I decided to actually describe events here, even though they're still too close and still too painful. It seems like what happened might be significant so...
[2013]
After going through hell with Syrg, becoming a shadow of my former self, and starting to live with my mom, I got a PM out of the blue from Jon. He was apologizing for what he'd done before, saying I was right, and regretting what he'd done.
I was happy to receive it and happier to re-initiate contact but hearing that he regretted showing me his feelings did hurt. I mean yeah, cheating, but that didn't mean that what he felt was invalid, right...?
One of the first things he established was that he wasn't interested in dating and wanted to work on himself. I was totally caught off guard but explained that I wasn't really looking for that kind of relationship because of my situation. This carried through our entire time together where he'd regularly flip out on me because I said something he'd interpret as hinting toward a relationship. Even the WORD 'relationship' set him off. Even though I could make sexual advances without that reaction and even would get responses sometimes.
Things went okay until the end of September. October 2013 would be the one-year anniversary of my life becoming hell and I warned Jon that I was afraid of going back to Syrg. He said he'd help.
Then I made a huge mistake I still regret: I admitted that I loved Syrg still and that I felt I always would. I had told Jon upfront that I loved him and in my eyes there was no conflict. I did love them both but I hated myself for loving Syrg and I trusted Jon enough to share with him. I didn't realize that it might hurt him to hear.
But it got worse. As October went on, I grew more unstable and was subject to frequent breakdowns. There's no way in hell Jon would have been able to make sure I was okay all the time, he had a life and I didn't want to be that needy and it was something that he didn't really understand. Then one time, when he was streaming and neglected to tell me, I broke down again and this time contacted Syrg.
Who told me he still loved me, and that was a radical act since Jon was never the type to explicitly say anything about caring about me and I was too deep in my bad situation to detect implied things. I told Jon, who initially reacted with anger but then kind of accepted it. Oddly, that had felt bad like the last part of my stable self had been hoping he'd be able to keep me out of doing something bad to myself.
But nah, he just got more distant and changed little things about himself like Skype avatars which was weird when that hadn't happened for years. If I ever asked about the changes, he'd excuse them away as just something he felt like doing or that he was distant because he was busy. If I was having problems he'd be more prone to yelling at me about them instead of being understanding like before. I grew more and more uncertain in the weeks leading to Magfest.
In that time, I also finally escaped living with my mom when she stranded me at my grandparents' for not putting a bag of groceries away then totaled her car on the way home. Mom stories are for another time though.
[Magfest]
Magfest was....weird. Of course he didn't recognize me and I ended up stuck in a wheelchair most of the time because it was easier. We ended up in a large group most of the time and in contrast to the first time he was getting a ton of attention from fans. It was surprising, really.
There were things that stuck out to me though: he was paying a strange amount of attention to one of the women in the group, for starters. But because he acted nothing like he had with me back in 2011, I couldn't think much of it. And, in fact, there was an effort made to eliminate suspicion. Going off alone had an excuse though the unsettled feeling was still strong there. With all the abandonment before, this was not good and caused me to start sinking into anxious actions. To even start being nervous to be around him because this felt like it was leading to something distressing and I couldn't handle any more of that.
Syrg still encouraged me to try something, to test and see where Jon stood. ...Naturally I didn't because I was too afraid of causing problems!
But whenever we were alone together, which happened a few times, he seemed to be off. Nervous and skittish and at one point when things could have easily come off as a date it really seemed to be the case. I might have joked about it but I had my anxiety on my mind instead. There was one time I asked him to help me get back to my hotel room, and at first he seemed to be unsure but I didn't notice because I needed the help. It was only after I noticed the situation that I decided that maybe Syrg was right....nope. I tried, but I aborted the try equally fast.
In the end, nothing really happened except me being anxious and getting sick and a few instances where it seemed like Jon was annoyed with me that just aggravated everything. I like to think I was able to put on a happy face long enough though.
[Fighting]
Things only held up about a week longer than that. It started with a winding conversation that led to me admitting that I had tried to make a move in the hall that night. Or thought about trying might have been the better thing to say but I'm good at not saying things right sometimes.
Either way he got mad even though he said he suspected it. And he told me something like how not okay it was to do that because he was in a relationship and didn't do things like that. I had thought something was up, but it still shocked me. He had meant to stay single to work on himself but 'sometimes things happen'.
...Meaning his old problems and issues were all still intact, and on top of that I had been lied to. Of course I got mad. Of course I said something bad about him there. After the last relationship and my role there, knowing that he could still have unresolved issues with me, it felt so damn irresponsible to be jumping into something. It wasn't like keeping me away would do anything, because just EXISTING seemed to be enough to set him off judging by his romance-related outbursts over those past months. Because he had told me his reasons for holding back on me were "Because I don't know what I want anymore."
....because...it was the same as it had been back in 2008, really. When he entered that other relationship, lied about how he felt toward me, then proceeded to spend that entire time hung up on me but unwilling to persue it because ???
AND HE WAS USING IT AS A WEAPON HERE EVEN. Like some kind of checkmate against me acting on my feelings when I didn't know a factor like that existed!
He was even angrier that I wasn't happy about it, but how could I be in the face of something like this? I was told I was toxic, negative, that he was trying to keep people like that out of his life. That my recent behavior had reminded him of the parts of me that were difficult. It didn't take well, since I was shaken already, and I just broke down to a point where I weakly promised that I would try to change myself. He had been hoping that I was going to change after getting away from my mom and become like the person I once was. Even though there was a healing period to contend with and this wasn't a simple 'get over it' situation.
I tried to point out things that suggested that he saw me in a significant light, but as always he had rebuttals. The problem is that no matter what he does. He's been in love while arguing that he hated me before. The only one I remember was pointing out his tendency to hug me goodbye all the time, he said he does that to everyone but I remembered a time where he was saying goodbye to people and only ended up hugging as the result of a joke. So it seemed wrong.
It's sad that I have to result to analysis like that to decipher what's going on in his head, but he's never actually opened up too much about any positive feelings toward me. It usually ends up implied or stated vaguely.
But still, I just submitted and promised I would try to act better. I was scared and anxious enough to just give in because I didn't want to fucking hurt anymore.
After he left, I talked to Syrg. I talked to other friends too likely. And it slowly dawned on me how much of a repeat his behavior was from the past, since I had been told the same things then. I had lied about my relationship status in an effort to protect myself, but still. I saw that if I stayed there, it would get worse. That I was a target now and that if I was that much of an irritation to him, he would just hurt me more and more and deepen the already-existing trauma.
So I wrote. And pointed out what he had done. And of course, that went horribly with him and he just sent me a final word kind of goodbye that ended with something like "have a nice life".
....And that was the end of that, we haven't spoken since though he never blocked me on Skype or removed me or anything. I tried to make up for what I saw as my mistakes, but never reached. I was 'with' Syrg for a bit after that and that fell apart and I couldn't stop talking about Jon then. It had left a hole somewhere and the way he behaved had left an impression on me.
It was that, the memory and feeling that he had somehow been kinder that year and ended it in disappointment, that drove me to start investigating.
Okay, this is sort of related to all the Jon stuff but also sort of unrelated. These are groups of transcripts relating to my home life when we were in contact in 2013, which was a little horrifying.
I say that I'm really glad to have had him and that he saved me and all that a lot but never really provided much context for it. The other two entries should show the depth of our relationship for that aspect, and this should show what having someone who really deeply cared for me helped.
The unrelated part is that because this started as an overview of the past several years of my life without any focus on one person, I'm having to compile things for that.
Abuse is discussed in depth here, so trigger warnings apply.
[8/11]
>Now here's hoping for another wonderfully quiet night~
>>Last night was actually quiet for once?
>Ooh yeah it was, aside from You (the cat, not you) rolling around and doing her thing it was pretty calm. It was actually more shocking because we had been in the ER earlier that day so my mom could get her meds refilled...and was lectured on addiction...and then intentionally given the wrong dosages of medication in what I think was an attempt to force her into a "seek help for your addiction"-type situation.
>Not entirely sure what all was happening or trying to happen there but it was a great example of trying to fix a problem in a completely fucked up way. And I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it happened because there's a note about drug-seeking behavior in her patient file.
>And yeah, despite that happening and the usual death threats in the car on the way home, it was quiet last night.
>>At least the doctors are aware of it, although it does bring up the question of how would you convince her to get help when she doesn't seem to want it.
>......Sooooooo. Um. My mom just came in here, said "Since you're so willing to help me when I need help, your internet speed's being cut to the minimum tomorrow" and slammed my door.
>Why did she suddenly do this? Because I refused to give her pain meds today.
>Yeah.
>>Geez, that's quite the extreme.
>>Wow, what the fuck.
[Note: I don't know if I've really explained this, but Jon and I tend to hold multiple conversations with each other at once and usually paragraph breaks are the split between subjects, so he responded twice to the same thing because of that.]
>The thing that gets me is that....*I'm* the one who pays that bill. So it seriously is just down to a matter of her trying to control the situation entirely.
>>So wait, is it under your name? Then in that case, she doesn't have the ability to do that.
>No, it's under both names as far as I know.
>Either way, I don't expect her to ACTUALLY do it because I have the account information. Like with...everything, really. I'm the one who has to be responsible for the bills and all that because if she was nothing would get paid.
>It's pretty funny she's accusing me of not helping her at all here too when just a couple days ago she kept a certain amount of money she was supposed to give me and just went "You can use what you've saved up and lie about getting it, right?"
[Note: I think at this point in the conversation I switched to a secret phone I had with a data plan, judging by the 'unplugged everything' and the bad typing I suddenly found. There was a good amount of time in between my two messages here so I'm assuming stuff went down that I didn't talk about.]
>... Okay, I have nooo idea what sent and what didn't but she unplugged everything from her room because she was leaving the house. If i do anything while she's gone it'll just get worse so i left for now.
>Fuck giving into bullshit control tactics. She is fully aware that online is one of the only ways i can really talk to friends so that's how this happens. I am okay though. And here for now.
>>Jesus, that's fucked up.
>Ahaha, this is pretty normal for my family. And I could solve it by giving her meds and fucking myself over for a day or two.... And she'd still say i'm selfish. Works wonders for self-esteem doesn't it?
>>Oh yeah, works great.
>For the most part I've stopped being hurt and crying over it and it's turned into 'what the fuck is wrong with her?' and sarcasm. Shit like this... It's not true and none of it's my fault.
>It's kinda sad how long it took to learn that, but...
>>But it's even sadder that your mom of all people has basically forced you to be sarcastic and jaded towards her, and that it's entirely justified.
[Note: His understanding why I had such an antagonistic attitude meant a fucking lot to me back then.]
>Well... What else can really be done here?
>>Well, what you're working towards, getting out, is really the only option.
>Mm, okay, so we are on the same page after all. I was worried you were going to say something like 'maybe you can work harder and make things more peaceful' like my grandma says from time to time :x
>>I know you well enough to know you've already tried that and know it won't work.
[He was right...ahah.]
>Ahaha, thanks for knowing me :P
>It's mostly just annoying tonight because now anything i wanted to do might have to be put on hold until she decides to be reasonable again. Sure didn't want to spend the night being distressed or feeling lonely >:(
>Ehehe, hello there~
>It seems she forgot again that the TV And the Internet connections are, well...connected! And since she can't live without having the TV on constantly, I'm in luck~
>Now to hope she falls asleep relatively quickly tonight so I can work on setting the phone up and start that letter of mine and all...but, I'm here! So tonight can be fun after all in some ways :P
>>Haha, that's incredibly convenient!
>>Letter?
> :> Isn't it, though? I kinda figured it was going to be that way because I was there when the maintenance guy came to do setup and noticed everything went through the same device.
>Yeah, I'm gonna...basically my grandma keeps calling and we both know that if she's around, I'm not giving the full story because she's likely overhearing and will give me hell for anything I have to say that isn't "everything's wonderful, nothing to worry about here!" so I'm gonna just write her an email telling her what's going on for REAL, why I've been so evasive and drained and everything lately, all the details.
>Really, I'm most upset at how much of a drain my mom puts on everyone else and then she has the nerve to say that things are this way because of everyone else.
>>Well hopefully she doesn't figure out a way around that.
>>Okay, that makes sense.
>>Yeah, most people who act that selfishly tend to just ignorantly think things are bad because of others, and not because of what they're doing to others.
>...This is the same woman who thinks that her printer is deleting her emails. I don't think that we're going to have much of a problem in that department...
>Pretty much. I might also just sound a little bitter because I really don't like people who manipulate others frequently and are *proud* of doing so. Especially people I care about.
>>Ahahaha, good lord...
>>Yeah, I don't blame you one bit for that.
>Yeaah, I'm the one with the technology-related knowledge in the family :P
>and....oh dear. Well. She's been taking too much of the other medication too apparently because she just told me that she doesn't care how pissed off I am, call 911 if she starts going into seizures. She just got those refilled yesterday and there should have been enough for at least 3-5 days....
>>Holy shit, so she's OD'ing on purpose?
>That..sounds possible. I know she takes more of everything she takes than is prescribed for starters, especially the pain meds. In that case it's a tolerance thing and her being outright dishonest with doctors about it. Most likely because it would immediately ping on their radars as "welp we're dealing with addiction here"
>I had no idea about the benzos though. She was given 20 1mg pills in the ER and is supposed to only be taking 2mg/day. If she's worrying about stuff like seizures, that means she's going through benzo withdrawal most likely since that's one of the things that'll happen. Benzos and alcohol are the only two withdrawals that can outright kill you to my knowledge...
>>It disturbs me that you know all about this from presumably first hand experience.
> ....A-ah, does it? Sorry....
>It's...kinda necessary in situations like this though. I'm the only one around if anything goes wrong, and the only one who knows about any of this so I need to have some kind of information at hand, especially because it's not like she'll listen to me and stop what she's doing. I've tried. But still, sorry.
>>Maybe I should rephrase that: It disturbs me that the situation you're in requires that knowledge.
>Ah! Okay, I get it now!
>That's...yeah, I was worried about that. :x I guess it's a pretty good reason to be worried as hell, isn't it? Ahaha...
>>Yeah, just a tiny bit...
>Hmm, am I wrong in thinking that that's a bit of an understatement? Not trying to tease you about it or anything. If anything, I'd probably totally understand your perspective.
>Sometimes it's just a little harder to see at first because when you live a certain way long enough, it becomes normal and it takes pushes from the outside to really see how bad it is or things like that.
>>Yeah, hence the ..., although I suppose that phrase works a lot better in person or with actual voice intonation.
>Some things are really hard to convey over text without neon signs or just outright explaining them I guess.
>But thank you. For worrying so much, though I'm sorry it's such a disturbing thing. I honestly can't imagine what it looks like to anyone else or how they would feel hearing about all of this. Usually people just say they wish they could help more.
>>Yeah, it's kind of an... unique situation you're in.
>Hmm? Is it really? I always thought this was standard for households that have to deal with addicts.
>>I guess so. Maybe it just seems unique to me because I don't know anyone else in your situation?
>That might be for the best though...it's not a situation anyone should have to be in, you know?
It's unavoidable, but I'm sure that some people have noticed a bizarre tendency for me to rewrite things. Usually in ways that involve presenting the information more compacted or a bit more organized.
This isn't an attempt by me to change my story, it's a byproduct of my own mental functioning and that failing miserably in some areas.
A lot of my writing is not done from memory, but done after exhaustively reading old things from various time periods and interviewing people who I was close to at those times. I don't have much faith in my memory function, so everything I do is some kind of cross-referenced with evidence or talks with other people. Luckily I've always had a habit of talking about it with others.
At the same time, though, this means I have no appropriate gauge of how deeply to go into detail about things. So I go overboard and end up with things that are too long. Especially considering my goal.
So I'm sorry for the problems I've created by being too wordy.
[Note: This is incomplete and when I'm done should include an explanation of why the abuse I described occurred from the perspective granted by the extra information.
