to stop using it and go back to just a normal touchtone phone. I don't know why we never just got a caller ID box to connect to it. My mom and I happened into a system, more or less on accident. If it was her, she would let it ring the full amount of times, and then call again. No one else did that, so it was perfect. But at some point I didn't even want to talk to HER on the phone. At some point last year I shut off the ringer for good and we just started using e-mail instead.
I pick up the handset one a day-ish to see it there's a voicemail and that's about it. It's just this thing I rarely use unless HAVE to for some reason(like calling in for med refills or scheduling appointments).
I used to be able to talk to my WoW guild in Ventrilo(group chat program) or Skype, but only if it was more than one person, unless it was my friend Jesse. He was easy to talk to for whatever reason so we chatted on occasion when he was at work and bored as fuck. The only downside was he burped into the phone(I'm a lady!). But when I was in group chat, I would get really uncomfortable once it was just one person left. I became really bad at goodbyes for some reason, so it became fairly well known that once it was just one other person left I was going to disconnect. I made it fun by doing it in the middle of the sentence(well it was fun for me). There were so few people that I was even comfortable using Skype with. I think my friend Ryan was the only other one. My other friend Adrian was more or less in that bubble too, I just never had a reason to. Then at some point, I stopped using it with them too. Not due to some falling out or anything, it just sort of stopped. And once it did, I didn't know how to get back to it, and soon everyone was out of that bubble, and somehow I had gotten uncomfortable with all real-time conversation with nearly everyone. A new bubble. Ryan, Jesse, Adrian, and a few other people that are very rarely on are the only people in that bubble now, when I'm willing to talk at all. But I did discover a website where you can send free texts to people(doesn't work with some phones and I have no idea why.) and I use that with my mom now when she's at work if there's something quick to say, or an e-mail if it's longer. That's been nice. Not real-time conversation, but I know it comforts her to know that I'm more reachable. I went way more into detail than I meant to with that, sorry. It upsets me to no end when I think about how this out of control aversion started merely because I was bad at waiting to hear back from Zach. It started out during a time when I was beginning to show symptoms of some mood disorders, and I think that really is what made it escalate. It blows my fucking mind how something that started so small could spiral out of control like that. I just wanted him to take the time to get back to me whether the answer was favorable or not.
The thing that drove Zach and I into a fight nearly every time was a chicken/egg type of thing. I would be clingy because he would be so dismissive, he would be dismissive because I was being too clingy. Generally I believed it was his fault. Couldn't he just try harder to be nicer to me? Couldn't he take the time to get back to me for whatever reason instead of blowing me off? Couldn't he just be a little more understanding? Couldn't he appreciate me for being the only person that had never gotten sick of him and gradually fell out of contact with him for months years, or permanently? Couldn't he see that he treated me worse than he did any friend or girlfriend he'd had? Couldn't he care more about what I wanted and needed? And every time those questions and needs became too much for me to keep in, it would all come out. He would tell me why it was my fault, and how he'd done enough. He would get mad and stop talking to me. I rarely agreed with him, or wavered too much in that I thought he was more in the wrong than I, but sticking to my guns would just make things worse. Then after the fighting and he would break up with me(I don't know what else to call it. Zach broke up with me a lot over all these years for someone that was never actually my boyfriend.) I would beg him right away, or some number of days, weeks, sometimes months later to just start talking to me again.
Here's the thing about the comment in italics at the top of the post. It was from May 2010. That was my frustration with my story up until that point, which was two months before a conversation with Zach triggered a major issue I have by telling me I "wasn't worth the keystrokes it takes to type this message", which sent me on a major downward spiral that left me cutting again and an even more broken version of my former self. My own fault for letting myself stay in that situation, even seeking it out when we'd have a fight and stop speaking. In fact the only reason we aren't speaking now is because HE stopped talking to ME. Over 50 cuts, 10 months, one trip to the ER for stitches on my thigh, and who knows how many bad ambien trips later, nothing's improved aside from me thinking about him less, and aside from me not having looked at Justin(aka the not evil ex who stopped loving me)'s twitter since October. The lack of looking at that was a big step to letting go, and the fear that someday I would look at it and see him talking about a new girlfriend was choking me. He had confessed to reading mine at some point last year, but I don't know if he still does. Those are my two of few notable accomplishments though. Although I guess only the second one is intentional.
