Dating can get so weird so fast. Maybe someone turns out to be a psychopath. Maybe their family turns out to be vicious monsters. Whatever the case may be, these women found themselves totally stunned when they encountered the ultimate relationship plot-twist. Content has been edited for clarity.
All His Crazy Came Flooding Out
“I met ‘Jeff’ in 2001, at the local gym. He was a body builder and I admit, I was attracted to the muscular types. He had an infectious smile, a quick wit, and only too eager to help me with my workouts. I was newly divorced, and I wasn’t looking for a relationship, nor was I ready for one. I would frequently run into ‘Jeff’, and over time, we developed a mutually comfortable relationship. Jeff was gaining my confidence as well as my trust. One day, I decided to ask him if he could help me with my tax return (he was an accountant), and he was only too happy to oblige. As I arrived at his office, I noticed that his staff had gone home. I found that to be a bit unsettling, but what the heck. He had offered to do this for me, and I would return the favor by treating him to dinner. He greeted me with a bear hug and a peck on the cheek. I wasn’t expecting anything like that! Nevertheless, we finished our business, and I thanked him and left. I did keep my promise and treated him to dinner. Over dinner a few weeks later, he looked at me and told me that he was very interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with me. I told him that I was flattered, but I was not ready to be in a relationship, as I was coming out of a divorce and needed time to heal. He patted my hand and told me to take as long as I needed, for he would wait.
I couldn’t totally avoid ‘Jeff’ as much as I would like. I would see him at the gym almost every time I was there doing my workout. He would walk up to me and say, ‘Why don’t you just give me a chance? I think we would be great together!’ I would always try to be polite and tell him that I was ‘too busy’ or ‘not ready’, or whatever excuse I could think of! I could never imagine how persistent he would become. He started calling me and leaving me messages on the phone proclaiming his love for me. He would come to my workplace to see me, as he just ‘happened to be in the neighborhood’. Every time he saw me at the gym, he would come up to me, asking me to go out for a quick drink, and sometimes he would just blatantly come right out and tell me that only a fool would turn down a great guy like him. What an ego! By nature, I am a very patient person, but my patience was wearing thin. I thought about things I could do to keep ‘Jeff’ at a distance, but I really didn’t want to cancel my gym membership or change my phone number, and there was no way I was going to change jobs. I started changing the hours I would go to the gym. I would go in earlier than usual and started working out during the weekend. Hey! I think I solved my dilemma! I hadn’t seen ‘Jeff’ now for three weeks! Little did I know that ‘Jeff’ was best friends with the manager, who clued him in on what time I was arriving for my workouts. One afternoon, after completing a workout, I spotted ‘Jeff’ walking in as I was preparing to leave. He was with a guy friend that often worked out with him. As I made my way to the exit door, I was trying my best to ignore ‘Jeff’ and get the heck out of there! All of a sudden, ‘Jeff’ took hold of my arm and asked, ‘Where are you going in such a hurry, sweetheart?’
And before I could answer, he turned to his friend and said, ‘I DON’T KNOW WHAT MORE I CAN DO TO CONVINCE THIS GIRL TO MARRY ME!’
I looked at ‘Jeff’ with my cold-stoned eyes, and just as I was about to reply to his hideous comment, his friend turned to ‘Jeff’ with a look of surprise and said, ‘MARRY YOU! YOU CAN’T MARRY HER, YOU ALREADY HAVE A WIFE!’
I stood there stunned in disbelief. Huh? What did I just hear? That did not just happen. There were no words. I never returned to that gym, and I thankfully was able to never see ‘Jeff’ ever again.”
“He Tried To Bite My Face”
“There have been several surreal moments, with almost everyone I’ve dated. My dating stories are the kind of things you hear at parties or maybe in stand-up comedy. My second girlfriend dumped me because I didn’t want her cutting me with scalpels while we hooked up. Call me crazy, but I like for intimacy to be fun and not carry a risk of sepsis or bleeding out. I choose life. My third girlfriend was verbally berating me and I told her to stop, at which point she told me to shut up. I was stunned, which is pretty hard to do. Nothing more than that, really. We broke up shortly after that. My fifth girlfriend had sent her son out to New York to spend some time with his aunt, and at the last possible moment, she started being weird about sending him home. She acted like she had no money and all that. So my girlfriend paid for him to come home and didn’t have money for back-to-school shopping. He was entering sixth grade and I know how awful that can be, so I gave her $200 for shopping. She didn’t even say thank you. Now I had to earn that money and I at least expect to be thanked. I dumped her after that.