Trick or treat, it's a story of redemption after all~ Though I guess that's a trick and a treat kinda since most of these stories are about people who are horrible forever. I want to emphasize forever that this isn't the case here.]
It was hard to understand what I was seeing at first, and I ended up just plunging in and copying anything that caught my eye to documents where I could format them. I'd need the evidence, right...?
It was getting really really hard to look at it that way.
Or look at the words I was reading for that matter.
Any semblance of composure I had was dropped as soon as I started reading our exchanges. His words still hit me the same way they had back then, to my surprise. I found myself blushing and flailing and hiding and smiling and being grateful nobody could see me looking so ridiculous over text on a screen.
....No, it was way more than that....
It was proof that I had been given that kind of affection, even if it was subdued at points and I was awkward at giving it back. I had been so badly damaged by the past year or so of my life that I didn't know how my own emotions worked anymore. Syrg shifting from loving me to hating me and then leaving left me afraid that that's what the truth was for everyone. Even though I was afraid, I bared it all to Jon in hopes that it would help prevent me from doing something horrible there. I had never been given a chance to heal thanks to ending up living with my mom shortly after that ended.
The more I read, the more feelings I didn't even recognize having stirred up. It was so much easier to understand from here.
When we had come back into contact, I was so uncertain of every part of myself. I had gone almost completely numb in that time and if Jon hadn't reached out to me I would have contacted Syrg in a fit of loneliness and desperation. It's sad, but I was so desperate for affection and kindness from someone that I would have gone back to an incredibly dangerous person to get it. I would have sentenced myself to more psychological torture and fear, that's how much it meant to me.
....Then Jon showed up, and even more surprisingly ended up providing that same affection I was in need of to the best of his ability.
I didn't see myself as complete, as valuable, as much of anything. I even told him as much in the first email where I detailed Syrg's abuse:
"...I want to be able to say something good here, like "but I got better" or something. Sorry. That's the worst of it. That's why I'm not myself anymore, or I'm not sure if I'm myself anymore. Yeah, I'm trying to think of something to put here because I'm sure you're sitting there in some kind of shock."
I said that, and I meant it, and that didn't keep him away. It never crossed my mind because my trauma is such a common thing, but I wonder how he saw me in the face of all that? If anything changed because I had said something that he had found horrifying.
>I'm not kidding when I say I'm afraid I'm not myself anymore.
>>Yeah, but now that brings up the question: When do you think you'll start becoming yourself again, if at all?
>It'll happen. I'm sure of that much. You proved it.
This was just a starting point too. I hadn't even tried to scratch the surface of my continued abuse at someone else's hands because he was already concerned enough about me as it is. And just that was overwhelming, as someone who had received mostly harsh words and negativity for so long. So I kept reading, and I kept finding more.
He never saw me as worthless, he never showed less affection because I was insecure and scared and clinging. He never got upset at me for acting 'abnormal', and just took it as it happened. Actually, it was more than that, if it was clear that things weren't okay with me he'd talk to me about it. Even if there wasn't much to say, it was still both of us talking. It never felt like I was causing a problem or being a burden, and if I tried to convince myself that I was he wouldn't let it happen.
There were times where I would comment on it all. Like on some deep down level I could grasp how deeply he cared about me. He would always say that it was normal stuff friends would do. I didn't know how to word it back then, but I wondered: then why weren't any of my other friends as attentive as you are? Why don't they get all wound up and worried like you do? Not only that, but he said he wanted to see me in person again, didn't he?
It wasn't an attempt to 'accuse' him of being in love with me or anything like that. It was me trying to work out the fact that he was being so intense toward me.
There was also another part of me that had become severely blurred in the turmoil of the previous months. When I had been with Syrg, there had been a certain sexual component that left me, in some ways, only able to express myself like that. Embarrassing, yeah. ...Jon accepted that side of me too, somehow. Even when I would try to de-escalate situations due to a newfound awkward shyness, little comments from him would just escalate them right back. And I would get kinda shy and flustered and then end up just being happy because he could see me like that.
All of this when in the past a major issue I had had was not feeing like I was worth the time in his eyes. It was like a complete 180, and him saving me from Syrg just made it a happier situation for me. It did make me feel a bit guilty because I wouldn't be able to do the same things for him that he was for me ever, but he remedied that by reminding me that he wasn't expecting anything in return for any of it.
If I had been in a better place, I would have been able to grasp the subtleties of his behavior much easier and it's possible that the later events would have never happened. There had been a lot of times in the things I read where I'd shyly ask for a more explicit show of affection than normal, and usually the requests would be granted unless they were so incredibly obscure that it made no sense.
And in the middle of it all....I found an ominous exchange:
>Jeez, way to reveal all your secrets self. I wasn't even this bad with Syrg.
>....Though if we're on that track still, I can admit to someone that I've been stupid and vaguely considered doing something like contacting him again. That happens every couple months when things get to be too much because of everything I'm trying to tackle on my own. Maybe I should show you that list just to have shown someone.
>>All your secrets have been revealed!
>>...that's not a good one though, don't follow through with that secret.
>Yeah. Um. If I get that urge I'll tell you, okay? Because....there's usually reasons WHY and considering what we do to each other...
....When I found that one, I had to stop shuffling through all the email fragments I had collected and just...stop. And cry. Because I had warned him. Because we had both known that I was at risk for doing that in a moment of weakness. So when I did it, I did it at a time he couldn't get to me. When he was busy, I was thinking way too hard and uncertain because no matter how much affection Jon showed me, he never told me that I meant something significant to him and the subject of dating or a committed romantic relationship would make him suddenly get very rigid. Obvious hints weren't enough to quiet the fears....and I fell back in, sparked by Syrg telling me he loved me still that very night we started speaking again.
The fact that I placed the blame on myself was quite a bit already.
But the problem was that I never told anyone what was going through my head when I broke down and contacted Syrg like that.
I knew what was happening, and that I was getting sucked into it.
So I decided then that if I couldn't do anything else, I'd try to make it so I could find a way to heal myself with this situation. To take some of the worry and burden off of Jon.
I still had feelings for Syrg, but Jon won out easily. ...But it was because of that that I was afraid of causing trouble from the trauma. If I could at all understand that that was never necessary, would it have gone better?
And it opened the door to another thing: I had criticized Jon for so long for hiding feelings and running and doing the exact fucking thing I was doing there.
There was a loop. It was cyclical. And we were both making it continue by trying to keep a certain distance from one another instead of doing the obvious and trying to move past the fear and realize that if there's so many tumultuous feelings involved with feeling for each other it might just be because the two people actually love each other and are just making it overcomplicated by trying to deny that over and over for reasons that will ultimately not be as important as they seem.
Note on chat transcript formats: As always, my transcripts are formatted with my words being bolded and starting with a >, while the other person's words are not formatted and start with >>.
"Warped" would probably be a good way to describe my outlook on certain subjects by the time I got around to doing all of this. As long as these conflicts have been going on I've approached them from a distant standpoint, trying to be as neutral and analytical and emotionless as I could manage to try to find an answer first. Here I was handling a situation where emotions were the strongest factor and I somehow managed to completely banish them from how I thought about everything.
But just mine. My evaluations would often involve seeing what Jon's feelings were and factoring them in to some degree, but I would just shut mine off. It was never a matter of whether or not I had those feelings. I loved him, I knew I did, but suppression was second nature. The things that happened in 2011 with being loved and then rejected and then left, the entire situation where he faked hating me, all of it had left me with the impression that I wasn't meaningful enough to have that kind of relationship with. So it followed that my feelings weren't important in the grand scheme of things and better left quiet.
2013 had started to break this method of thinking, but miscommunication wrecks everything. Also, because of my circumstances I had forgotten more of it than I knew. I also hadn't been aware that this emotionless approach of mine could be harmful until I started looking at all the details.
[Reasons Why]
My callout was always supposed to have this Part 2. Part 1 would detail the various things related to the abuse in the past, but mention that things seemed to be headed in a positive direction. Part 2 would explain that, even though there was no intended malice, what happened could still be called abusive. It would explain that my intent wasn't to paint Jon as a bad guy because of what he did, but try to come to terms with that past myself. Normally I try to avoid the topic of the past events and when I do, I spend hours agonizing over it. Whether or not I'm fair in my assessment, the fact that I despise calling him an abuser, the fact that because I still love him I likely try to sugarcoat what happened in my mind.
The end result was me being trapped in a state where it all stuck in my mind and I couldn't find the time to heal. And the aftereffects of his behavior stuck to me so I would end up treating him with caution and an extent of distrust because of it all. And I fucking hated it and wanted to get over that pain.
I have to admit that there might have been some negative thought too. Mostly in the form of an internal conflict - I wanted to forgive him and to stay at a point where he wasn't trying to do anything for me because of guilt. But I also was bothered by the idea I had to stay quiet about it to protect him. Like how I would, we both would, dance around the issue of his feelings because at least then it wouldn't make him start getting wound up there. If I confronted everything in a public setting, it would mean I couldn't try to take it back or hide it away and pretend it didn't exist.
I had worked for years to make some kind of happy resolution. I had failed repeatedly because of many things, both known and unknown. After the last time we 'broke up' I was so bothered by it all that I couldn't stop thinking about how it was my fault for going back to Syrg, for being a hurtful person without thinking, for starting back on dishonesty. Even though the way Jon had started acting at the end was enough like the familiar abuse that I had called him on it (An action that led him to separate himself entirely), I placed the blame on myself fully.
The things I could remember about those talks had hit old scars so well that they kept weighing me down too. He had called me toxic and negative again, but there was also the fact that he said he was hoping I would have gotten better after leaving my mom's. He had hoped that that would be the action to bring me back to my real personality, and it hadn't. And that assumption both hurt and annoyed me because it seemed unreasonable to want such a quick recovery when it wasn't just that. It was my mom, it was Syrg, it was about 1 1/2 years of constant turbulence and breakdowns.
For some reason I could and couldn't understand, his cutting contact didn't involve blocking me this time. Messages would send still, but naturally I wouldn't get a reply. This was really unusual to me because he would typically block me after fights like that one. I wondered if he had just forgotten to do it and even shot off a couple messages in an attempt to figure it out, figuring that if I was unwanted it would result in that happening or at least getting some kind of 'fuck off' message.
Neither of those things happened. Nothing happened, actually. Except me having sent messages to him and feeling like some kind of crazy ex in doing so.
I ended up using that as a warning, in a way, that I was up to something. I knew what kind of things he'd do and say if I was enough of a problem that he wanted nothing to do with it.
For better or for worse, Jon knows me incredibly well at this point. The first time we broke up, I had been a horribly clingy annoyance. He knew that given the right balance of stubbornness and motivation I could become a nearly unstoppable force. Well, with some exceptions and rules. He knew that I would, to the best of my ability, plan things a certain way and that if I was going to go forward with anything that there was a reason behind it. Possibly multiple.
On that same token, I understand enough about him to be able to make some basic judgments, even if my memory isn't intact. I wasn't trying to make conversation happen between us, since if he felt like responding that's what would happen and there wasn't much sense in pushing it. The guilt of what I had done in 2013 was also enough that I was hesitant to face him anyway.
My first bout with untangling the wires of my past was rewriting my experiences with Syrg. It was a basic first draft that covered more ground than the writeups I had made before...and when I was finished I put it in that chat window, with a note that it was there if he ever wanted to know what kind of person he wound up with when he sent me that apology PM.
>....does the name Syrg ring a bell, though?
>>Syrg Sapphire? Yeah, I played Worms with him a bunch when I was still active on SA.
That was the way I had told him who it was that caused the damage back then. Leading up to my actually contacting him again, Syrg was a shadow hanging over me that I hadn't managed to conquer yet. And no matter how badly I felt about it, I didn't want to keep that hidden from Jon ever. It was a show of trust on my part. So naturally, I felt like I needed to at least offer everything I could in that regard. If he wanted it, he could read it. If he didn't, he could just ignore it.
I also think, deep down, I had a feeling he would read it. I think I continued posting one-sided messages, despite everything, because of a feeling that they were being read even with his silence. Not that I needed anything else here to make me look unhinged or anything....it's kinda hard to say stuff like this and go "No, no trust me really!" But I was trying to word anything I did send to make it clear I wasn't looking for responses, or trying to push him into anything. It was like a storage of sorts, I could put things in that chat window that might have meaning to him.
It all sounds weird enough, but it's what happened a couple days later that made it stranger.
I got a message from a friend telling me that I might wan to listen to a specific part of a Superman 64 stream that had happened a day or two after I had left him links to the things about Syrg. Not really feeling up to looking into it, I just asked what was going on. At which point I was told that Jon had mentioned Syrg during the stream in passing.
Okay, what. This immediately made me curious and confused and somewhat worried. When we had first spoken about my abuse experience he had sounded totally unfamiliar with Syrg, save for very old experiences. On top of that, he had always had odd reactions when I brought him up in conversation and had been upset when I admitted that I had resumed contact. Now I saw why I was told about this incident.
The context had turned out to be Jon talking about how that whole Superman 64 thing started and saying that Syrg had made a video related to it. ...Except, you know, the part where that made no sense.
To anyone else it would have seemed like a simple slip, but it ended up bothering me because of the history. Because I was still convinced that my running off with Syrg had been the thing that drove us apart, after Jon had been so upfront about not wanting things to drive us apart. And it made me wonder, somehow, if the slip had anything to do with the thing I had sent him.
Nothing really came of those thoughts of mine though, aside from a couple twitter messages correcting the mistake. When I started to write more extensively, and release that writing, I ended up tagging him on twitter. I was sure that he would see things no matter what, and feeling like I could at least set my own vague terms helped me feel more confident about speaking up.
[Starting Line]
It actually took something unusual to push me into action as far as talking about the abuse was concerned. A certain twitter storm, paired with Jon's collaboration with someone who...was a problem, to put it nicely. Hearing about it pushed me into saying something vague, but pretty angry about it.
Jon was the type to stay out of things like that, to be neutral and in the background and not rock the boat.
That was the problem.
That was the same thing he's done this entire time, and no amount of rationalization or attempted justification made it better. It just felt like trying to shift responsibility in the end or not take any to begin with. It might have been because of the circumstances that it was so much more blatant and upsetting.
Of the two of us, I've always been the one more likely to step out of a comfort zone and do whatever it takes to improve a situation. Sometimes to the point where I do physical or psychological damage to myself and ignore the fact that I have multiple illnesses that limit what I can do.
....I never thought about it before, but maybe a part of why Jon does what he does where I'm involved is because if it appears there's nothing for me to be worried about and try to solve I won't put myself into such situations. Except I'll see through it and then it'll become twice as bad because the original problem is there, and then the fact that he's attempting to hide it...
Anyway.
I ended up being pretty transparent that something had struck a nerve, though I didn't specify what the something was. And I started buckling down on my writing. By this point I had already discussed the possibility of a callout with some friends because of how troubled I was by the dark parts of our relationship and my inability to shake them off. It was just difficult to digest the idea of actually doing it and I was procrastinating. I was afraid of the responses I could get by doing it. I was afraid of revisiting the memories I had tried my best to lock down, even if I knew I would have to one day. And if I did follow through, it would mean having to talk about things without the sugarcoating.
Meaning I'd have to call it 'abuse' for the first time out of my emotional responses to our 'break ups'. I did not fucking want to put that label on it but the alternative was....what? Continuing to keep myself quiet? Continuing to talk myself in circles, endlessly, about what happened to me and nervously wait for him to show up again?
From the outside it looked like he was just continuing on like nothing ever happened, but he could have that luxury without having any trauma to work through....right? Yeah, there was living with guilt, but can that really be the same? And going back to the thing that had set me off...wouldn't keeping quiet on my part just encourage that complacency? It would be like saying that it was okay that it happened, or at least that's how it felt.