But here's something no one knows. Right at the start of April, in another night of ambien-haze, I sent him an e-mail. Some of it terrible inappropriate(I WAS HIGH OKAY), but this is the rest:
can I see you again, or are you still of the mind that I am literally worthlless? or have you come to miss me too? i think it's been far over half a year since we saw eachother last
respond quickly, and do be honest(it would be a bad time for an april fool's day prank) so that I have no chance of missunderstanding ....
Shockingly he got back to me on the same day:
yeah, I don't know. Not that I haven't thought of you, just not sure what you expect to find from trying to resume our friendship.
I'd been asleep most of the time in between, so I wasn't on pins and needles waiting for a reply. But I responded. I'll spare you the embarrassed apologies for even sending the first e-mail, but this was my response to his actual(and I'm sure you saw that it was very well thought out reply):
In any case, I don't expect anything. I guess that sounds negative, but it's true. I know, we have this volatile toxic antagonistic thing going on, and have for what, 9 years now.
I'm not making this very appealing, am I... But I might as well be honest, yes? I haven't changed aside from a growing sense of apathy towards everything, you probably haven't changed, but I miss you anyway and wish we could go back to hanging out and me letting you win at videogames.(he was a sore loser. MEN.)
I didn't know why I was saying any of those things. I didn't want to see him. I didn't want to talk to him, spend time with him, have sex with him, nothing. I hate him. But of course it was about that need for him to want me. Even if I couldn't stand him, if he wanted to see me then I would go. But after that, he didn't reply. And there it was again. All he had to do was mail me back and tell me he didn't want to talk to me. That it was a bad idea. That he wasn't ready at the time. SOMETHING. Another terribly well thought out sentence. But nothing. After a little over a month, I sent another e-mail. I have no idea if I was sober or not. It was incredibly brief and I think reasonable, even thought what I REALLY wanted to say was quite lengthy and unkind:
Could you tell me your reasonings for not responding to me? i think maybe having information like that would help me in the future.
as always, be honest. even if it makes me look bad, or it makes you look bad.
Nothing of course. I can assume if he got back to me, I'd come running, even though right now he lives over 2 hours worth of bus rides away. But I get the sense that isn't going to be an issue. Right now I'm trying to stop cutting(it's not a constant every day thing), I'm trying to stop being irresponsible with my ambien(no such luck, but I'm almost out of my very last refill anyway), but what I'd like at this moment is to NEVER suddenly think of him or even the mostly kind but cowardly Justin again. Even that's not a constant thing, but I don't know what will suddenly cause me to think about one or the other, and my subsequent moods vary, depending on what exactly I'm reminded of, and how I was feeling before hand. All in all it's not nearly as intense as it was before, but as I mentioned in that e-mail to him, I have an ever increasing sense of apathy. Maybe that's the cause. I can't stress enough how much I hate him. I wish him only bad things. I wish he would be plagued with dreams of our past but from my point of view.
Anyway. I don't know why I've typed this all out I didn't think it would get this long, but I couldn't stop. Believe it or not, I left quite a bit out. But I think this is far more than plenty. I have on occasion told large chunks of the story at different times in the past, to different people, for different reasons. But at the moment I don't know exactly. Maybe it's catharsis or maybe it's for the pity and support that I actually get uncomfortable when I receive. There are only a few responses people can give without being an asshole. That I'm better off without him. That he's scum and I deserve better. That I'm not worthless. That you hope I can get past this some day. That I need to stop taking ambien, or to take it more responsibly. That you love me. That I'll never have the love/respect of someone until I can love/respect myself. Or other comments that WOULD put you into asshole territory. I guess I just wanted you guys to know who/what I really am. But if you really read all of this I guess it would help if you let me know. Just so I know who among you knows who I really am, and who took the time to read all of this, because considering how insanely long this is, you'd best believe I appreciate it.
To end on a positive-like note, I do have a third accomplishment. I can be quite the social butterfly(although people from ohnotheydidnt might have a different term) online with plenty of people, but like I said, not real-time. The third accomplishment is mostly because of my trio of PROFOUND BOND friends from a Supernatural fan community. I'm getting better at having a quick dialog on twitter (more or less real time), the occasional lengthy text conversation, and a few times some lengthy IM conversations. If you're reading this, Female-J2 and Sarah thank you!