My sixth girlfriend is a crazy dog lady, and please understand that is not a compliment. She owns at least two banned dog breeds, and for whatever reason, felt the need to rescue them from the fighting scene. Because that’s safe. So we had just started dating and I went to her house, where she had all four of her ill-behaved beasts out and about. The pit bull started a fight with the Presa Canario, and she turned the kitchen sink hose on them. That didn’t work, so this woman goes and pries them apart. The pit had closed his eyes and accidentally chomped down on her hand, so of course she’s bleeding everywhere and I’m a nurse, so now it’s my problem. She’d called her mom, who is also a nurse, so after I mostly cleaned her up, we took her to the ER for stitches, which took like six hours. When the ER nurse asked her what kind of dog bit her, I told her what it was, and this woman was LIVID that I had told the nurse she owned a pit bull and was telling me he could have ben seized if anyone else knew about him. Then maybe don’t own a banned breed? I don’t know what to tell you there. I should’ve dumped her that night but didn’t. Fast-forward a week or two later. I was with her at dog lessons for the Presa Canario, and at one point they were taking a break, so she was sitting next to me and that horrible Satan dog was staring me down. Something in my shoe was bothering me, so I bent over to fiddle with it, and he lunged at me and tried to bite my face. She caught him just in time. I felt his nose touch my cheek. I should’ve dumped her then but didn’t. I’m apparently not very smart. She ended up dumping me because she likes for things to be very scripted, and I didn’t respond to something the way she wanted me to, and it wasn’t even important but she was gone, and that’s all that mattered.”
One Sentence Changes Her Whole Life
“There were a lot of moments in my last relationship that made me question where we were at and why I stayed. More importantly, it was all the stuff that was said on our two-year anniversary. My ex was a big Hamilton fan. He was constantly playing the soundtrack and giving me facts about it. So I saved up close to $600 to buy us two tickets to see the musical in downtown Chicago on the day of our anniversary. I was so excited, and I told him right away. He wasn’t as excited as I had hoped he would be. In fact, he asked me if I could get a refund for them two days before our anniversary and the musical itself. I was heartbroken. I couldn’t afford the tickets to begin with and had worked a lot of hours to purchase them. I couldn’t get a refund, so we planned on going up to Chicago the morning of our anniversary. The night before he was out late with his cousin and was extremely grumpy with me when I woke him up at his parent’s house the next day. He didn’t speak to me for the majority of the two hour drive up the city. Then he complained the entire time about me wanting to take a picture with him. When we eventually got into the city, parked the car, and started walking to the theatre, maybe 4–6 blocks altogether, I tried to reach for his hand. I wanted to be like all these other cute couples in the city. I wanted to be special and treasure these moments together. He swatted my hand away. ‘Are you okay?” I asked him.
‘Yeah.’
I anxiously tried to change the subject. ‘We should start a tradition of coming up to the city for each of our anniversaries.’ And that was when it happened. The ‘did that really just happen’ moment.
‘You know,’ he said. ‘Someday, you’re going to call me.’
I was confused. ‘Well, obviously. We’ll be together for a long time.’
‘No, you’re going to call me because your marriage is failing. Your husband left you for someone else, your kids hate you, and you just don’t know what to do with your life. So you’ll call me.’
I was shocked. This was my 2-year anniversary. I had purchased us expensive Hamilton tickets. He just gave me some story about how we weren’t even going to BE together. I broke down crying right then and there on the street corner in Chicago. ‘Are you seriously crying?’ he asked. This progressed into him not talking to me at all at all during the month of October. I spiraled into depression, not knowing what to do or say. I found him in a bar that I frequented with my college friends, and he pretended not to know who I was. This spiraled into him ignoring me in November, until I was expected to make an appearance at Thanksgiving. December was two weeks of ‘everything is normal’ and then fading into nonexistence. In January, he wouldn’t message me back or answer my calls. I gave him an ultimatum. I said, ‘I cannot do a relationship alone. I need to know you care.’ No response. I gave him a week. I ended the relationship. Now, seven months later, I’ve started seeing this amazing guy, who treats me with kindness in a way I’ve never experienced.”