Luckily that momentum was enough to make me start writing. My first attempt was one where I tried to act more neutral about the whole situation and tried to evaluate my own actions too. I ended up rewriting it because shortly after I realized that there was a huge problem with presenting it that way. If I did that, then it would be easier to downplay the severity of it all. Both to myself and others. If I was going to do this, and I was going to do it right, I would need to push my anxieties aside and be as harsh as I could manage.
I used various methods of encouragement and just went with it. When I started worrying myself about the ways Jon could react I reminded myself that there wasn't really much to lose. He wasn't talking to me anyway, so what would the worst case be? Him getting angrier or disliking me more and...double not talking to me? I had abandoned my old Skype account by then anyway.
It was probably a really bleak and negative way of looking at things between us. At the same time, it was my way of protecting myself. People might think I'm brave and strong for making statements like this but really? Not really. It's pretty easy to break my heart, all it takes is a feeling of rejection. So to cope I just reject myself on others' behalf. Sometimes, the stronger my feelings for someone are, the more likely it is that I will do something like that.
It never occurred to me that I was doing my part to also deny and bury any potential feelings he could have for me. The same thing I always criticized.
It never occurred to me that my methods of protecting myself could make it seem like I disliked him when the reality was the opposite. That that love was still there, but I was still hurt, and the thing I wanted the most was to find a way to stop the processes that would make us hurt each other. That he meant a surprising amount to me.
It never occurred to me that his true feelings could be the opposite of what I convinced myself of to try to protect myself from perceived rejection and that casting that doubt could be an incredibly hurtful action.
It never occurred to me that his excessive touchiness about romance and my excessive worry about that touchiness and all the tension that would build were pointing toward a clear picture of denial and trying to force distance being the worst possible reaction.
[Twice Shy]
Love has been a touchy subject here for a long time. Really, since we broke up from officially dating. Since he took on the act of pretending to hate me to avoid facing it all. The built up and extremely negative reactions to the subject taught me to skip around them as best I could. To never say the word 'love' if I could help it. I never really made an effort to hide any feelings on my part but I would try to mask them with layers of joking and teasing so I had that much to fall back on.
At the same time, I developed the skill of reading Jon. I learned that what he said explicitly wouldn't matter much in the long run. Implied things and actions were what actually meant something since those were usually things he'd do without thinking too much so they became a more accurate way to figure out what was going on. He wouldn't admit to much, if anything, in explicit terms so I had to use those methods.
The thing was, I was pretty damn accurate. I learned how to push his buttons if I wanted to. But if confronted directly he would gravitate to denial and push me away from it. Even if I made innocent statements about our relationship he would suddenly start responding with tense, short answers. Even the word relationship was enough of a trigger. I could point out the flaws in his logic and shut him down and get an apology, but the tension wasn't something I could handle well. Because it would lead to him just denying it which could just be considered a rejection and I was horrible with rejection. And by 2013 I had been through so much rejection by him that I decided that no matter what I saw in his actions I would just default to treating it like a joke.
There was something really sad to it. I understood that he told me he didn't know what he wanted, that he was in a weird place. I seemed to be a huge area of uncertainty to him even if he had showed me how much he cared about me. And there wasn't really anything I could do to change that, because could I really say anything speaking as the entire reason for that uncertainty? It would just be easy to doubt it. I still wanted to be able to do something that could end that uncertainty. On a more selfish level, I hoped that maybe things would be comfortable enough that I would be able to one day hear something like that I meant something significant to him. I tried to extend that to wanting to hear that he loved me, but my shyness and built-up defenses made it so thinking about that possibility was even embarrassing to myself.
When he apologized in 2013, he mentioned that it was probably a good thing that we were out of contact because it meant I didn't have to deal with his immaturity, but....well. No. No I really do not fucking agree with that one bit. Nobody will ever get along 100% and nothing will ever be perfect and sometimes it might be uncertain and doubtful, but you just have to do it because isn't it kind of worse to keep trying to push it all away like this? So everything he would say about his feelings being regrettable, anything that came off as 'I should probably stay away from you because I'm going to just mess you up more.'
Again, no.
That was another reason I decided to proceed with all of this too. Because I knew that he had changed in 2013. Even though he had lashed out in the end...he had showed me a really great side to himself. I didn't remember much save for embarrassing situations, but I did remember that I had ended up saying he was a better boyfriend than any others I'd had...when we weren't dating like that. And he had been proud to hear that.
I had only started gathering evidence the day I posted my final copy of my writeup. I started to realize immediately that my memories were more vague than I thought they were. I had a general idea of the things that had happened, but a lot of the more nuanced things had been forgotten entirely. Even the initial fragments got a point across that no matter what was trying to be obscured, I was cared about. A lot. He could downplay it all he wanted, and I might have been in such a bad physical and mental state that I didn't notice much, but looking from this perspective it was clear.
And made me want to know what else I had been missing the entire time. If I dug deep enough would it be enough to make sense of everything that happened? Maybe assign a reason to his abuse?
I've come from a life where I was evaluated on how useful I was at any given time. What I could and couldn't do and if I was performing up to the standards of the person I needed to make happy. 'Conditional' was the key word to everything, and I had more or less decided to just shrug my real feelings off. It's easier that way when it's more likely that you won't be able to do the things asked of you and that's going to result in a night or longer of insults and reminders that you're worthless.
During a time where that kind of conditional love was the only thing I knew, he managed to continually prove it wrong. I hadn't been able to explain it back then but I could in the present.
[Momentum]
The second post blew up as we all know. I had exhausted myself getting out the first part and needed to take a break from evidence gathering for a bit.
Then I found out that Jon had actually said something about it. Skittish and anxious person I am I couldn't bring myself to look at the words directly and asked the friend who told me to summarize it. He never outright denied anything, but said that I had misremembered some things and that it wasn't ever malicious or abusive, just the unfortunate results of two people caught in a looping relationship.
....Wait, 'looping'?
But...oh boy. Of all the responses I had anticipated, an embarrassing one hadn't been one of them!
In 2011, I had taken a look at the circumstances and concluded that things were surprisingly cyclical. I don't remember how I detailed it, but it had apparently been a good enough explanation that Jon continued to use it. It felt really odd that here he was trying to cast some doubt on the things I said...while using the things I had thought up as descriptions. He had mentioned the same thing before too. (Was it really that good a way to describe it? I was just rattling off observations probably...)
And as things will go with this kind of situation, the strange occurrences would continue. The person he had been replying to replied to me to mention that Jon had offered to privately explain what had happened, saying it was too long for twitter. He told me that he wasn't interested in Jon's offer at all, not in light of the things that I had talked about.
I took a nap after that, and after I half-asleep greeted everyone again was told that...oh. Jon had replied in the conversation chain from a couple hours before.
Shortly after I showed signs of activity.
In a conversation chain that was primarily directed at me, where I had likely been removed via blocking. Not that it was much cause for concern, I could understand the reason why.
....but the combination of events was enough to make me feel unsettled. It was funnier yet because it was a conversation where we had discussed the possibility of him stalking me, and me explaining that I was aware that it could happen.
Needless to say, him injecting himself into that particular conversation was a really startling choice.
I think I wound up calling it 'creepy'. Maybe it was, if you were to just look in from the outside? But that's not really how I feel about it, even if it still strikes me as an incredibly strange incident since he would have had to do a little looking around to find that conversation to begin with.
But I was very vocal about not feeling okay with it. The reason why actually had nothing to do with him. The last time I did something like this, it was a messy situation. Something involving threats and account takeovers and stalkers using similar tactics. I had learned that time that the safest option is to speak up and speak often, in case anything happens or goes wrong.
There was one very, very important problem with this approach.
It was never necessary, and was just a reaction based on old memories.
But my guard was up completely at this point, because I knew that the surprise of having something like this occur could make anything happen. And I was still making an incorrect assumption about Jon himself without having realized it yet. Because I didn't have the right information yet.
So what was it that started making the misconceptions break down? A random event, and a bout of speculation. You see, that move by him wasn't the end of the strange things.
The next day I picked up an interesting twitter follower. I'm sorry if the person I'm talking about is reading this. I don't think you're malicious or anything, and the exhausted reactions couldn't have helped there...
Ah, anyway. It was someone I recognized as being associated with Jon, which is why it was such a panic-inducing moment. My snap judgment was to be extremely careful and aware of any conversation that could occur. My extreme nervousness is embarrassing. But it's also incredibly relevant to the solution, so it gets included.
It led me to start up a few conversations (see transcripts) where I started to wonder, because this wasn't a very typical event. Even more importantly, nothing happened at all. Jon's response had been calm and the way it read was honestly kind of sad, once I found the courage to glance at it a little and maybe see some words.
I tried to keep detaching myself, but...
...I worried about what there was on his side. An additional response in the conversation chain he had entered earlier amplified that. It was just well-wishing, but the way it referred to 'emotional sickness' made me give it a second thought. The phrasing made me think of the subject being distressed by the events that were occurring.
Was it possible that, maybe, that was something he could feel about all of this...?
Any illusion of detachment was broken by that thought. I couldn't keep talking about everything like I didn't care about what he felt at all, even if I tried for a bit after that.
Of course, the wheels started turning at the worst possible time. Because I suddenly had to juggle this, a family member being hospitalized, and being the one to help my life-ruining mother move when she had two days to go and nothing done. And my ever-increasing exhaustion.
I wound up furious about my mom and stressed about my grandmother because of that, but I wasn't going to abandon my mom because I didn't want that stress being on everyone else. It wasn't the time. I'd have to figure out how to make all of this work together.
There was still time that day to try to look through the old emails between Jon and I to see what I could find. When I had opened up to the possibility that this whole thing was making him feel down instead of angry or apathetic, I found other things tugging at me too.
After the last 'break up' between us, a hunch had driven me to make up a new rule about handling Jon. Something to put me at ease when dealing with the web of his feelings, especially where I was involved.
If he said he had feelings for me, he likely did. If he said he didn't have feelings for me...
...he likely did.
Why was it like that? Because that's how it had always been, really. Because it was so much easier to be able to admit to it somewhere. Really, that perspective is the first one to make me realize how he could ever think that his feelings were such a massive problem. It does make it sound like it, and really trying to decipher them had been a challenge over the years.
But those feelings were feelings I wanted to receive. It was just the tendency to try to drown them that was causing so much pain. That was what made me get all stressed - seeing him go tense and weird when it was brought up.
That last summer, I had adopted new coping tactics to try to handle the turbulence. Those tactics were, in short, not giving a fuck.
If I felt something, I'd say so. If there was something on my mind, I'd say so. I ignored the concept of boundaries as far as his actions toward me were concerned. Well, sort of. I remembered that the way it ended up, if he came on too hard, then I'd end up flustered and possibly even came off like I was rejecting the things I was okay with and even wanted to happen.
I even remembered my motive: I decided that if he felt any kind of attraction or anything like that that I wanted it to be a situation where that could happen without having to agonize over the to-date-or-not-to-date question. Since my time with Syrg had been spent with us not ever officially dating, it was something I could adjust to easily if needed. The same couldn't be said for him, but that was okay too. I still worried, but I accepted things as they were.
My way of approaching Jon's feelings has always been split into two clearly separate thought processes. There was the analytical, and the emotional. My analytical side was the one that decided that Jon probably harbored some kind of affection toward me and always had and that it could be seen in his actions fairly easily. My emotional side was the side that lived in doubt, always expecting to be rejected due to the past. Having to read and reread his words because of the surprise of having any kind of affectionate talk sent my way. When I started all of this I just went with the fear and doubt and figured that because of everything I had done, Jon couldn't feel anything good toward me.
When I started researching, I started to uncover the things I had forgotten a long time ago.
And bit by bit, I started to realize that every bit of fear, every defense mechanism I had used on Jon...
...was the worst approach I could have taken.
In fact, it might have been a direct cause of the situation crumbling in the end.
And the silly little rule I had come up with about Jon? It might have been completely accurate.
As long as I existed, without doing anything of note, I would be a target of his affections. My greatest fear, the fear of rejection, wasn't something that existed with him because even if he said something to reject me his actions would prove it wrong. And this would extend to when I wasn't even able to see myself as a complete person.
If it hadn't been for the terrible circumstances this possibility was born from, it would be the happiest thing to ever hear.
This is the...um...adult conversation part. So please be warned that this is entirely that kind of material and stay away if you don't want to see that kind of stuff.
It's embarrassing to post in a way, yeah, but because of how I am it's also important to everything so. well. Once again, the formatting follows the same formula, with me as the > and bold text.
[Conversation - 8/12/13]
>>I've apparently picked up on the "hobo" look now, and it seems to work for me.
>Well hey, I'd still...umm next question!
>>Haha, oh really?
>Maaaaaaaybe.
[Note: The context is cats.]
>Both hurt because she weighs a ton, but I generally don't like things on top of me....
>........
>HAVE FUN WITH THAT ONE!
>Oh my god I am possibly the worst.
>>Rolling my eyes a ton right now.
>.....We are pretty fucking bad, aren't we?
>>Just a bit.
>Ahaha....oops. But...
>>But?
>It's...well....fun, I guess, in a way....
>>Haha, yeah, it is fun.
[Conversation - 9/4/2013]
[Note: aaaaaaa this. God I have to share this always because it was fucking GREAT But that doesn't mean I didn't have a good streak of PURE EMBARRASSMENT.]
>And I was talking about stuff like putting lotion on, you know, those girly things? To try to limit any skin damage from alll this medical stuff. Which makes it less erotic again :P
>>Please, anything can be made erotic.
> Okay then prove it.
>> Put the moisturizer on your legs. Rub it in slowly, while slowly stretching out your whole body while doing the lower parts. Moan a bit and bite your lip as you do so. Bam.
> ...ohboy. Okay yeah you fucking won that one even if it was tame.
>> Didn't matter that it was tame, I just needed to prove the point.
> And you did. You definitely did. ....It'd be nice if my brain would give me a little hand here instead of letting me dig myself deeper THAT ALMOST TURNED INTO A REALLY UNFORTUNATE TYPO.
>This is also the worst possible time to have a large group of people just standing outside the parking lot windows talking.
>>Killing the mood?
>Nah, not really, they left a bit ago luckily~
[Note: This was sent as a second email shortly after]
>W-wait what mood
>>Nice try. :p
>Oh, the mood where you could wordfuck me into submission with a few well worded sentences? Yeah, that sounds familiar now :P Maybe my mind's just a little fuzzy~
>>Oh wow, wasn't expecting that retort.
>That makes it 1 and 1.
>...and admittedly I really wanted to use "wordfuck" and get away with it.
[9/23]
>I have not and I hope that changes at some point :P And I don't know if I'm tired or what but wow talking about things I normally wouldn't talk about. Then again I don't think I have to come out and say "Hi I'm interested in your dick." ....even if I just did but come on, that should 1. be obvious and 2. natural curiosity setting in here :P
>>Still interesting to see you say it/see it written out.
>Is it?
>>It's something I'm not used to.
[Conversation - 9/28/2013]
>I know "A bit" is you-speak so you can take that and...um....fuck all I can think is kiss you to stop the talk. Okay!
>>Haha, good comeback. :p
>The kiss or the fuck? :P
>>Take your pick. :p
[Note: One of the 'eye rolling feels like a euphemism' instances. I also admit that I have no idea where I could have used these as Jon was the only person I would be interested in like that at that time.]
>Start with one, lead to the other OOH THAT REMINDS ME I FOUND A SEXTING APP and the worst thing is that I used some of them. Except the ones about spanking and ass grabbing.
>...that was an embarrassing confession.
>>Not gonna lie, rolled my eyes pretty hard at that whole sentence. :p
>I STILL SAY YOU HAVE A FETISH FOR THAT. Also I...am still curious pretty bad to how you'd ACTUALLY react to me doing these things to you. I'm sure you're too embarrassed to even consider some of the shit I've done but I know you'll react with more than an eye roll...
>>I don't think eyerolling can be sexually gratifying. :p Yeah, I probably would react with more than an eye roll.
