Teen angst and toxic relationships
A long time ago I made a post about my “life eras”. In this post I talked about someone named Zorn and how he impacted my life very negatively. I’ve decided to write my story about him and about that time of my life in hopes of helping other people who may be going through something similar. That part of my life no longer affects what I do day-to-day so I have no problem talking about it anymore.
I call him Zorn in my posts because I don’t want to give out his name. That would just be mean. We were young and he has his own life now. But I chose Zorn because google tells me that word means “anger” in German. And that’s what he was... the embodiment of anger.
Let’s start by saying I was eleven years old when I met him online and twelve years old when I met him in person. I think he’s six months older than me.
Way too young to be in a “relationship”. When you’re that age you should be eating hot pockets and watching cartoons. Not thinking about one person all day, everyday. In my defense, we lived a little over an hour away from each other, so the distance really added to the “I want you but can’t really have you” sort of thing we had going.
I met Zorn in a chat room. The day I met him should have been a red flag. He was talking about suicide. Saying he was going to kill himself because no one cared about him. Normal teenage angsty crap. But I took the bait. I told him we could talk and I’m pretty sure that same day we decided to be “boyfriend/girlfriend”. Yeah, we were young.
So, we talked every day. We talked in the mornings before school, we talked right after school for the rest of the day, and while I was at school I talked about him and wrote in my diary about him. It was non-stop Zorn Zorn Zorn all day, every day.
This was before smart phones or even flip phones were a thing, so we only talked on the chat room and on AOL instant messenger. But we soon graduated to the house phone. I spent countless hours on the phone with him. I’d fall asleep with him, I’d carry the phone around the house talking to him, I’d get upset when another call came through for someone else in the house because I just wanted to keep talking to him.
Everything seemed fine. Aside from wasting all that time in the house when I could have been out making friends, I was happy. I’m not exactly sure how long we talked before we met in person, but it was probably about five or six months. I wish my parents wouldn’t have let me meet him, honestly. But they did.
Let me clarify that I don’t blame my parents for letting me meet him. I pestered them about it relentlessly and they had no reason to believe the relationship I had with him was as toxic as it turned out to be. I learned to hide that pretty well over those few years.
I met him around the time when all of my friends went to the skating rink every weekend. We decided on a Saturday, and that night was skating night. So I came home after feeling so excited about meeting Zorn and liking him, then I got some cute clothes on and went to the rink to hang out with my friends.
As fate would have it, that night someone else flirted with me. Now, I wasn’t that cute, by any means, and I was even more awkward. I was never flirted with. The idea that someone who met me in person would even like me would have made me laugh back then. I had a few friends but I was the weird kid. No one flirts with the weird kid.
The flirter turned out to be my best friend’s boyfriend. I didn’t know that at the time, I just liked talking to him. He was semi-gothy. That was the group I wanted to be a part of. I spent so much time daydreaming about hanging out with the goth kids.
Fast forward, kid asks me to hang out with him the next day, after telling me he was dating my best friend. I agree to hang out, thinking she’s going to be there. I just wanted in the group. The next day he tells me she couldn’t come. I’m sure he never even asked her if she wanted to. I was a little uncomfortable, but I said okay and we went to his room.
This part is hazy to me, but I remember him saying clearly “there’s a fine line between flirting and cheating... do you want to cross it?” I’ll never forget that stupid sentence that ruined my life back then.
We kissed. A few minutes later I told him I needed to leave so they took me home. The only other thing that sticks out is him turning to me from the front seat and saying “don’t worry, if anyone finds out I’ll make sure they know this was my fault.”
HOW would anyone find out? I didn’t tell anyone because I knew shit was about to hit the fan. He had to have told his girlfriend because the next day at school was hell.
I walked in... and I didn’t have friends anymore. My circle of friends all took my ex-best friend’s side and I was almost beat up after school. Oh, and it just so happens another ex-friend of mine knew Zorn’s handle on AIM. She got home from school before I did. I had every intention of telling Zorn what happened because I felt so awful about it. But she got to him first.
Not telling Zorn about what happened right after, on that Sunday night, was one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made. I don’t know if things would have went the way they did anyway, but I’ll never know.
He confronted me and then confronted me again every single day we were dating after that. We were together around four years. He said over and over that I never would have told him and I was going to keep it a secret.
He would yell at me. He would tell me women were stupid and remind me that I was a woman. He would accuse me of not caring about him. He would try to humiliate me in front of my family. He would try to make my cry.
I’d sit in my closet and cry. Sometimes I would get up some courage and hang up the phone and not talk to him. Then I’d feel like the bad guy. I’d call him back and tell him I was sorry.
He’d apologize, too. Almost every day he would tell me he was sorry and he wouldn’t yell at me again. He would tell me he loved me and things were going to be better. And I was dumb enough to believe him.
Then he would go right back to trying to get me to walk out in the living room naked and humiliate myself. Trying to get me to hurt my dog. Trying to get me to say mean things to people. Trying to get me to tell people my secrets.
I’m so incredibly happy that we lived too far away to see each other more than once or twice a month. If we saw each other every day I have no doubt in my mind that he would have ended up physically abusing me.
But honestly? If he would have hit me instead of calling me awful names and making me think I was worthless, maybe he wouldn’t have messed up my mind so much back then. Because for a kid, barely a teenager, those years are so impressionable and what happens during those years REALLY impact what happens as a young adult.
I was never normal after that. I apologized constantly. The relationships I had after that were strained and full of drama and pain. Because I didn’t know anything else. If I wasn’t apologizing every five seconds to the person I was with, I was expecting an outburst from them. It changed me in ways a kid shouldn’t be changed.
I didn’t regain any sort of confidence until I was around 23 or 24 years old. I decided to focus on fixing my problems in my brain that he caused instead of just living in the aftermath. I cleaned things up in there, filed away the awful thoughts. Until then I had some serious suicidal thoughts. Some serious depression. Lying for four years about an abusive relationship really makes someone learn how to lie with ease and pretend to be happy.
I often think about the person I would have been if I wouldn’t have been in that relationship. If Zorn wouldn’t have come in and tore my world apart.
Would I be a happier person?
Would I have a real career and be important?
Would I be free of social anxiety?
The good thing is, I was able to fix things in my brain. I was able to help myself out of that downward spiral and come back. I’m very happy now. It took a while to get here, but I’m confident in myself, I’m way more positive than I used to be, and my entire life is looking up right now.
That being said, I know what happened to me back then still made a difference in who I am today. If it wouldn’t have happened I wouldn’t be me. So, I wouldn’t change anything in my past.
If you, or someone you know, is going through a rough time in an abusive relationship please reach out and tell someone. It’s so hard to see that it’s actually bad when you’re in the middle of it. But getting help, or at least confiding in someone else can make a huge difference. I was able to leave Zorn because I realized that things weren’t healthy myself. And it took me four years to do that. If I would have talked to someone else about it I may have gotten my life back way sooner than that.
Don’t just sit there and let someone tell you you’re worthless. Because you aren’t. You’re amazing and you’re capable of amazing things. Don’t just curl up and take it...