Bo-Bo’s Gonna Bite Ya!
“My now ex and I had some friends that we visited frequently. There was a short gravel driveway that led to their house, and at the end of the driveway there was a big tree. They had a pit bull chained to that tree. The dog’s name was Bo-Bo, and he hated me. I was always afraid to walk past him, because he would lunge at me and hit the end of his chain really hard, barking and foaming at the mouth at times. Our friends realized I was fearful of old Bo-Bo, and when we arrived at their house, I would call them and they would send someone out to hold onto Bo-Bo while I went past him and into the house. It was the same thing when I would leave, someone would hold Bo-Bo’s collar to keep him from lunging at me. One evening after dark, our friends called and asked if we would like to join them for a game night. We said sure and headed their way. When we arrived, I called for someone to come and hold the dog. Their 14 year old son, big for his age, came out and got Bo-Bo by the collar. I walked past, never looking at the dog. I had never looked into his eyes, because I was afraid that would make him more determined to get at me. Just as I had gotten past, Bo-Bo lunged violently and escaped the boys grasp. He hit the end of the chain, and I heard the loud ‘ping’ of the link on a chain breaking. My heart started pounding immediately and I glanced over my shoulder to see Bo-Bo running at full speed directly toward me.
All this time, my ex had been fiddling around in the car, and when he heard the ‘ping’, he looked up to see Bo-Bo running toward me. Did he run to rescue me? Nope, he put one foot back in the car and yelled at me, ‘Don’t run, Marcy, don’t run!’ I remember thinking, ‘Don’t run? I will fly!’ and that was when Bo-Bo caught up with me. I closed my eyes and prepared for the worst. But much to my surprise, the dog literally ran into my left leg and kept on running. All I could see was that dog’s big black butt running off into the night. I immediately turned around and started to run back to the car, while my ex was still screaming at me not to run. I yelled at my ex to get lost and got in the car and slammed the door shut. So did my ex. By that time, our friends had heard all the commotion, and they came outside to see what was going on. They freaked out when they realized Bo-Bo had broken his very heavy chain and was on the loose. Come to find out, he ran straight to the neighbor’s house and began to terrify all the chickens that had gone to roost. In the meantime, our friends hustled me into the house. We talked about the incident, and they admitted that they didn’t know why Bo-Bo hadn’t attacked me, but instead headed straight for the neighbor’s chickens.
I mulled this thing over for a few days. I was disgusted with my ex for getting back into the car while a crazy dog was running straight toward me. It wasn’t the first time that I had been in danger that he had abandoned me like that. But this could have ended on a horrible note. I would never wish that my ex was injured by a dog trying to save me, but on the other hand, it was kind of the last straw for me. It was a true “This just didn’t happen” moment for me. Bo-Bo came on back home, happy as could be, and a few weeks later the meter reader came and he stepped too close to Bo-Bo and got bitten. He reported the incident to his company, and BAM, Bo-Bo disappeared. They don’t talk about it. They could have been sued. I am very fortunate that my ‘that just didn’t happen’ moment didn’t take a turn for the worse. I wouldn’t have been able to defend myself against that pit bull. I would have been torn up if Bo-Bo wasn’t distracted by the idea of getting himself some chickens. And I wouldn’t have received any help from that worthless ex of mine who cowered in the car, waiting for me to get attacked by a vicious dog. I left him a few years later. I don’t regret ending that relationship one bit. I’m on my own now, for over three years, and I’m still afraid of pit bull dogs. I kicked the old man to the curb, and he still to this day doesn’t understand why. There is much more to the story than this. He is a narcissistic loser, and I’m way better off without him.”