[Conversation - 10/6/13]
[Note: Uh. For some reason my chest has always been a common point of conversation. It's not a bad thing, but it probably looks weird to outsiders doesn't it...]
>>You examining them every night or something?
>No, I take showers and I have a routine that happens to make me notice things like that. Mostly a routine to attempt to minimize the OTHER scars and marks :P
>>Ah, gotcha. Okay, that makes sense.
>If you WANT to imagine that I'm just examining myself on a nightly basis you're totally free to though :P
>>*rolls eyes*
>Oh good, you're still in full working order I see....
>>Last I checked. :p
>.....All kinds of perverted conversations happening tonight too. Mostly my fault.
>>Mostly your fault?
>Mostly. :P Other people keep it going so that's where the "Mostly" comes in and I'm not the one who brought up Bad Dragon and never am so that's one point in my favor!
>>Also, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since you were talking about how others were commenting on your growth spurt.
>Well. Sometimes I'll tell things to other people to see if I'll talk about them to people that aren't you? Unless my tits are supposed to be a thing only you and I discuss now :P Which I'm okay with and I'm not going to make the joke there that'll make you get weird.
>>Nah, it's your body, you can obviously do whatever you want with it or talk to whoever you want about it.
>Okay, okay, I'll go along with you...god, sometimes I just wish I could see you because that would make this game so much easier.
>....and would also mean I could get on you when I absolutely needed to. In the most literal ways possible :P [Note: As a weird contradiction to the 'no touching' rule, if I get to know someone well I will not hesitate to play fight. This had happened a lot at Magfest 2011.]
>>*rolls eyes*
>OH MAN. That one? That was all you, I don't know WHAT came into your head but I was thinking about all the fighting I did with you at Magfest :P So any dirty thoughts were you coming up with things yourself!
>>I was eye rolling at the literal getting on me.
>That's the thing I was talking about too. Me being on you doesn't have to be dirty, you know.
I was afraid when I first read these and I think that they might be the kinds of things that brought on perceived rejection....it's hard to know how to feel....
Note on formatting: Follows the same formatting that the other entry of transcripts does, where I'm the bold and > and he's the >> and unformatted.
These are split into two separate entries because I know some people are not going to want to see discussion of sexual things ever so keeping those separate seemed more appropriate..
[Conversation - 8/24/2013]
>According to a friend of mine you and I are adorable :V So yeah, ahahahaha, guess that when I bring you up in conversation I manage to make you sound adorable~
>>Haha, really?
>people have said that kinda stuff for a while though so. You know. At least we have something to use against YOU KNOW WHAT'D BE REALLY GOOD FOR ME? TRYING TO BE CUTE ABOUT THINGS :V I swear there are parts of me that actually have that somewhere! Wait, you would know.
>>I would.
>Not sure if that's a badge of honor or what at this point.
>>Probably not.
>Ahaha...it's still...you know, appreciated, though. :P If you can see the soft words through the protective exterior or something like that.
>>I can see the real you?
>...That. Being curled up in bed can't be good for thinking skills but it's comfortable here, so. Well, mostly.
--
[Note: This was a conversation line started directly off the above one. I reformatted for the sake of readability but it's common for us to have multiple lines of conversation at a time. Here, there were 3 with one cut and that was a conversation about me going to visit family.
Apparently my talent for noticing things is set in stone.]
>Also, you just tired again or something tonight?
>>I'm a little out of it today, that's about it. Not really tired, since I slept for a while. Just haven't been, I dunno, productive?
>Well, at least it's not bad to be that way sometimes, right? You just sound a little off from your tone and I got a little worried...
>for some reason being all...like this and talking to you like this reminded me of when I was super tired and you got me to lean up against you. :P
>>Haha, that's the thing you're reminded of suddenly?
>Yes :P Can I really help it though? It was cute as hell. Kinda silly, I guess, but also cute as hell. So kind of like you! ...Oh my god I actually just said that you can laugh if you like.
>>cute and silly, got it.
>Oh come on, you had to know that I already thought that, right?
[Note: I actually ended up needing to open up about something because of this one, so go to the "On Specific Evidence" Post for that.]
>We've been at this for years, I think we both know what it is. ...the thing I find funny though is the continued shyness, even with that. I guess I've gotten better a bit, but...I kinda wonder if it'd kill us to admit importance to each other?
>....and I just realized that that could be freakishly easily misconstrued as more intense than it actually was meant to be. I meant we both know what the flirting is and importance is...well. Importance, right? I mean, there's no way around that one.
>>Well what do you classify this importance as then?
>>I'm exhausted so I'm heading to bed. Night.
[The conversation picks up the next day]
>...Oh jeez, I fell asleep! I'm so sorry....
>Also wow...the way you worded that.
>It's like I said, importance is just...you know, importance. Why is trying to classify it so important?
>>I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.
>I was pretty sure by the "I fucked up on that one" it was kinda obvious, but...ah well. should be used to you doing that at this point.
>Just, you know, don't get all weird about anything. Why would something like this really be worth getting defensive/overworried about?
>>You're right. Sorry, I'm just in a really weird headspace right now. Didn't mean to make that into a thing of contention.
>Hey, no need to apologize to me. I'm more worried about how it'll affect *you*, honestly, because these things always seem to hit you harder...
>>I'll be fine. It's just I'm not really looking for anything right now so I didn't want that to come between us.
>...Oh. Oh man oh man that's what...yeah.
>Like, that's not even important.
>>Okay. Like I said, I wanted to make sure we were on the same page because I think I misread something along the way.
>But No, I get it and we pretty much are but there's more to it that I should explain that basically boils down to "we've always been fucking weird, seriously don't stress trying to force a round peg into a square hole because it'll just fuck up something that's going well right now or at least I HOPE is going well"
>>No, I getcha. Just glad it was just my brain being weird and misinterpreting things.
>Okay. Because I think we're pretty much in the same place right now for different reasons and I'd rather be happy than stress to death about silly little things like that :P
>God, both of us sometimes. Ahahahaha.
>>Yeah, pretty much.
[Conversation - 9/27/2013]
[Note: I had forgotten all about this happening until I came across it about 2 days ago. It immediately put a very depressing spin on my ending up back with Syrg in my eyes.]
>Jeez, way to reveal all your secrets self. I wasn't even this bad with Syrg.
>....Though if we're on that track still, I can admit to someone that I've been stupid and vaguely considered doing something like contacting him again. That happens every couple months when things get to be too much because of everything I'm trying to tackle on my own. Maybe I should show you that list just to have shown someone.
>>All your secrets have been revealed!
>>...that's not a good one though, don't follow through with that secret.
>Yeah. Um. If I get that urge I'll tell you, okay? Because....there's usually reasons WHY and considering what we do to each other...
[Note: The ability to manage to talk around an issue is a running theme here, obviously...]
>Yeah, but it still feels...silly to me. I guess. Wanting to see someone so badly when they don't want to as much.
>>Why "don't want to as much"?
>ah, it's just...a default I lapse into I guess. Like that saying about how in relationships one person always loves the other person a little less? I always just assume I'm the more intense person who gets more excited about seeing people like that.
>>I see.
>....and I'm afraid that the other person just doesn't want to see me after all and I'm embarrassing myself going on about it.
>>I'm sure they do.
>....ahahahah I'll stop being dumb and just say that we both really do wanna see each other pretty badly?
>>At least a bit. :p
[Conversation - 9/27/2013]
[Note: This might be one of the most important pieces of the whole puzzle.]
>I have a question. Are you the kind of person who can spend a lot of time away from another person and have nothing change?
>>Yeah. It's an especially nice trait to have when you work with people you only get to see every couple of months or yearly.
[Conversation - 9/28/2013]
>When bad things happen to me you kinda sound like you flip out while I take it as a matter of course. I'd call that more intense.
>>Well, considering some of the things, you can't be too surprised that happens.
>I guess? But I'm okay with it as long as you don't stress yourself half to death in the process. You just care that much and I'm lucky to have a guy in my life that cares enough to react that strongly. I Just wish there was no need for it, you know? One of the reasons I want to spend time with you is because I want to be able to just have all kinds of fun with you like that without having to worry about anything too upsetting or sad. We...do seem to have a lot of fun together, right?
>>I probably come off as stressed or super worried, but honestly I know you'll make it through the situations you're in, so I guess internally I know it's fine?
>Hey, hey. You can stress and worry all you like because it's understandable. If you were in the same situation I would probably flip out too because I wouldn't want to see you suffering like that. That's the most goddamn painful thing to have to witness.
>>Alright, fair enough, so you at least understand what others feel about what you're going through.
>I'm in bed! See? :P Complete with clothes!
>>Yes, I see that, clearly. :p
>If I didn't look totally out of it I'd show you, but you've seen me totally out of it before and you will again. I do not wake up easily.
>>Haha, fair enough. Still say you should go to sleep.
>Awww, is it out of worry for me or because I'm so distracting to you? :P
>>Haha, I'm getting unpacking done just fine, so maybe it's a little worry about you being tired.
>"a little". I'm in bed comfortably and not overexerting myself, does that make you feel better?
>>Sure. :p
>That and also the fact that we both support each other really well, we've known each other long enough to have that good grasp on each other, and we seem so happy and adorable to them :V I...to me it's just "you're a pretty amazing person" and I love the conversations we have, both silly and serious and I'm genuinely interested in seeing you becoming a better person.
>>Well thanks, I appreciate that.
>A-ah? really? I worry about you a lot like that you know. And I'm...eh, you probably could totally understand why I'm shy about this but if I do occasionally come across like pushy re: dating stuff it's not because I only see you as someone worth dating, it's because I don't wanna lose you and just...knowing our feelings for each other are a special kind of intense even if they don't feel like they fit up with what society would expect...see where I'm coming from now and why I said that that would never be a wedge between us?
>I wanna see you keep getting better and get past your guilt involving me and I've spent so much time thinking it over because you're happy around me. Everyone fucking sees it. I want to do anything I can to keep that kind of happiness around.
>>Gotcha.
>>Well, I haven't been feeling as guilty if that helps?
[Conversation - Oct. 2]
[Note: This is really just to show the kinds of things I was going through at that point.]
>Yeah, but...basically the family tension thing has me on edge because there are some people in my family where their acceptance of me is incredibly conditional. That's kinda why it might seem like I make a big fuckin' deal out of your feelings too, because it's like "holy shit, there aren't conditions attached to this? You mean you feel this way regardless of whether or not I'm fucking up massively over here? How does that even *WORK*?"
>And because of that I get really really nervous when I feel like I've made some kind of huge mistake in someone else's eyes, anyone else's really, and it feels like I'm the one who made the mistake here so I feel like I'm more walking into a battlefield than a family setting, especially because I have the expectation of "I have to explain everything that's going on with my mom" which includes possibly having to go into detail about drug addiction and alcoholism.
>>Okay, that explains the seemingly overreactionary responses you have to me, now it makes sense.
>Yeah, when you go without something that simple and small for a very long time, having it suddenly happen is very very startling. It's worse when you just can't understand it and yeah, I'll openly admit that a lot of my apparent fishing for things is less me looking for things I want to hear and more looking for things I need to hear even though they're heavily implied enough because I need the explicit reminders in order to really understand it.
>It just so happens that those explicit reminders are also the easiest way to flip my mood around or really mess with me :P
>>Now things make more sense.
>>Haha, I see.
>Ah, was it really that confusing before? Sorry I guess I should've explained myself a little earlier on...you've never really had to worry about that, have you, so it's probably weird territory for you. I just...need to hear silly things sometimes.
>...Yup, so now you know!
>>Yeah, it's different than what I'm used to.
>Thanks though. for understanding that. I'm usually too shy to bother you too heavily about it....wow sometimes it sounds like we need to redo some things slowly :
Note about Formatting: Because these conversations are meant to be anonymous I used special formatting here. The messages in bold and with one > are from me, while the normal ones with >> are from the other person.
More importantly, do not take these as any kind of proof as anything, or even as true statements. They are speculative thoughts where my main method is referencing back to old experiences with him and making comparisons. These are being posted as evidence of my thought processes evolving with research.
[Transcript 1 - Conversation from before I had released anything, one where I explained my history and what I knew to be true.
This is the only transcript where my disclaimer at the top of the page is NOT APPLICABLE.]
>> i love how needlessly complex he makes this all
>> by love i mean "am annoyed by"
>> i just don't get people who don't address their issues i guess. probably because mine are always in my face and i would rather work through them than pretend nothing is wrong
>Yeah, there was a lot of sounding off from me about that when most of the action happened. It was so incredibly clear to me that I couldn't understand WHY the obvious wasn't happening until I concluded much later that it came down to being spineless and possibly ironically trying not to hurt me. Which ended up backfiring and creating a self-fulfilling prophecy lol :'>
>>i mean i get anxiety
>>but there is a difference between fear and just plain ol' cowardice
>Yeah, exactly. I've had anxiety my whole life, it was obviously REALLY BAD during that time and I WAS KEEPING IT TOGETHER THE BEST. Like I could even remove myself from the situation mentally and try to explain and decipher out various things that were happening and just wtf.
>Of course then I got the apology in July 2013 and that led to a scenario where we were talking on a nightly basis from about 10 PM to whenever one of us would pass out. From the get-go he said that he wasn't interested in dating because he wanted to work on his issues. That ended up resulting in him getting surprisingly touchy at even the TINIEST perception that things were headed in that direction, even though he'd often end up jumpstarting situations that caused that to happen.
>>uhhHHHHHHHH LIKE WHAT
>>flirts
>>IT'S YOUR FAULT
>>HOW DARE YOU
>>flirts again
>>FUCK
>>SHIT
>The best part is that I'd usually just deadpan point this out, especially since I wasn't trying to be sly about a damn thing. I think I even stated that I wasn't going to be wanting a relationship but that didn't mean I was going to be engaging in self-censorship because there's no real point in doing so w/ him
>>christ
>>like im just like ??? why
>Yeahh pretty much. It's always been so incredibly beyond me why he feels this constant need to try burying his feelings toward me. Like, okay, sure some of the worse experiences created negative feelings but uh. That doesn't exactly cancel out the positive ones and probably means you should try working through the negative ones. Especially since YOU KEEP COMING BACK. JUST LIKE I SAID YOU WOULD.
>I mean jeez if he's gonna just...not being able to stop having feelings for me we'd all rest much much easier if he'd be honest about it instead of dancing around the issue and hiding and then doing all this shit to me.The closest he came to actually trying to do something that was...idk if it's 'making up for' or what relating to what he did was being a constant and strong support while I was living with my mom. [Note: Hadn't researched enough to realize that I was a target of kind behavior not motivated by guilt]
>[Bringing out the truth is] the only way [resolving this] will be here, and that might be a huge factor in my decision to go as public with this all as I will. You can't really be secure when all the skeletons in your closet are brought out like that.
>I wouldn't be surprised by what ends up happening here. But really, my ultimate goal is just to get him to quit fucking around and come to terms with reality. The reality [of him loving me], that that's what drove him to completely fuck me up in ways that will take years of recovery, and that continually running away or thinking "These feelings of mine just hurt Meriel so I should try to destroy them and force us to stay apart" is the whole. fucking. problem.
[Removed: Discussion of what happened between Jon and I in 2011, specifically events that I won't make public under any circumstances SO SORRY!]
>I've had [stalking] happen several times and it's always been fucked up (Though with Syrg it's entirely possible the incidents were fabricated which is a whole new level of fucked)
[More private details removed]
>Ahah, that somehow reminded me that one of Jon's go-tos when it's breakup time again is that I'm too negative and toxic a person and just...I know sometimes I have moments but is it REALLY fair to be saying that to someone who's getting out of living with constant abuse and tends to complain about it? [Note: I hadn't yet recognized the other possibility of those comments referring to a facet of my self-protecting actions.]
