A Facebook friend request, sent at 18years old, has still never been accepted after 10 years. But a message was received, that said, “I can’t accept your friend request. Is this some sort of trap?”
I said, “no, you just popped up on my people you may know, and I just did it. I didn’t expect you to accept it, or respond.”
Now, somehow, after months of incredibly spotty “chatting”,( being ignored for weeks, and then talked to every day, and ignored again) I still tried to be enough for this guy. At this point, nothing was serious, he really was off and on with messages and I was kind of dating around. When I say dating… I mean hanging out with guys that I had known previously, and only one guy took me on a “real” date, that guy ended up being the first person to not understand that no means NO.
Eventually I talked my way into being allowed to go to this original guys house. (We will call him Alan, because I don’t have any affiliation with the name and it can be a mash together of the words alcoholic narcissist)((sorry to any good guy Alan’s out there!))
I am told that I have to be sneaky, no one can see me go in his house, I can’t tell anyone, and it has to be late at night, I also have to leave well before day light. These were massive red flags that I just pushed aside… and they were far from the last.
I show up close to midnight, this guy is already hammered, and the whole trailer smelled of weed and hard alcohol. I’m not a drinker, but I felt like if I didn’t drink with him he wouldn’t like me, and he basically said that too. (I know… you’ll be screaming at me throughout this whole thing just like I am while reliving these memories.)
He had me take multiple shots of rum, then listen to music as he quizzed me constantly about who sang the song and what was the name. He then said “if you can guess this band, I’ll marry you right now.” And of course my fragile little naive and trauma bonded self was so thrilled that he said that. I got it wrong. And he said, “you missed your chance.” and in the same minute, told me not to pursue a career I was very seriously going to pursue. He said I wasn’t strong enough and that I’d get hurt, and then I’d never get to spend time with him since I’d be gone all the time… mind you, he ignored me for weeks at a time up until this point. Only leading me on with messages of how much he wanted to see me and be with me. This was our first meet up in person since I snuck out 3 years prior.
After he said he needed a back massage and I obliged, he passed out, wouldn’t wake up to anything, I left. Only to find that the place I was staying, the doors were locked. The guy I was staying with, who paid me to take care of the house and his dog, who allowed me and encouraged me to live with, (I crashed on the couch and there were 2 other roommates) locked me out because he was mad that I was seeing someone… (again, this situation is a whole other story that needs its own segment!)
I snuck in through the window by crawling over the A/C unit, slept for a few hours, and then had to go to work.
I ended up moving out of this living arrangement after that guy decided to touch me in my sleep, and then panic the next morning when I said I was leaving because I was fully aware of what he did, and it was wrong. I felt so much shame and guilt, and embarrassment, that I didn’t tell anyone about what happened until almost 10 years later.
I moved back in with my parents, and they had my stuff packed up and home in less than 20minutes, no questions asked.
But this meant that I couldn’t go see, you guessed it, Alan. He ignored me some more, told me how I shouldn’t have moved back home and I shouldn’t have been in the other guys house either. After a few weeks I found a place of my own, finally. But it was a tiny attic space in an old house, right in the heart of the next city over. But I stayed there for 5 years. And those 5 years were filled with a million paper cuts that I brushed off as accidents, bad habits and childhood trauma.
For anyone reading this story of mine, please try to disregard any typing errors or awkward grammar. Remembering the past and then trying to put it into words is a bit difficult. It’s going to take me a while to get it all out too, as this portion of my life has a lot to remember. Many of the memories are things I don’t want to relive, but, for my own healing, I need to tell it, and maybe it will find someone else out there who also needs to hear it.
Thank you for beating with me if you have made it this far!
Ink & Embers 