Creepy Doesn’t Begin To Describe Him
“When I had just started dating my ex (about two months into the relationship), my father passed away. To say that his death had an effect on me is an understatement. Not only was I grieving because my father had passed, but I was having to acclimate to a very different way of living. For the prior 17 years, my father’s health had been very poor, particularly so for the last six years leading up to his death. He had had a stroke, and my mother had been a caregiver for him. I had helped her and him by taking my father to all of his doctors appointments, which I estimated to be over three hundred appointments over those six years. It could have been more. My mother certainly had caregiver burnout, and I did, too. One would think that adjusting to a life of not-caregiving wouldn’t be difficult, but I felt like I had just been through a war and then had been plopped down into civilian life. It just didn’t fit. If I had been thinking clearly, I likely would not have continued dating my ex. There was a voice inside me the first time that I met him, which said, ‘You shouldn’t pursue him. He’s creepy.’
I brushed it off because it didn’t make sense to me that I could make that kind of judgment right off the bat. He was what I would later come to define as a narcissist, though he had other tendencies that aren’t necessarily just narcissism. For instance, the only thing he wanted to watch together was horror movies. He had art in his apartment that I would call ‘disturbing’. Picture a drawing with faces that have mouths stretched down, open like they’re screaming. Eventually, he would buy more works of art that I would describe as being just as disturbing. Not only this, but, eventually no matter how much I asked him not to send me creepy things or talk about creepy things, he wouldn’t stop. One of the things he sent me was an Instagram picture of vests for people to wear that were made to look like slabs of human meat. In the image, they were hanging from hooks in a freezer. He also brought up the fact that he loves the sensation of a comforting object becoming one of horror in horror movies at our Valentine’s Day dinner. Of all the things to want to talk about on Valentine’s Day! I didn’t yet know that the above was the type of person he was. I myself write horror, and I am friends with many horror writers, and so some of the red flags that might have cued me in either weren’t present, or I dismissed them in the beginning. But my ex didn’t love horror like a horror writer does. It’s difficult to explain, but the gap between what he was like and what the writers I know are like is vast.
We had a semi-rocky first year together, and I was at his apartment to celebrate New Year’s Eve. My father had passed away at the end of January the previous year, so not only was it a holiday, but we were coming up on the anniversary of his death as well. Thus, my mind and heart were on him the whole day, and I was already on the edge of crying multiple times that day. I should have just taken the day to be by myself, but I felt pressure to celebrate the New Year and make sure that it started off ‘right’. Well the day did not go well. I wanted to go to the store and pick up some black-eyed peas, cabbage, salmon, and tortellini. When we got to the store, my ex said he was hungry. He seemed to be upset that we wouldn’t just buying the pre-made pizza that the Whole Foods had right there. He was more than welcome to buy food, but dinner wouldn’t take long to make, and I really enjoyed the process of cooking. He didn’t seem to believe me. This was actually the beginning of what would be a common occurrence with him. He didn’t like leaving his apartment, and he would lash out at me every time we went somewhere, whether it was the grocery store, a theatre production, a movie, or even dinner. By the time we got back to our respective apartments (my apartment was separate from his), I felt the need to rush and hurry to make dinner so that he wouldn’t be so irritated. I finished, he came over, and he ate. Things seemed to get better, and we eventually went over to his apartment.
While there, it seemed like he ignored me, and he wouldn’t help me as I fixed the cabbage and black-eyed peas. Eventually, he wanted to do a puzzle that his parents got for him for his birthday, but when I sat down to work on it with him, he rushed through his portion of it and just left me there, which was confusing. We ended up missing the countdown to midnight, and then after the countdown, he wanted to show me a ‘short animation’ that he had been wanting to show me for several days. He kept refusing to tell me what it was, but I had a bad feeling about it. My gut told me (and my gut ended up being correct) that this animation might be similar to one that a different person had gotten me to watch several years before. That particular individual I had had to call the police on because he had started stalking me. Even after I went to the police, and they went and did a psych eval on him, he still tried to contact me through a friend. I asked my ex if we could wait until the next day to watch it, but he got upset. So, I caved and agreed to watch it. As it turned out, it was the exact animation I expected. The animation was depressing, and I could feel my stomach and heart sinking during it. All the guards I had up against crying because I was thinking about my father fell down, and on top of this, I was reminded of the situation with the individual I had to call the police on a few years before. I ended up breaking down crying right after the animation, I think as well because I wondered deep down if my ex wasn’t right for me. In other words, I think I worried without knowing it that my ex had more in common with the man I’d had to call the police on than I had ever wanted to admit.