>It seems to just be people interpreting things how they want instead of for what they actually *are*, and with Jon it reflected that he wanted to see me get back to being the energetic kind of person I had been before....
[Removed: mentioning an 'erotic fiction' incident - this will be in the email archives.]
>it was a situation where....okay, a little backstory: I have extensive scarring on my arms and upper legs from medical treatments and I used to have to use lotion and stuff on them to try to make it not so noticeable. I was trying to explain this and realized how questionable it sounded, immediately said something to de-escalate it along the lines of "Well I'm doing this for medical purposes which makes it less erotic". His response is to say that anything can be made erotic, I go "Okay prove it". .....So I get a few sentences in response involving *me* going from routine medical maintenance to....other things....
cue me being completely floored that he had the balls to describe something like that, especially because if someone says something like 'prove you can make anything erotic' you'd think they'd just twist a plain sentence into innuendo or something!
>>JESUS
>>LIKE
>>THATS KIND OF HILARIOUS TBH
>SEE I TOLD YOU also if it was literally anyone else my first response would've been "You were jerking it to the thought of that while you were writing weren't you"
>(The better part was that shortly afterward I complained about some people being loud in the parking lot, he goes "Ruining the mood?" cue more of me blushing and going "WHAT WHAT MOOD" and getting a "Nice Try :P" in response. :|)
>>PFFFFFFF LIKE WAY TO MAKE IT OBVIOUS DUDE
>YEAH, JUST A LITTLE BIT. But if that didn't do it the mentions sprinkled throughout our emails of me being 'cute' and whatnot would've hammered some point home. And at least his wonderfully subtle attempts to get in my pants were a good distraction from my mom being absolutely horrible (And obviously I was more than okay with it, I'm about 1000% beyond attraction denial)
>>hey at least youre honest with yourself
>>how obnoxious tho like
>>>flirts >BUT I DONT WANNA BE WITH YOU
>>like
>>chill
>Yeaaah. I was pretty upfront about "I still feel exactly the same about you but I don't want to have a serious relationship right now because there's a lot of bullshit going down and I want to get to a more stable position before taking a major step like that"
>And hey, I did get out of living with my mom when she abandoned me at my grandparents and then totaled her car that same night and it turns out there's a warrant for her arrest out because they found prescription drugs she shouldn't have had in the car
[Conversation winds down through momchat, so there's nothing more to the topic at hand.]
[Transcript 2: Conversation taking place not long after Jon had made comments to someone asking his thoughts on what I said.]
>>when abused people retaliate, abusers get scared at the thought of losing their power
>>ironically a lot of abusers are fucking cowards
>>they go with either or. if a full out attack doesnt work, they just observe. weird to see him doing that first
>If all my ideas have been correct until this point, it could be explained by actually loving me, since love and abuse aren't necessarily incompatible.I kinda went with the assumption that the gentle treatment of his response to being told about it wasn't for anyone else's benefit but was to instead be convincing toward *me*. Because if I can be convinced that being in contact with him is safe then that means no jeopardizing the future of the relationship. Which then ties into him never blocking me on my old skype - because he fully intended to come back.
>It makes sense, especially since he specifically said "loop" when describing our relationship.
>It was something I pointed out in 2011. There was a seemingly repetitive loop of us coming together, getting very close, then having conflict override everything and break it apart. Cue cooldown period where we're apart and then it comes back together. Kinda like the cycle of abuse itself.
>>yeah, like it's weird how intentional this all seems
to make you feel like you can't escape
>Yeah. I don't necessarily think it's a malicious action though. I'm unsure on how twisted it might be because the real intent might not be to trap me at all.
....it might be to make sure he doesn't have to stay without me.
>>i think it's like he can't figure out how to deal with his feelings so he makes the same decisions in a loop
>>i wouldnt be surprised if he was really upset. i mean, i dont feel bad for him, he just. kinda. well you know
>I don't think it's at all an angry kind of upset. And it does bump up the importance of me writing out my reasons for doing this and my win conditions for this. ...but yeah, considering his reaction this entire time has been to run away, that could nail it.
>>well i didnt mean angry upset either, probably distressed, but yeah--running only gets you so far, and tbh if he faced this much sooner this wouldnt have had to happen
>It might be a fear thing all things considered, like when you lie about something and then have to build on that and build and build and then suddenly you're drowning and it seems like continuing the lie is more vital than the potential fallout of honesty.
>>eventually the walls will cave in though
>My intention was to make this be what did that. In 2011, I started having to accept that simply because of who I am and what role I play, it's impossible for me to make that happen on my own.
I tried to encourage him to stop being afraid and stop hiding away and it just kind of fell apart because I'm the reason for so much conflict in the first place despite never really doing much of significance myself.
It might also...put into perspective a couple lines from an old email....
[Removed: email transcript. It was, specifically, the exchange where I called him a good boyfriend though we weren't dating.]
>When I said that it was because it was pretty honest. He tried to downplay it, but through that summer he was more protective and supportive and kind than even the closest friends I had at that time.
I didn't think that that part would be something I'd be screencapping and preparing but since this perspective makes that necessary it'll happen.
>.....oh goddamnit ahahaa there was a part where, out of nowhere, he remembered and brought up a picture I had taken for him...
"Haha, you underestimate how much my fingers can talk, madam. :P" and out of context this was QUITE SOMETHING to read.
>>when someone is in love w/ u even if they deny it, you can never tell
>lmao it's....like, most of why I have trouble is because I spent so long with him in situations where he'd do things that were really fucking obvious...then realize what he was doing and start being a dick to cancel it out
[E-mail transcript start]
Meriel: Oh shush, or do I have to make you? :P
Jon: Make me, how?
[removed - me being dumb and flirty and focusing on mouth-related silencing and jfc I just made it sound so much worse. Fuck.]
Jon: Haha, you underestimate how much my fingers can talk, madam. :P
[E-mail transcript end]
>I was dealing with [abuse] so heavily at home and it could be argued that this was a point where he was not being abusive. at all. Also if I do shut down my knee-jerk reactions it makes me point out that I did this stuff....and I wasn't pushed away. No eye rolling or anything, like usual with him. No attempts to shut down and even GETTING RESPONSES.
It's...really shocking and weird, because even when things have been 'okay' in the past he's had a tendency to kinda shut it down? I didn't notice due to being 'in the moment' that the advances were not only accepted, but almost subtly *encouraged*
This was the time where he told me that he wasn't interested in dating at the moment and was pushing back when things seemed to be heading that way.
Though really that could have been a kind of distancing method...because if I got too close like that he wouldn't be able to continue to deny things to himself.
>If I were to just take snippets of the email exchanges from here and there it would most likely paint a clear picture of the truth. Even if he tries to deny it again it's not so easy to convince people when they have evidence...
I think this is going to lead to me creating a win condition...something that he can do that is sensible and, if done, could ultimately lead to a resolution. With this evidence it suddenly makes sense why staying away is a pointless action, and why staying close without action is equally pointless. Because no matter what, his feelings stay there. It's not possible to drown out or suppress something of this caliber, which leaves that he just has to accept things...
So I want it to go something like acknowledging the past and what needs to be changed, this time not as someone running away but as someone facing it. And the big part...it will have to be done *publicly* [Note: I haven't really said much to this effect this whole time because it's something that scares me in a weird way. I think I just get so scared of the prospect of rejection that I don't want any response, positive or negative, even though I'd be incredibly happy for a positive response. He's also admitted his problems to me privately already.]
>>because if other people know he can't exactly run away from it
>Yeah, exactly. And because just naturally he's really insecure in that area. If he were to do it on a public level that would also be showing that he's willing to face his fears/insecurities to improve things.
>>even if he's not "ready", will he ever be?
>Yeah, that's....that's one of the big issues.
[Removed: a transcript of an exchange between Jon and I. You don't need to know much other than what you can work out through the context of the rest of the conversation.]
>>I HAVE NO RESPONSE, DAMN
>ahaha I actually had forgotten the full context of him recalling that and taking a look at the tone....selling this whole "He's still very much interested" thing will be THE easiest thing I've done
>>yeah i agree he makes it so obvious
>as easy as it could be to try to push a lot [of this behavior] on Jon as negatives....it's little things like him not pushing back to my clinginess and accepting my sometimes very bizarre advances that spoke volumes about the fact that he was trying to change things, and quite possibly succeeding in some ways. Because aaa I have found some bits too that are me being overly clingy and insteadd of brushing it off or anything, he accepted it.
It got real obvious really fast that something that I had trouble with post-Syrg was lack of response from the other side. Keeping this in mind, Jon would go out of his way to tell me if there was a change that we wouldn't be able to talk on some given night and the exact reason why.
>This..is going to end up tying right the hell back into the "Jon is just very, very in love and unable to handle it" but....things only started going south once I started speaking to Syrg again. Notable is that the first night he was back in contact with me Syrg told me he was still in love with me.
>That ended up leading to me being able to resolve the Syrg shit.
[Transcript 3 - A conversation later on, taking place after I was worrying about having been followed on twitter by a friend of Jon's.
This conversation involves a heavy amount of me referencing past actions and behaviors and relying on the fact that very little seems to have changed at the most basic level.]
[Removed: Me talking about how I was developing an explanation based on something we all had already taken to heart from 2011: the idea that Jon's whole "pretend to hate me, then stop that but continue to be incredibly insecure about the idea of a romantic relationship with me" thing was the default for him, and that the 'get together, get close, break up' cycle was pushed on by this.
Also the fact that doing this callout could be a cause of upset because of how I was taking things into my own hands and the possibility of me disappearing forever was now there.]
>It might sound weird since hey, what about him always splitting off from me? That's true, but...he always comes back and it never sticks, right? And on top of that when he talked about it on twitter a couple days ago he specifically described our situation as a 'loop'. The acknowledgement of the cyclical nature of things might open up the possibilty that those times he walked out of my life....were never EVER intended to be permanent.
----
>and now there's the possibility of it actually being permanent.
>>I'd really think long and hard about letting him in again, based on what he's done every single time before.
>..........that's missing the point entirely.
>and the exact line of thinking that has caused this problem from the get-go actually.
>basically combining all the new evidence with the old and with taking closer looks at the old email archives, the driving force of everything could potentially be that Jon loves me.
>The problem here is that this is something he has awareness of but doesn't want to accept. Those attempts at rejecting those feelings are the basis of all the fucked up things he does. The abusive actions, the mixed messages at me.
>His main goal in this scenario is really simple: keep me close. Meaning the reason behind being a total fuckup when it comes to establishing a romantic relationship is because 1. that would mean accepting the intense feelings and 2. that would actually, in his eyes, create a risk. Because if a romantic relationship were to fail a second time it would make the possibility of me never coming back stronger.
>It's really flawed thinking, but it has to be for this to work
>>I guess that makes more sense actually
>This also means that each and every time he's walked out of *my* life, it was never intended to be permanent. He had every intention of coming back and knowing that I was a clingy person who would just be like "Oh okay!" and accept him back no problems meant that it was still a safe possibility.
>....Then I turned around and called him out. That safe possibility has been put into jeopardy because if I'm able to continue sticking to the idea "Jon is abusive and I should not stay near him" it would mean permanent separation. And that idea is causing turbulence and anxiety.
>....and this goes a long way in explaining why he seemed to not change or even be reluctant to. Because as long as very little to nothing changes, it means that the cyclical nature of our relationship will continue, there's no chance of separation.
>This is also why he didn't even block me or anything when he stopped speaking to me. Because he was going to come back, he KNEW he was going to come back, and an unintentional side effect was that because I have clingy tendencies I would continually do things to ensure my remaining loyalty.
>The info I'm digging up in emails is...I was actually impressively blind to things on his side at points. I've barely started but I've already collected solid evidence that there was attraction there. During a time when he was actively trying to *fight* that. Him getting touchy at the possible hints toward us dating again and generally rejecting the idea was because it'd open things up to a situation where things could end up going badly.
>This all means that "Stay apart" is an invalid option, because he won't be able to and it'd basically mean I'd have to choose between always taking him back because it's easier....or being stalked. But "stay together" is equally invalid because just going back without having a way to address the problem means things will continue to repeat. [Note: This is probably the most blatant example of my problem-solving being separate from my emotions. I didn't even factor in the idea of being in love with him here.]
>The most valid possibility, and the one I'm going for, is the option where he comes to terms with reality.
This used to be something, but I've deleted it for the time being because I was really not satisfied with the end result and want to rewrite it as a result.
There will be a new Storify and all that fun stuff when I'm done, but I just didn't want this saying out.
So, this kind of (okay, definitely) got way way bigger than I thought and I'm still not done with it.
Thanks to that I'll be taking a day or so to restructure things. My original project, which the first post on this tumblr was a part of, is going to be shoved to the backburner among other things but ahahah like anyone was concerned about that one.
Thank you for the continued support. That's the only reason I haven't started hiding or being afraid every second of my life. It really does mean a lot :3
Intro note: The only reason this exists is because of the people who came out in support of me. Thank you so much.
The first time I wrote up my experience it was a rush job, a bit awkward and most importantly it was very sugarcoated and downplayed. This wasn't intentional, it's just a byproduct of the years I spent thinking that I was overreacting to the things that were happening. This whole thing made my self-doubt go out of control and just trying to validate my thoughts is a struggle.
But when people supported me I was surprised. And I started rethinking, and then rewrote it as something more appropriately focusing on the things that Jon did.
For new readers: By Jon I mean Proton Jon, that internet popular guy. It feels necessary to put a face to the situation, especially considering the hurt he's capable of causing
-----------
My best explanation of when I dated Jon, and I mean actually dated, would be "a goddamn trainwreck."
Most couples have a honeymoon period where everything is perfect and they don't fight. We did, but it was broken in record time by conflict. I don't remember what it was about, I didn't even remember very long back then, but it was enough to make him suggest we take a night off from each other. I went with it, fighting the urge to try to talk it out and fix things immediately.
Our first problems were caused by a lack of understanding from two radically different lives before that point. He grew up in stability and without encountering much hardship. I was the child of a narcissistic drug addict who was taken in by family who turned out to be abusive, and the troubles continued after I moved out. The end result was me viewing myself as 'broken' and going as far as warning him that I'd be a difficult partner. The other result was how often I would be met with a total lack of understanding that led to me needing to spell it all out.
He also had a busy life. I was only a full-time student then, albeit one with early morning classes, so the burden ultimately fell on me to accommodate his schedule. Between work, school, Let's Play, and a thriving social life he didn't seem to have much downtime and when he did it typically involved multitasking. This meant several times a week where he'd pop on earlier in the day, tell me he'd be back around 11 PM or midnight, then be off again. The problem was that it usually meant being back at 1 or 2 AM for about 5 minutes to say good night. Disappointment was a baseline that intensified as he continued to do it over and over. But then when he was there he'd be sidetracked by video games, leaving me to try to strike up conversation that would get a reply maybe 30 minutes later before another long silence.
This ended up impacting my life more than it should have. Staying up night after night until I couldn't when already suffering fatigue problems meant classes being skipped, me needing more naps, and feeling run-down more often. Insecurity was common because if he really felt that way wouldn't he at least try to make a little more time? I mostly felt like an afterthought instead of a girlfriend. And if I brought it up...well, he'd say some vague words of understanding and then continue with the same behavior.
Then he blindsided me with a breakup. Feeling like it was my fault for complaining too much and being too needy, I begged him for a second chance to redeem myself which was reluctantly agreed to. And also completely worthless. He ended up barely being around that week, which I should have seen coming. He resented me. He thought I was too negative and down and that I needed to be more upbeat and positive.
Now, years later, I can see how fucked up it is to say that to an 18-year-old who grew up with abuse, still dealt with abuse on a regular basis, and struggled with depression to boot. Especially when he had comforted me so many times after family incidents. But back then, as a suddenly brokenhearted 18-year-old, it just made me assume that I needed to change myself to be more like that in order to be an acceptable girlfriend. That if I did that he'd be kinder and maybe willing to give the attention I had wanted when we were dating. I felt 'wrong' for being abused and his rejection of that side of me and my coping methods emphasized that.