It was a lot of negative emotion all at once, and it took me many months to get over that night. What the above experience, and many more experiences with my ex, ended up showing me was that he did not have any empathy. The whole day was all about him, about his hunger, about the fact he wanted dinner quickly, about the fact he wanted to do the puzzle and watch the animation that he loved. It got to the point that my emotions and I were forgotten. I’ll add that my ex really liked quizzes to determine one’s personality, and later on one of the ones he sent me to take had to deal with empathy. I had a 72/80 empathy score. He had a 35/80 empathy score. I’m sure he didn’t expect this to turn out to be a huge warning sign to me, but it was. Eventually, what it came down to, and why I left him, was that he lashed out at the smallest things, and he could never stop doing it, even when he promised he wouldn’t, and even when he admitted he shouldn’t. At one point, he even said he knew that if he kept doing it I would leave him. He was right. I did. When I think back to the New Year’s day, I don’t feel the same emotions that I once felt, but I do still find it uncanny that the man I had to call the police on loved the same animation that my ex did. I think I sensed that evening that we weren’t right for each other, and the hardest part of it was that I had wanted to believe so much that we were.”
He Was a Factory Of Red Flags
“How about two ‘that did not just happen’ moments with the same guy. Talk about stupid! I had met this guy online. Our first date would rank one of the best dates I ever experienced. He was thoughtful and planned out everything, even rented out a theater at a museum ensuring that we were the only two there. I hate to admit it, but it was amazing. As he was heading to drop me off, he reveals that he was dating another girl, but because he liked me more, he was going to end it with her. This was a major red flag, but I thought maybe he just wanted to be honest with me. It wasn’t like we were exclusive, so I thanked him for telling me. During the few months we were dating, everything was going well. We began to spend a lot of time together. Even though I was not not falling in love, I did like being around him. He seemed totally smitten by me until he wasn’t. We had spent the weekend together, and he seemed a little off. I thought it was because he was struggling a bit financially and I was in the mall shopping like there was no tomorrow. Well, after returning home the next day, we were texting and he types, ‘I miss my wife’. Granted I knew that he was divorced, but that was definitely a ‘that did not just happen’ moment. I texted back, ‘I think you need to find her. Bye.
I was shocked, but I wasn’t bitter. At one point, he told me how he moved back in with his ex-wife. But once again, things weren’t really working out. He said how he wanted to talk to me while she was making plans again to separate with their children. No problem. I’m totally guarded and wasn’t going to be tricked by this guy again. Until I was. This guy was always thoughtful and available and would visit me at least twice per week. We lived about an hour away. So one day while watching a movie, he seems a bit preoccupied with his phone. This is not like him, because he is always staring and making googly eyes at me. He cuts his visit short by an hour. Again, not like him as he heads out. About thirty minutes later, I get a phone call. He explains that his neighbor (who has a crush on him) called to let him know that his wife had some man over to his house. He called the wife, who told him that she found this phone number in his jacket pocket and called to find out it was another female. The female had ratted him out and said that they were starting to date, but she didn’t know he was married. He is telling me all of this like he is talking to his guy friend. Since I am a counselor, he starts asking my advice on what to do with his wife. I am laughing in my mind thinking how I needed to be cool, and I give him the advice. Next, he proceeds to ask me what he should do with the other female. That’s when I snapped because I was thinking ‘that just did not happen’. Again, I wasn’t fooled by it because of his previous behaviors. Most recently, after eight years, he contacts me stating that he wrote a book about his life. In the book, he openly admits that he was a womanizer, but found God. Glad that he found God, but I’m not down for a third round.”
Caught Red Handed!
“My ex boyfriend was a compulsive liar. There were things he lied to me about that had absolutely no benefit to him, and he knew it. He started believing in his lies and would even try to make me look stupid for calling him out on it. Well one night, I was spending time with my great-grandmother, waiting on my mom to pick me up, and he texts me fearing he would be going to jail. I was confused. Yes, he did have a somewhat troubled past, but he lived in a good area where the worst thing to happen would be kids lighting off fireworks on the 4th of July or smoking weed. Of course, being the paranoid person I am, I asked a million questions. Turns out that his fears came from something that happened two years ago, and his story was all over the place. He was on his way home from work (it was dark out), and he had felt like hit something. It ended up being someone’s cat. He kept driving and didn’t talk to the owners, but he felt like they had caught his plates. The next morning, he went in for questioning from the local police. He didn’t go into too much detail with me, and part of me thinks it’s because I had plans in going into law enforcement back then. He was scared that he’d go to jail, and I played along with it, knowing he wouldn’t. The day had finally arrived for his ‘court case’. He kept texting me throughout that morning, telling me what was happening. I thought that was super weird, as every time I’ve been in court, phones were not permitted. I let him have his moment, growing more and more suspicious by the minute. My friend happened to be with me while I was texting, and she suspected he was cheating. She desperately wanted me to bust him. I go onto his social media, but his location was off. This was not unusual. He had posted online that he was playing basketball with friends for what seemed like hours. He wasn’t in court at all. At least not legal court, but a basketball court. I called him out on it, because back then I did not care. And he told me he was let off the hook and he just wanted to celebrate with some friends. There was no court case, just some angry family that he was paranoid about. Seriously, I never understood why he was acting all dodgy!”
Could They Actually Get Their Happy Ending?
“My girlfriend’s parents own a huge horse farm and ranch, and over Thanksgiving break, her dad asked us to go ride the northern fence line to see if any repairs were needed. He was going to be adopting some wild Mustangs that he would turn loose on the huge property. We rode the fence line and ran into the Owners of the Bordering Farm on the north side. It was around 2,500 acres, and my girlfriend had been good friends with their daughter. We talked and found out they were selling the farm after buying another house a few years prior. My girlfriend told her parents about it and said it might be a good idea to add it to their property to expand. They agreed, and her Dad put her in charge of the purchase since she was studying business management. She worked with my mom, an attorney, who tried to give her some advice. After a month or so, my girlfriend signed the papers to acquire the northern bordering farm for her parents’ company. The papers were signed in mid-December as we got home home for winter break and the holidays.
Her parents kept telling us they were taking us out to dinner to celebrate the new acquisition to the company, and that they had some news for us. They had been talking about what to do with the new property, and they decided that they were opening a riding school and boarding stables that my girlfriend could run if she wanted to return home after graduating. My girlfriend said she would think about it, and then they told her, ‘We’ve also decided to remodel the house there for you and Abbie to live in if you come home to run the school and stables.’
That was the ‘That did not just happen’ moment. We were given a house to live in as long as my girlfriend works for her parents’ company. We had a lot of input in the remodel and her dad liked to use our house as a place he could install all kinds of tech stuff his wife will not allow him to install over there. Since we have been unable to make our yearly EDM festival circuit, we have been working the school and stables all summer so far. She’s been managing the place and I have been the trail guide for the miles and miles of trails we spent weeks last summer marking out. In a few weeks, her mother will come back over to run the place while we go back to school for our final year.”
Her One Fatal Mistake
“Not a relationship, or anything even close, but definitely my biggest ‘that did not just happen moment’. First, a little background story to give you the full picture: In high school, one of the more popular guys wanted to date me. What killed me inside was that my home life wasn’t very good. I never knew what I was going home to between my mother’s (untreated) mental illness and my grandmother’s Alzheimer’s, going home felt a bit like playing Russian Roulette. I couldn’t expose him to that. I didn’t want anything happening to him (and both women had violent outbursts). So we talked to each other at school, but that was it. Even then I started freaking out, because I found myself liking him more as I got to know him better. I was falling for him and I couldn’t let that happen! I eventually gave him a letter saying that we couldn’t be together. I gave a reason, but not the main reason why (I should probably mention that I was NOT popular by any means, and I was often a target for bullies in fact). I didn’t let anyone know what was happening at home, not even my friends. I didn’t want child protective services involved again.