Once we were broken up for real, the abuse started trickling in. He'd start out loving, flirty, possibly even seductive at times. Then seemingly out of the blue his attitude would change and his resentment and dislike would shine through. It was a repeated process of building me up and giving me hope then pulling the rug out from under me and blaming me for reading too much into things or overreacting or being emotional. If I argued, his anger would just intensify and the attack would only end once I was crying and unwilling to fight anymore.
Since he had neglected me so severely during the relationship the attention was dangerous to me. It didn't matter if it was positive or negative because either way he was actually talking to me and focusing on me. It was a fucked up and horrible way of me getting what I wanted, but I needed the attention so much and I was given just enough affection to stay nearby. Affection he would deny showing and act like I was insane for pointing out. My developing tendency to analyze everything he did and said to try to make some sense of it all only reinforced this and rooted the idea that I was insane and broken and clingy in my own head.
That continued all summer, culminating in me making a suicide threat. I found out years later that when I left that night intending to follow through, Jon had had a conversation with the person who would become my boyfriend. I was told that he seemed oddly defensive and asked things like "Why her?". When I ended up coming back, Jon encouraged me to enter a relationship with the other guy and then proceeded to cut off all contact with me.
It was still a bit upsetting, even if I was so far gone that I was suicidal.
Worse, it only took about 2 months for conversation to start up again.
This time the hate he showed me was more prevalent, almost constant. My two-month break had been enough time to regain some desire to stand up for myself and I would verbalize my hurt by antagonizing him. Badly, though, because it would always result in me apologizing or fucking it up somehow. Still, it added to his momentum and came back to bite me in the ass.
As a result the last part of 2008 and much of 2009 is a void to me. Not even the hardest brainstorming can bring it back.
The few memories I have are all of misery, of being so destroyed by Jon's messages to me that I'd spend the night crying quietly so I didn't wake anyone up. I remember feeling resigned to that fate, that if I tried to get away he'd just find a way around it and back to me so there was no point in running.
One of the only clear memories of that time is a Skype call. It was Jon's roommate, me, and some of our other friends. Everything went smoothly until we heard Jon without warning...and he focused in on me. He even told the others "Sounds like she doesn't want me here" when I was uncomfortable and anxious by his sudden appearance. I awkwardly tried to deny it and be okay with his presence to keep the peace. He could do what he wanted to me when we were alone, but please god let my time with friends stay peaceful.
At that point I was convinced I deserved it for continuing to associate with him and continuing to have those feelings. Feelings I wished I could get rid of so I wouldn't be afraid to get away. Even if I don't remember it thinking back to that time is something I instantly associate with me being a 'psycho ex-girlfriend', someone who was so lovesick that they continued bothering the object of their affection even after he made it clear he wanted nothing to do with them.
If his goal was to make me feel like the most worthless person possible, he fucking succeeded.
All the blame was on me. I'd be belittled, embarrassed, threatened with whatever would trigger a fear-induced panic. Breakdowns over him leaving me alone became knee-jerk reactions instead of anything involving actually wanting him to stay. And at some point, he finally did leave but I have no memory of it. Just of the fact that I was so fearful that interaction with other people sent me into a panic and I was entirely withdrawn. It was bad enough that I would rather starve myself than face another person.
It took a bit of time and a move, but I did recover from that kind of behavior and even managed to warm up to the people I was living with.
In March 2010, we started speaking again thanks to an incident with another friend. I got a shocking confession from him: that he had never gotten over me and that all the vitriol and hatred toward me had been faked. He had confessed to intentionally abusing me to cover up actually having affection for me and while fully aware that I was an abuse survivor. Instead of honesty, he had turned to abuse even if he didn't use that word. His full awareness of his actions without seeming to realize how deeply twisted they were is all the more disturbing. In hindsight my shock being over his true feelings over his premeditated abuse was another light on how normalized it was for me.
I accepted the apology, of course I accepted it. The confession would mean that the hell I had gone through before was over. It explained his erratic behavior. It gave me hope that things could somehow be okay. The thing about that kind of trauma, though, is that forgiveness isn't forgetting. Forgetting isn't even forgetting. I had learned to feel fear and anxiety with him, to be stealthy about true feelings, to act like a positive and cheery person even when everything felt horrible. Scattered memories from the trauma couldn't even prevent the conditioning from affecting me.
It did improve in some ways however. He was more upfront about his feelings for me being positive and affectionate, but in other ways I was still on the receiving end of actions and words that put me down. Whenever I'd make some kind of advance or a flirty comment, he'd respond with rolling his eyes. Since I've always been flat chested and he's always had more interest in busty women I'd also receive a lot of little comments about me needing larger breasts. Sarcasm was, and always has been, a mainstay of his.
The 'teasing' hurt. I didn't realize that it was shaping my own perceptions about my body and my sexuality then, it just felt like rejection. I played along to disarm the sting and because knowing his feelings made it easier. But those feelings brought a new form of subtle manipulation.
They were repeated often. At first I had tried hard to keep enough distance between us that I wouldn't be tempted again but his repeated confessions broke that distance down. It happened at a steady enough rate that by the time we met IRL for the first time ever that wall of mine was gone. And the convention was the complete breaking point. Ending up squished up against him in the elevator from hell was what slammed the tension into uncharted territory. Sure enough the next day I was confessed to again, kissed, and the witness of a breakdown on Jon's part. I kept it together long enough to distract him but it was obvious that he was looking at a situation where he had to choose between me or his girlfriend.
Rather than wreck the whole weekend with angst, I suggested not thinking about it until we both got home and enjoying the time we had. On my end the 'don't think about it' part was superficial and I was already dreading breaking up with my boyfriend. He had told me to do whatever I needed to with Jon to straighten myself out over that weekend but it didn't mean I was okay just going off and doing it.
As you would expect from something like that, it changed everything. The following months were more revealing than any other time had been. He admitted to how insecure he was in his current relationship and the problems there. He confessed to being a frequent cheater and it affecting all of his past relationships too.
Which I figured included me. My reaction was simply thinking that we had been together only 3 months and a vague sense of amazement that it had happened in such a short span. I couldn't get mad or upset simply because on his list of fucked up actions that felt insignificant. Really, even though he was cheating and I was enabling it, I felt bad in a way. He had still been completely hung up on me despite being in another relationship. It seemed sad.
For better or for worse my empathy then made me give him the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately that empathy was what led me to be in an odd noncommital girlfriend role. The kind where kindness is taken advantage of and nothing much is given in return. I would often be the one to give advice and guidance about his relationship and the one to try to work out the problems between us. I tried my absolute hardest to be a neutral party and fair to everyone else and maybe that was a mistake.
I also tried to push him to be honest and upfront about his feelings and to try to resolve the problems he had started. It took a bit for him to finally decide to sit down and discuss it with his girlfriend and that's where my anxiety began. Every night after that I would face increasing anxiety just waiting for him to get online. By the time he did I'd usually be creating an earthquake with how hard I was shaking. I would just hide it and try to carry on conversation, since most nights wouldn't involve talking about it. So it was debilitating and worthless anxiety. God help me if I was out somewhere when I got a message from him too. I think once I made a whole table shake.
We finally decided to meet up when I went on a trip up there later that summer and work things out, then go from there.
Too bad that got shot to hell by a surprising event. Jon, the guy who stuck to a strict 'no sex before marriage' rule confessed that if we met up again he'd likely sleep with me. A wonderful surprise that meant that we wouldn't be allowed to see each other while I was there for sure. Unless, of course, he chose me in that window of time. Which was what everyone seemed to be expecting with how he talked about me and acted with me and the whole reason we weren't allowed to see each other to begin with.
But that didn't happen. He ended up choosing to stay with the girlfriend. Despite his uncertainty about himself there and his seemingly strong feelings for me. Even though she told him to stop speaking to me after that, he continued to. But once I was rejected a familiar side of him came back with similar tactics and new weapons.
Now it was his relationship and girlfriend that were his shields. He'd brag about her and if I 'misbehaved' he'd remind me that he wasn't supposed to be talking to me. Like a warning that if I kept up my behavior he'd disappear. And when he started doing those things again, I fucking shattered. Being back in the hellish position I thought had disappeared forever and right after he'd been genuine and kind and loving...it was a total nightmare.
My breaking point was him going off on me, starting with him telling me "I want you out of my life." and proceeded to tell me how he was sick of my negative attitude and pointed out my shortcomings. All I could do was take it even though I cringed when he used my legal name instead of his nickname for me.
After that, I disappeared for a week and made an appointment with a psychiatrist. I was coming undone and going back into that withdrawn, shut down panic mode and I didn't want to be back there. I especially didn't want him to be the one who fucked me over again.
Amusingly enough everything ended the day after I saw the psychiatrist. Jon's girlfriend tracked me down on youtube after reading our twitter conversations and sent me a threatening message. Jon sent his own goodbye shortly after that, and just like that I was back to just myself.
The silence lasted until July 2013, when I received an apology message from him. Not much of it is relevant to this piece of writing, because he was kind and good and somehow ended up becoming my safe haven against my mom's abusive actions. 2011 had apparently left him feeling guilty about messing with my feelings in a way that made him wish he had never done anything. That was just depressing due to the twisted logic of suppressing feelings instead of using them as a wake-up call.
Anyway, we stopped talking again in January 2014, after a fight that broke out after I learned that he was hiding his girlfriend's existence from me. Even though we are all physically present at a convention a couple weeks before. Aside from that it was the same painfully predictable things from him.
It's hard to properly conclude this because it doesn't really have a conclusion. It's hard to conclude when he keeps popping in and out of my life erratically. I'm already worried about next time, if there will be a next time after this. I wouldn't be surprised if he hated me more after this. But I really couldn't hold back either, constantly tormenting myself with "what ifs" and being so insecure from everything he did that I constantly question my own validity gets tiring. Chasing down someone who somehow approaches problems with "you know what would work here? whatever the opposite of the right answer is" logic is also tiring.
"Next time" I just want to not be hurt like this another time. And for now...well, I just hope that nobody gets hurt how I did.
I was back with the abusive family I thought I had escaped due to disability, I had survived another abusive romantic relationship, and I guess the best way to sum it up was things sucked.
Then I got an email.
Specifically, an email telling me I had a new PM on Something Awful. My heart stopped and I immediately jumped to my other ex trying to contact me. To rid myself of the anxiety, I immediately opened it to see who it was from.
Proton Jon.
Wait. Wait, what?
It was unexpected, but at the same time it fit. I had said that this would happen, hadn't I? I had expected him to show up again once he ended his other relationship and while I probably wouldn't find anything about that out immediately...
I read what he sent. It was an apology. He said he didn't expect this to re-initiate contact between us. That it might be better that way because then I wouldn't have to deal with him. I immediately dismissed that idea and started working on a reply. The only problem was that I was so flustered from receiving it that it turned out to be a mess. I sent it anyway, hopefully he'd know what I was getting at.
Clearly he did, since I got a response. With that we started speaking again but this time around it was me that had the giant bombshells to drop on things. How would I explain everything that happened with Syrg to him? How would I bring up my illness to him? I worried about this throughout the entire first part of the conversation.
The feeling that I wasn't anything like the person I had been before hit harder than ever then. More interestingly, the familiar feeling of 'oh god, this is going to be trouble' managed to survive the destruction. I had managed to have a total psychological shutdown and in spite of that, a faint feeling of uneasiness persisted with the thought of extended interactions with Jon. I wasn't looking forward to the possibility of my life being turned around again.
I ignored it and continued onward.
It was because of ignoring that inner warning, yet preparing to the best of my ability, that something unexpected and amazing happened. Something that made me even more hesitant to say everything.
Jon ended up being the person who started to knock me out of my psychological standstill.
He recognized almost instantly that I had something important to say because of my hesitancy. That was the first thing I noticed. Illness, treatment, and repeated trauma had almost wiped my memory of things prior to 2012, or at least made them feel so faint that I didn't recognize them easily. It was an unsettling an odd feeling to talk with him and suddenly have him say something about me in this "I know you by now, you're easy to read" kind of way. Over and over he would prove his familiarity with me. Or with me when I wasn't going through a violent identity crisis that left me feeling completely empty and withdrawn.
It was comforting and reassuring and such a contradiction to what I had been made to believe that I ended up amazed by something so simple. Syrg had, in his abuse, emphasized what a worthless existence I was. That I could die and it would be a forgettable event. But then Jon was there and proving that wrong with almost every goddamn statement. Saying without saying that I was someone memorable enough to have their odd personality tics called out.
Maybe if someone else was that stubbornly sure of what kind of person I was, I could more confidently break through the fog that Syrg's abuse had created. It did make my eventual explanation of what I had experienced a bit more painful but I still did it.
I remember ending my full story by asking him to not make comparisons between this situation and the one he had put me through before. Somehow in my sleep deprived state I managed to remember that he was the type to do that and if that happened it would be incredibly counterproductive.
There was an eerie similarity in how the events had played out. Except Jon never pulled some kind of hypnosis/brainwashing kidnapping plot to kickstart his darker abuse. Or told me to go die of my illness. Similar, but different because Jon didn't have the malice that Syrg did.
But because of my awareness of the similarities....I would occasionally end up acting toward Jon like I would have acted toward Syrg. With a more overt cautiousness and a deeper fear. It was something I would end up hating myself over.
The problems hadn't ended for me either. At the time I was living with my mother...who was a drug addict and alcoholic who would regularly con and coerce me out of necessary medications. Someone I had to take care of constantly, that I was never good enough for, and had just prolonged my shut down state.
Once the communication shifted to email, we quickly fell into a routine. Sometime after 10 PM we'd start talking and it would go until one or the other fell asleep. I had to explain a few times that I was prone to spontaneous sleep episodes, and that lack of a response didn't necessarily mean I was gone for the night. And just as quickly it became something that motivated me to get through the day in one piece. Physically and mentally.
We had both explained that we weren't interested in dating. I found it funny in a way that something like that had to be clarified because wasn't that the default? I still followed his lead since he was the first to say it. And really, that was probably a good thing for me to say. With my life so twisted up and me so unsure of myself, what I wanted the most was to be able to be myself with someone. Not have to worry about holding back or being afraid. It seemed because I had felt everything I felt with Jon ten times worse with Syrg, it cancelled out the fear of Jon in my mind.
Well, sort of. Because at the same time I had gained a fear of just being in a relationship with a man. But it was never meant to be easy to figure out.
Jon provided a view of the outside world that I desperately needed at that time. There was an incident where, after finding out that I was talking to my father, my mom threw an electric fan at me and started going absolutely berserk. I was afraid enough to call the police and the entire time I kept a shitty little phone with a tiny emergency data plan on me. When the police told me they couldn't do anything because I was an adult and I could just leave and it wasn't fair to kick her out of the house I told him first.
He seemed upset by the turn of events. And that was so meaningful to someone like me, someone who had grown numb to circumstances like this.
He always downplayed the things I was trying to explain to him. Saying that they weren't the big deal I was making them out to be or that I was blowing it out of proportion, things like that. Maybe he was right and I was being oversensitive about what were ultimately 'normal' life events.
I still tried to explain. Maybe it was normal to a 'normal' person, but to someone like me that didn't have that kind of normal to draw from...it could mean everything. Conversations could range from upsetting to troublesome to flirty to bizarrely erotic and no matter what I would appreciate the feeling of it all.
...Unfortunately for most of us, finding someone you can be close and secure with wasn't an instant fix to everything. We still fought and I would still have difficulty articulating my feelings when I was upset. I still tried, but...
As I adjusted to being close with him again, there were little things that would stay with me. Like how I would say something about hoping that our friendship held up and remained stable instead of things going south and he would suddenly get irritable with me and remind me that he wasn't interested in dating at the time. I'd revisit my statements and catch a point where I understood that he misinterpreted an innocent statement for a romantic advance. I would usually right it with pointing out the flaws in his thought process and settle things that way, but still. And of course it would only happen with the most childishly innocent statements and not the outright lewd ones. But it makes sense in a way. Mutually lewd conversations and my occasional completely out there statement were just standard for how we operated at that point.
The other one was a feeling of distance. I couldn't shake the feeling that even though we seemed to be close it still felt like I was separate somehow. I remember this leading to an argument once when I felt pretty bad due to him failing to mention a stream to me when he usually would. I ended up lashing out even though he wouldn't have known that there were external thoughts and factors that had aggravated the isolated and left out feeling. I Don't even know if it got resolved.
So yes, there were problems. But at the same time I was being shown so much more kindness than I had remembered existed. He was considerate enough to tell me when the established routine would be broken and would try his best to be there for me if anything was happening and I needed it. Or him. Once I even semi-jokingly said he was more like a boyfriend to me then than my previous boyfriends had been. I think he said he was proud of that.
Then October happened. And October 2013 marked the one year anniversary of the most horrific month of my life. Hypnosis, kidnapping, and near-constant and terrifying abuse. Nothing would have been able to stop the crash I experienced, something compounded by the stress that was still always on me. I put as much effort as I could into trying to warn him and trying to explain but even that wasn't enough.
I started becoming more out of control emotionally and difficult. Knowingly or unknowingly, I started distancing myself from Jon because I was afraid of dragging him into the darkest part of my history. Why was I, though? Probably because I hadn't completely forgotten everything that had happened. Deep down I was still so afraid of being seen as the difficult and negative person he had criticized me for being.
Toward the end of the month, on a night where Jon was streaming and my fears were attacking at full force....I sent out a message to Syrg.
And I got one back.
And we spoke that night and that same night he admitted that he still loved me. And I was still so broken from everything and in need of resolution that I went with it in a way. The next day I told Jon and naturally his first reaction was not a happy one. Who could blame him, though?
After that event things became more distant between Jon and I. He told me he was busy. I noticed there were subtle changes to things like his Skype profile (which he hadn't touched in goddamn YEARS) and pointed them out. Usually I'd get some kind of vague response and it worked for me. I was sidetracked but also blinded because I was, for some reason, happy about the turn of events that had occurred.
The odd behavior continued from Jon but it was never really given an answer. When we met up at that convention we had met at the first time things seemed normal but I noticed a small amount of interesting attention paid to another person. My knee-jerk reaction said 'relationship?' but at the same time I wasn't sure because of how he had acted when he was with me all that time ago.
....But it turns out I was right, and I wasn't going to find out until the end of January. A couple weeks after Magfest. And the confirmation of my suspicions happened in the worst way possible.
It happened after I admitted my remaining feelings and that I would've tried...probably some kind of awkward as hell method of 'making a move' on him. Oh god this is embarrassing.
What I didn't expect was for him to suddenly get upset and admit that he was in a relationship.
If it had been revealed in a normal, non-heated way it would've been a bit easier to handle. Instead it was thrown at me as a sudden surprise, something that made all those weird little puzzle pieces fit.
And I was not happy or okay with any of it.
Why? Because he had intentionally and deliberately hidden the existence of a relationship or a girlfriend from me for at least a couple months! And it was just incredibly, heartbreakingly disappointing too. Because he had wanted to stay single to sort himself out and I was hoping to god that this would be the time that that finally fucking happened! I ended up saying something bitterly about it probably failing because of him, and he got upset that I wasn't happy for him.
...But how could I have been when I found out by way of finding out that he was lying repeatedly for an extended time, AGAIN? That was what got me. That he lied about something so major, that I was given another reason to distrust him.
And the fight continued. And his usual criticisms came up, that I was negative and all that. And that when I had finally escaped from living with my mother a few months before...he was hoping that I would get back to a more 'normal' place.
I had been torn down to nothing, and that was probably the final thing I could take. Something about him putting to words something I had wanted for myself for so long when I was already feeling completely cut down and insignificant cut incredibly deep. And after everything that had happened over the summer, after seeing him actually work to not do to me what he had done so many times before...
....just to end up doing the same thing he had always done before....
...I couldn't take it.
After the conversation ended, I actually felt abused. Abused and unable to hold back, so I didn't. I called him out on it, even if I would come to regret the action.
The next day he just gave up.
I'm still torn up over it in ways I never quite expected to be. I don't understand what it is that makes this time so different. Was it because he was reaching much further than he ever had before? Or because he had played such a vital role in my life in 2013 that I couldn't bear to see things just collapse like that?
Notes: Lots of anxiety in this part. It's basically pure anxiety descriptions for a large chunk. And still more abuse.
Naturally, the events at the convention changed everything. It wasn't an immediate change, it came slowly over the first few months of the year. Lucky for me since it gave me time to at least sort my thoughts out.
And, of course, build up anxiety.
I eventually told the story of what happened to Jon's former roommate, who then told me a little bit in exchange. He told me about how, early in his relationship, Jon had been caught cheating as well. Which led to the revelation that Jon had cheated in every single one of his relationships. Meaning with me too. But after everything else that had happened it barely registered to me. Like a murderer getting busted for jaywalking.
During the second run of our relationship it was common for Jon and I to seek support and relationship help from each other. Now that I was a more pronounced problem, now that I was actually a threat, it was harder for me to keep that role. After the convention it started to be that whenever his girlfriend would be brought up I'd be shaken with anxiety. I knew that if what he had said was true, and if he was really going to end up having to choose between us, it wouldn't be pretty.
And that was why I told myself that I had to set my anxiety aside and advocate for myself.
I learned in this time that he felt insecure in his relationship as it was for multiple reasons. I could understand, if only on the basis that he had spent the entirety of it hung up on me instead. It would be a huge upheaval from the current status quo but it made more sense to me for him to pick me. I just didn't say that out loud because it felt selfish to think that way. Talking it over with several people assured me that they saw it the same way I did, but I was hiding insecurity deep down.
Just because he didn't mean any of it didn't mean that the things he did were canceled out. And I had come to, on some level, believe the horrible things he'd said to me. Actually believe that that's what he thought even if he said differently. Even if I had received proof that he felt positively toward me the entire time. All the conflicting signals over the years had done wonders in warping my views of how others viewed me.
But no matter what I thought, time was still moving and I was still part of his decision and I was still going to push him to come to a decision. I'd advocate for myself where I could, but if I was asked for help with his girlfriend I would also provide whatever advice I could. Even if I was so anxious I'd throw up, I'd stick to this. And I was quite a bit for the first half of that year.
As March rolled around the conversations between us intensified and took on a more sexual tone than they had before. It was only then that it occurred to me that the past year or so and everything that came with it had been more substantial and meaningful than our actual time dating ever could have been. I wanted it to be under better circumstances, I wanted to be able to see this through to that happy ending he mentioned instead of the cheating and secrecy it was at that point.
It seemed like there was a way to settle this. After a suggestion that I should go up there and visit them put out by his former roommate, I went 'Eh what the hell' and went for it. We decided to use that time to meet up again in person and talk things out and hopefully come to a solution. And our increased discussions about the possibility of restarting a relationship, all the troubles and benefits, just created more confidence. Well, confidence and a boatload of anxiety but some confidence was better than none right?
Too bad that by that point, the anxiety had reached astronomical levels. It had started from the day that he talked to his girlfriend about the things that had happened at the convention. It intensified significantly once he started talking seriously about making a decision between the both of us.
Then something happened to throw a wrench into the whole idea of us meeting up in person. The reason was totally justified. During a conversation between the two of us, he suddenly stopped talking and rapidly changed the subject to needing to get out for a bit. Why? Because he had caught himself just before he told me that he'd fuck me if we met up again and had the chance.
That was enough to make me completely stop fucking dead.
The guy who had made a 'no sex until marriage' oath was suddenly talking about breaking that. For someone already quite wrapped up in anxiety this was a big deal. And, frankly, completely terrifying. No matter how many times they happened, the displays of intensity he would show with me never got any less surprising.
But once word got to the appropriate parties, we were quickly barred from seeing each other at all that week. The reasoning was interesting though, at least from the roommate. He went with it in hopes that it'd make Jon actually put his foot down as far as this wishy-washy bullshit was concerned, realize how much he loved me, and just put an end to this.
It was a nice sentiment, but it forgot an important factor.
It forgot the fact that Jon was, well....spineless. So of course he just went with the whole plan of not seeing me at all without taking any real action. But the ever-increasing pressure on him to make a goddamn decision already was pushing him to tell me that he would have a discussion about it.
Remember that thing where I mentioned throwing up from anxiety? This is where that comes into play. Day after day I'd spend every waking hour being eaten away by the fear that that would be the night that Jon would show up and tell me that he decided to stay with her and all the bad aftereffects that would come with it. Day after day I would see him sign on and have to exchange small talk while in reality I was doing a great impression of an earthquake. Intensely nauseous, pretty much vibrating rapidly, unable to speak and only able to type by the force of a goddamn miracle. That's what I was reduced to in the end. I had a lot of self-abuse filled breakdowns because of this incredible amount of tension placed on my head. The tension which only grew with every day that passed without any change in the situation no matter how much I tried to do what I could to be convincing.
....It was all meaningless.
After E3 that year, a couple weeks before I was slated to go there, I received the long-awaited rejection.
I wasn't worth the changes that would be involved with something that big.
The thing that surprised me the most was how completely angry other people were on my behalf. They were legitimately pissed that he had feelings for me like that but was too spineless to actually act on it. The rejection had finally drained me of my anxiety and left next to nothing there, but just enough to feel glad that people were standing up for me like that.
I had been on the verge of canceling my trip because of everything that happened, and if it hadn't been for a few vital conversations I would have done it. It wasn't because of me just wanting to go up there for his sake, though. It was because after everything I had gone through, all the sleepless nights and stress and fighting, I wasn't sure if I would be able to handle being there. I wasn't sure if I could do it without breaking down completely.
The first night I almost did. I almost ran away. But I stuck with the thing I promised to do, and I'll always be glad that I did. Maybe it helped me with the healing process in the end although it felt like I had a terrible secret hanging over my head. Most people who heard my story were sympathetic and I was incredibly grateful for any show of support.
And every day I was up there, Jon and I were in contact.
Even though he had been told to stop talking to me entirely, that didn't happen. But that might have also been a gateway to yet another round of harshness brought down on me....
....because it left a way for the previous behavior he had shown to wiggle its way back in. And this time, the weapon was his threats to cut contact. The reminders that he wasn't even supposed to be talking to me used in such a way that I knew I had to stop whatever annoying thing I was doing to make the threats go away. It even came to a point where, once I started offhandedly mentioning interest in another guy, he told me that he wanted me out of his life completely.
I just dealt with it. I didn't try to get away or anything like that, because even if I did wouldn't we just end up back in contact again? It just looked hopeless. Depression and anxiety started taking over my daily life and a few months later I started seeing psychiatrists again to try to find a way to straighten myself out over everything that had happened to me.
My next separation from Jon came unconventionally. I got a message on youtube one day from someone asking intrusive questions about me, about my relationship with Jon, and I just had a bad feeling about it. I was too busy freaking out to be coherent so I just asked a friend to help me deflect it all.
My bad feeling was ultimately correct. The mystery messages had been from his girlfriend, who had been watching our twitter conversations and tracked down my youtube channel to send those messages. Once she confirmed my identity, she told me to stay the hell away from Jon and that was it. I received a sort of goodbye email from him not long after that, and even though I knew he'd be back someday I took everything for what it was.
I was left in shambles after everything. But at least now maybe I'd have a chance to rest for real, something I hadn't been able to do at all that year because I was too busy playing the role of the person who kept it together. Just being able to wake up in the morning and not have that surge of anxiety be the first thing I felt was more than enough. Being able to say what I felt like or do whatever without feeling afraid that it was going to be met with negativity was a freeing feeling.
While I worked it all out, I thought back to his anger a lot. Somewhere deep down I realized how completely unreasonable it was for him to take it out on me when he was the one who caused things to get to that point to begin with. How I was criticized for my negativity and approaches when when I had become nothing but coping mechanisms to deal with whatever he was going to put me through.
But it was okay, because my nightmare year was over. Whenever we'd meet again, maybe he'd finally take responsibility for all the shit he caused, but that 'someday' seemed far off enough that I'd be given adequate time to heal.
And sometimes life works out, even if only a tiny bit.
This was troubling. I was already in a relationship, so was he, and more than that I didn't want to get sucked back into something like this. Maybe I should have been more upset that I had been hurt so deeply because he was too damn scared to face his true feelings for me. For some reason I wasn't. Instead I was happy. Happy that he was finally being honest about it and happy that the feeling that something made no sense was correct.
Our conversations would continue and more of the facade that had been put up would be scratched away. He was repetitive in saying that he still had feelings for me, leaving the terminology at that and never saying anything like he loved me. The repeated admissions were chipping away at the wall I put up to protect myself from a problematic situation. I started trying to think of ways to reconcile the rekindling feelings for Jon with the relationship I was in without realizing I was doing that.
I was sinking into what might have been an emotional affair without even realizing it. There weren't overt displays of romance or anything like that, it seemed just like a strong friendship with the complication of me agonizing over how to deal with Jon's feelings. And then agonizing more because they were making my feelings come back but I didn't want them back. He was becoming my closest online friend, someone I would go to when one of my many relationship issues would come up. Talking to him through the night became a bright spot in a life that was otherwise difficult for me, so much so that I would make sure I'd be as around as possible during those times.
It's so obvious in hindsight but in the moment I was so emotionally broken down by the constant stream of bullshit that I couldn't see it. And my old scars weren't helped by my life becoming turbulent once again. Even the seemingly stable living situation wasn't so much; I was living on someone's living room floor and came to find out one of my roommates was the type to complain about everything possible. It was because of fighting with her that my boyfriend and I had to move back to South Carolina, in with other friends of his. There was a bit of a lull in communication during that adjustment period but when we got back into it we started right where we left off.
One day, Jon had an interesting question for me. "How far is it from Virginia to South Carolina?" Oh boy, this wasn't going to end well was it? I didn't answer and instead focused on finding out why he was asking. He explained that there was a video game convention in Virginia he was going to and that he was going to attempt to go down to visit me.
Which was a really fucking bad idea.
Oddly enough I had heard the name of the convention in passing with my roommates and brought the subject up with them. They were on the fence about going so I tried to hype up the idea a bit more and then went to tell Jon that there was a better way.
When the realization finally hit me, that I had just started plans to actually see him in real life, I was overcome with anxiety. The event was only a couple months away but it felt like that wouldn't be enough time at all. I wasn't happy with how I looked, my energy was starting to become more and more of a problem, I suddenly became hyper-aware of all my flaws after agreeing to the meeting.
Time still marched on and as it did, I started to feel like whether I liked it or not something was going to happen at that convention between us. I was completely honest with my boyfriend about everything and to my surprise was given his blessing to do whatever it was I felt I needed to do.
The convention came and so did our first meeting. Which was so incredibly nerve-wracking that I collapsed about 5 minutes into it. Then he made the mistake of putting a hand on my shoulder when I don't like being touched out of nowhere, which just made me flinch. After a long few seconds of silence I told him that he could, though, and that hand went back on my shoulder.
His incredible friendliness and energy grew on me almost immediately and my anxiety melted away. He was always physically near me during whatever we were doing, touching me or play fighting me or whatever fit the situation. During some downtime before a panel, when I was finally feeling the exhaustion, he pulled me close to him and helped me rest my head on his shoulder. I found out a little down the road that this was him trying to be cute. Unfortunately it was a weird angle so I had to give up. But the physical contact remained, and he made a strict point of hugging me every time we met up and parted ways.