Fast forward about 12–13 years, and I’m working at a hospital café and we ran into each other on our way to the washrooms. I walk him back to the ER and finally told him the full truth. He wanted to get my contact information before he left the hospital. At first I was okay, but afterwards I had a panic attack. He was out of my league before and I was sure he still would be. I was slaving away at minimum wage in my late 20’s, and he likely had a decent career going. What could I possibly offer, even as a friend? I’d be that loser that could never pay their own way. I completely panicked and went blank when he stopped by the café asking for my number. I kept thinking, ‘Why? Who am I anyway? Just a nobody like everyone always said I would be.’ I heard the pain in his voice when he said, ‘Just leave me alone.’ I had half a mind to point out that he was the one waiting for me to come out of the washroom, but I didn’t have the heart to. My heart hurt at the tone of his voice but I knew that I’d never be able to just trust that any interest in me was genuine, platonic of not. That was my issue, not his. You see, growing up like that I developed two mental health issues in response to repetitive trauma. General anxiety disorder, and complex post traumatic stress disorder. Due to an epileptic history I couldn’t medicate and at that time I was still in therapy working through everything that caused the cptsd. I watched him walk away, saying my apology to his back, I don’t know if he heard me.
Fast forward again into 2015. I was at the ER, I don’t remember what for. He’s there too, it’s evident that something happened to his knee, since it’s wrapped in a bandage. He gets up and starts talking angrily to one of the nurses about how long he’d been waiting and that he’s in pain. I’m sitting in the chair, feeling my chest tense up. It always does when people raise their voice around me. I can’t hear his voice anymore, it’s my mom yelling her usual addict rant. I’m starting to tremble, and I’m heading for a panic attack. I state what I always wanted to tell my mom but never had the courage to: way to make yourself sound like an addict. That stopped the panic attack in its tracks, but now my high school crush is staring at me with his mouth gaping. All at once I realized he believed I meant him, like any sane person would! I rest my head in my hands and find myself at a loss. A simple ‘I’m sorry’ won’t cut it! A blonde woman is with him that I don’t even know, so that makes my blunder even more awkward to explain. What the heck did I just do?! Did that just happen? Yep! I’m an idiot. I took power and control away from the trauma by saying what I said, and in doing so I hurt him. I hurt him again! I felt the air leave my lungs and tears start down my face as he left with the woman accompanying him. It’s been nearly four years since then, and I haven’t forgiven myself. I won’t.”
He Was Way Too Hot To Handle
“When I was in my early twenties, I hostessed at a fine dining restaurant while attending college. I eventually came to have a crush on one of the waiters that worked there. He was more than ten years older than me, but he was gregarious, handsome, and charming. Everyone that worked at the restaurant liked him, and he had many regulars. As was often the case in the restaurant industry, we would go out with other staff for a drink following work and started spending more time together. My crush ended up growing into more feelings, but I wasn’t sure if he liked me or not. While he had had ample opportunity, he hadn’t tried to pursue anything further like kissing me.
One night around November, we went out for the typical nightcap and then ended up going back to his house. It was cold and we decided to have a fire in the chiminea. He had brought out a bottle of bubbly, which I naively didn’t realize was expensive and a sign he was putting the moves on me. I was quite cold and was sitting directly across from him while we sipped our bubbly and got to know each other better. The flames in the chiminea were dying down and he threw some more logs on. Unfortunately, we had waited too long and the fire was so minimal it wouldn’t burn. Now I will say that after having had a lot more life experience, I realize what I did next was not the smartest thing and I clearly would not do it again. The bubbly may have been an influence. I suggested that we put lighter fluid in the chiminea to get the flames to reignite and start burning again. The lighter fluid was by me, and I could reach it from my chair (again totally not a brilliant move. I squirted it as I was seated and the flames exploded outward so quickly that I reacted and pulled back but hadn’t stopped squeezing. The lighter fluid landed on the guy and the flames followed, catching his pants on fire. He was able to immediately put out the flames, as it was a tiny amount, but he needed to go inside and get out of his pants. He finally that night kissed me and things quickly evolved to us being in a relationship shortly after. When people would ask how we ended up together, he always loved to tell everyone that I lit his pants on fire and he knew I was the one.”