The real action began in an overcrowded elevator. Once it started acting up due to being above capacity, I flipped my shit and tried to escape. My attempt was thwarted by Jon grabbing me, pulling me, and then holding me close. In the overcrowded elevator, though, this translated as 'being squished the fuck up against him where he can probably feel my heart racing'. Then when we were finally out, before we parted, he told me to stop him from doing something stupid. So I just kind of covered his face with my hand for lack of a better idea. Good enough, it broke the building tension enough for us to part ways smiling.
But I had a feeling about what that 'stupid thing' was, and I had another feeling that I had come incredibly close to reciprocating. Luckily my quick thinking had left him kissing my hand instead. I still ended up panicking to a friend and then staying up all night because my hotel was 3 miles away and I didn't want to spend money on a cab.
The next day started on an excessively awkward foot, with both of us obviously needing to say something and trying to pretend like that wasn't the case. Needing to talk won out though and we went to a secluded corner of a hallway.
He proceeded to tell me again that he never got over me, but it hits harder now that we're sitting together. He told me about his frustration and how he's trying so hard not to throw caution to the wind and that he wants to kiss me and maybe do more. And I'm not sure how to go about any of this because it's a hard situation to be in. I was so nervous I had to admit to wanting to kiss him through a typed message on my phone. I couldn't stop stuttering. He talked about there being something meaningful there when people could see each other at their worst and still hold these feelings.
Finally I hear him say "fuck it" and before I can really comprehend it I'm being kissed by my ex-boyfriend in the hallway of a video game convention. Which made him completely lose his shit. I don't think I've ever heard him swear as much as he did in that hallway, complete with him banging the back of his head against the wall we were sitting against. I put a hand back there to stop it and just found myself completely overflowing with sadness. He was always so cool and calm and seemingly in control. He never let on what kind of instability was present beneath the surface but here he was completely losing it. Because of someone like me.
I ended up making him wander around with me because I was so shaken and I couldn't sit there and couldn't let him sit there. We ended up in another empty hall and talked and this time I even cried. He said something like "sorry I can't be your happy ending" and all I could say in response was that it was okay because people like me didn't get happy endings. It wasn't a lie, it was something I truly believed at that point. That upset him quite a bit, but I persisted with it. Aside from a real belief it was also a way for me to protect myself. I was afraid to take on the full effect of his feelings because I was afraid of being hurt the way I had before. He left shortly after that to do some recording and I used the time to sort out my own thoughts, at least in part.
When we met up again we just resolved to enjoy the limited time we had together. And we did that. We did, more kissing happened, etc. But the things that had happened during that intense conversation stayed with me. I had always known him as someone who would suppress feelings, who would hide behind whatever possible and not show much in the way of passion or intensity. Then that convention happened and I saw him breaking down in front of me and acting like someone head over heels in love and it stuck with me. It left such a strong impression on me that I felt like I had to protect it in a way.
I also realized from that time that I loved him. I loved him and denying it any longer would cause more pain in the long run than it would to suppress those feelings and continue with the status quo. When we parted ways on the last day, we had told each other to take care of our respective partners. Breaking up probably wasn't the idea behind the sentiment but it felt like the most honest thing I could do for the situation. I had no expectations of Jon doing something similar, this was just something I needed to do even if I was given a blessing.
Notes: Warnings for abuse in this part, not much else.
Part 2:
It didn't take long for the No Contact establishment to break. It came in the form of him being tossed into a chat I was part of, where I was mainly playing the role of punching bag.
Naturally I hadn't healed from everything that had happened before, and that reflected in my behavior toward him. I would range from sweet to incredibly bitter. I don't really remember much, but I have a feeling that we had a lot of fights in that chat. I might have even been caught between wanting him back for some reason and wishing he would go away forever. Typical for a damaged 19-year-old who had already endured a couple months of mixed love and hate behavior from the object of their affection. It didn't help that the chat we were involved with seemed to be encouraging the conflicts because I guess seeing someone breaking down was amusing?
Luckily I got away from the toxic group when I moved cross-country. Somehow, though, the conversations with Jon stuck. There were a few reasons for this. One was because of the remaining unresolved feelings toward him. That was easily the most harmless. The second was because something still didn't sit right about everything in the back of my mind. I was still determined to find out what it was. The final reason, and possibly the most destructive, was because of the shock from moving cross-country. It didn't take long at all for my already-present depression to worsen and for me to make another suicide threat. On top of that I was growing more and more distant from my friends because I was suddenly in a place where I couldn't be on Skype all hours of the night.
I wound up clinging to Jon as a reminder of the kind of person I was. Or even as a reminder of the life I used to have. It even overrode the anxiety I had started to feel because of his behavior. This led to the perfect conditions for him to become even more harsh toward me. The already-established dynamic just became worse, with his displays of affection becoming more subtle and his complete dislike of me becoming more overt. And because I didn't want to lose this bit of familiarity, I took whatever was thrown at me as best I could. Which, admittedly, wasn't very well but I'm sure everyone can tell that I was pretty decently messed up in the head at that point.
This was probably the lowest point for me. I can't even confidently say what my goals were or what was going through my head because I was essentially blank. On autopilot. Sinking into depression while the fatigue that was always with me extended into pain and started to make walking difficult.
During this time, I befriended Jon's roommate and best friend out of curiosity more than anything else. It was because of that I found a group of friends to fit into when I felt like I had none. But that also came with some unique challenges.
Like one time suddenly having Jon pop up on a Skype call, targeting me, because his roommate had gotten up and Jon had noticed the call going and who was in it. Even though it was minor, it still managed to make me anxious and worried.
Things started to change in 2010 when my boyfriend and I moved to North Carolina. I had an easier time living with people my own age, even if we were living in the living room of the apartment. I hadn't forgotten about Jon, I had managed to tuck away the bad memories so that they didn't bother me anymore. It might have been because of that that things went the way they did.
The thing about abuse is that it programs you. It conditions you to act a certain way toward things, to figure out what the best method of survival is and then take it. How long does it take to undo? I don't even know myself. That's a question I hope to one day find the answer for. But even if I forgave the things that happened, or managed to work past them, the little things that had been stuck in my mind from my experience remained. Even if I thought I forgot them.
I started talking to Jon again by accident, really. I found out through friends that he had paid a mutual friend's rent as a way of apologizing for something. Overjoyed by this, I shot him a casual but excited message on Youtube.
To my surprise I received something in return. To my further surprise, the conversation that ensued was pleasant and might have even had an apology to me. I accepted it without thinking twice because I thought it was something that didn't affect me anymore. I didn't realize that my anxiety while talking to him was a result of that. I didn't realize my hesitancy to be honest and tendency to hide behind a facade of some kind was a result of all that.
But we started talking again, and this time was much smoother than the time before. He turned out to be working 12-hour shifts at night sometimes and would get lonely during them. That quickly became our time to talk together. I started looking forward to it, hopeful that this meant we could get over what happened before and establish a friend-
-ship...
That wasn't going to happen, not exactly. It didn't take long for what seemed like a normal post-relationship friendship to go off the rails. Because Jon had something he had to tell me, something incredibly important.
The things that had happened before, all the hatred he had shown toward me? It was all a lie.
He had spent a year, maybe longer, oscillating between loving and hating behavior and trying to convince me he hated me when that was never the case. What was the reality?
He had never gotten over me and had held the same affectionate feelings toward me the whole time. After we had broken up his feelings were so jumbled up he tried running away from his feelings by hating me. It failed, and he had just left a trail of pain and brokenness in his wake.
First of all, thank you for taking the time to read this. I'm sorry that it's long but there's really a lot to say. I tried to condense it to the best of my ability.
Since this is something that deals with abuse, please proceed with caution if you're sensitive to that kind of discussion. I go into detail about emotional abuse but there's no talk of physical or sexual abuse except maybe in passing. Other things that come up at various points are suicide, aftereffects of abuse, bullying (though not in detail), and sexual discussions. As you would expect with an abuse story, the content isn't exactly delightful to read but I figured I would give a heads up anyway as a safety precaution.
Intro:
I have a confession to make, even though I'm terrified to do so:
I am someone who dated Proton Jon several years ago. I've also been abused by him several times since then. Over the past 6 years I've been trying to forget about it or ignore it and it's not working anymore. I can't keep living with this on my shoulders and eating me alive, so I've decided to speak up.
I've been afraid to say anything because it's always been such a delicate situation and because I still care deeply for him despite everything that's happened. I don't want to see him get run off the internet or anything like that, not that I think someone as insignificant as me has that kind of power anyway. Ideally I want justice for all that happened to me, but ideally that would involve him genuinely working to repair the hurt that's been caused. And that's a hard goal to strive for when I'm terrified of him hurting me again.
But that's beside the point, here's my story:
Part 1:
We met in 2008, when I was a bored 18-year-old procrastinating on moving and he was a 22-year-old who made videos I loved because they helped me keep morale up. It was a night in late January when I finally gathered the courage to start up a conversation with him. Obviously it went well or there wouldn't be much more to this story.
Really, there was nothing unusual about the beginning of the relationship. We started talking, then started talking more, I acted like a total doofus on multiple occasions, retsupurae was a factor. Then he started taking things in a flirtier direction. I went along with it as best I could given my total lack of experience.
Then one night, he cornered me with a series of questions leading up to the big "Do you like me?" question. I tried to get out of it. I tried to dodge everything he threw at me. When he finally got to his ultimate question, I tried to run away and take a shower only to be shouted at by a friend to stay there and listen to him. His reciprocation floored me. I had never imagined something like that actually happening, yet there I was.
The celebration was cut short by him needing to go record a race video. Maybe I should have seen that as an early warning, but I thought nothing of it. I just waited the two hours while trying to stay as upbeat as possible. Somehow I was able to hold onto my patience despite the poor timing.
Things had started on a positive note, but I was keeping some things secret. I grew up in an emotionally and physically abusive household, getting out a couple weeks after I turned 18. It had only been about 6 months when everything started between Jon and I and the idea of speaking out about my abusive past was terrifying. When you're not that far out of the rabbit hole, it's still so easy to feel like an incomplete or broken person, and I certainly did. More than that, I was afraid that Jon wouldn't be able to handle the details.
Along with that self-doubt came an intricate web of defense mechanisms. A life of love coming with a catch, of the smallest misstep meaning severe punishment, meant that my guard would remain up almost constantly. I was only just starting to grow out of my cynicism and realize that it was possible for people to love me without putting conditions on it. Without making unreasonable demands or seeing my mistakes as further proof that I was useless and worthless.
Becoming aware of the abuse at a young age made me also develop a fighting side. It was small but it was a part of me that would push back at the people who pushed me too far, sometimes with catastrophic results.
I'm sure that that contributed to things being turbulent.
Jon and I had a somewhat tame relationship initially but it was very short-lived and within weeks we had our first real fight. And ended up speaking to one another despite the fact that we had attempted to promise to not do that to cool off. I was having trouble communicating with him because I came to find he had no experience with abuse. He had a stable life growing up, so if I wanted to explain anything I would have to explain everything. I started by sending him old journal entries of mine. This would eventually turn into me writing out my feelings, no matter how difficult it was for me, and sending them to him in an effort to get him to understand where I was coming from.
My conditioning to abuse was likely a contributor, but the other side was loneliness and insignificance. Brawl had come out at the same time our relationship started and he was really into that. On top of that, he was busy with school and a very active social life AND LP stuff. I was having difficulty adjusting to trying to match up with him. This wasn't helped by the fatigue that hung around me day in and day out. It was normal for me to need to nap during the day and doing it when he was around just made me feel guilty. Because it was cutting into the already limited time we had.
Nobody likes feeling ignored, myself included, and so that turned into me getting upset about it. I would be worse about it when I'd stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning and then finally have to cave and get some sleep without him ever showing up. Even when he'd be there earlier in the day to say he'd be back that night. If it had happened just once or twice I wouldn't have minded but it was happening several times a week. I felt less like a girlfriend and more like an afterthought.
Even with my complaints I downplayed how difficult it was for me. Going through a school day that started early in the morning and then having to stay up until 2 in the morning was rough on me physically, even if I got to take a nap during the day. I started having to miss classes because there was no way I'd be able to walk to the lecture rooms, much less pay attention through the whole thing. But me repeatedly bringing it up seemed to have no effect. In the end I felt like I was being unreasonable for bringing it up so much in the first place. I was a magician when it came to leaps of logic and somehow managed to blame everything that went wrong on myself, which led to me frantically needing to repair it. Even the things like him not making adequate time for me.
Add me being the caretaker to my mother, who fell down the fire escape of her apartment about a week before the relationship started, to the mix and it can't lead anywhere good.
It didn't.
About 3 months after it started, Jon broke off the relationship for various reasons. Or tried to. I begged for another week to try to 'prove myself' to him. That was something I got, but once again he was absent so often it really had no meaning. So it ended. Because he was starting to resent how needy I was, because he realized he couldn't handle it, there were more reasons but I've long forgotten them. He also told me that he'd learned a lot from his time with me, that he needed time alone to be able to sort himself out.
If it had ended there, maybe it could be attributed to a bad relationship and written off.
It didn't.
It was over but my feelings weren't so easily shaken. I really didn't want to give up this relationship because he was the first person to show me affection like that and that leaves an impact.
Maybe if it had been left at that, with me pining for something that would never happen again, and him just ignoring me, it would have turned out okay. Instead I found myself on the receiving end of unnerving behavior that built slowly.
Since it was right after the breakup, he would still flirt with me a lot and sometimes even act somewhat seductive. It was the kind of thing that would easily get a broken hearted person's hopes up. Then he would turn around and dash those hopes harshly. He would remind me that he couldn't stand me, or that there was nothing between us, anything to shut down the little spark of hope his behavior would cause. When I called him out on acting a certain way, he'd immediately go on the defensive and claim he acted that way with everyone. That it wasn't anything special about me.
I wound up spending a lot of nights crying that summer because those conversations would turn into full-blown fights. Thank god I had friends who would pull me into streams and try to cheer me up while being horrified by whatever I'd have to share about Jon's actions that night. A lot of them couldn't associate with him after that, just because of the things I would tell them happened to me.
My affections toward him stayed, but I was growing more and more afraid of him. I never knew if it would be a pleasant conversation or a harsh one, if I would go to sleep peacefully or be up all night crying. I started hating myself more and more for what seemed to be my screwing up everything. I took my teasing too far, I was insulting when I should have been affectionate and kept lashing out when I shouldn't have. I tried to pretend it wasn't as hurtful as it was.
Why didn't I just block him and walk away from it? Because I was being fed just enough hope to keep me going. In the midst of bad days there would be a good day that made me think that there was a chance for more good days. Then that hope would be dashed shortly after and then renewed by another action. Those familiar with abuse dynamics might see the familiarity in such a cycle. But it was new to me because it was the first time I had been abused by someone who really loved me. I had been aware, almost painfully so, of the abuse my family would show. Then again it's hard not to notice abuse when it's physical. This was entirely a mind game.
A mind game that wound up including the new person he was interested in. The date with her and his contemplating entering a relationship with her became more ammo against me. The continued abuse just created more and more pressure until I finally snapped and threatened suicide. It went beyond that, I left and drove out to a bridge above the freeway. Ultimately what brought me back home was the thought of a close friend freaking out about me with worry and me not wanting to hurt anyone like how I'd been hurting.
I went back and that same friend ended up confessing to me that my threat and leaving had made him realize that he had fallen for me. (I would find out a few years later that he had also conversed with Jon in the time I was gone. And that Jon would have a 'why her?' kind of reaction.) Already emotionally overloaded, I told him I would need time to think about everything before I could answer.
Jon and I had a final, short conversation. He encouraged me to go for the relationship and we agreed to cut contact with one another. I didn't want to, god knows why I didn't want to, but it happened. As much as I disliked the idea it also brought an odd sense of relief with it. It felt like I was finally free from all the stress that I had been put through. Things were starting to look up, albeit in an unexpected way.
Strangely enough I got a message from Jon the day after we cut contact wishing me a Happy Birthday.
