It Happened To Me [Narcissistic Abuse]

It happened to me. The girl who, arguably, has extensive experience dealing with the bullshit games that men play.  The girl who has experience with men with ages ranging from 14 to 47. If the person you’re with is a game player, a bullshitter, a manipulator, a liar – they all play the same games.

It happened to me; the girl who allowed a 14 year old boy to convince her that she was only valuable if men wanted to fuck her.  The girl who was dumped because she stood up for herself, and then went through high school thinking, “What if I had just given in to him … we could be happy.”  It took this girl almost a decade to finally unlearn that principal.  It took years to discover that she was, in fact, valuable for more than her willingness to put out.  The girl who, 4 years post-graduation had to explain to this boy that she would never marry him, or take him seriously, and encouraged him to ask out the girl he is now married to and has a family with.

It happened to me; the girl who found a boy at 15 who promised to do anything for her.  A boy who treated her as more than a warm body, but who wouldn’t give up marijuana to get a job so they could plan for a future. A boy who ultimately tried to convince her to stay by threatening suicide, by carrying nearly empty bottles of Oxycotin to school just begging to get caught and taking enough at once to sweat out the drug.  The girl who left that boy, who listened to her dad that “If a boy is going to kill himself, there’s nothing you can do or say to change it.  And a man wouldn’t make light of such things.”  

It happened to me; the girl who tried to woo a 18 year old boy into giving her a chance – just one date. After rejecting her she dated someone else, and then suddenly he couldn’t stop talking to her.  When she wound up becoming single again - he swept her away, told her he’d take her to prom and dance with her at the choir concert if she’d just … do him a favor.  The girl who gave in (because she hadn’t learned her lesson from the first boy yet), only to be blown off the next day – because of course he did.  The girl who, while all the choir boys laughed at the practical joke, learned that no promise is worth your dignity.

It happened to me; the girl who was flattered by the attention of a 47 year old man.  The girl who clung to her “free after 7:00pm” phone calls like a lifeline.  The girl who would cry and complain for the weeks on end when he would pretend she didn’t exist, only for her to act as if nothing happened when he finally called saying, “I’ve been thinking about you.” – Because of course he was.  The girl who bribed friends to take her places she couldn’t be caught, the girl who cut shifts at work to meet him, the girl who almost missed her solo ensemble performance because he asked her to coffee, the girl who was driving her parents’ car 40 miles to see him and spend 20 minutes in his apartment.  The girl who believed this man, so many years her senior, believed that he would actually give her a future, a career, a home, a family – promises he couldn’t possibly deliver.  The girl who eventually had to tell this man that her life was being put on hold because her father died, and he was too impatient to wait for her.

It happened to me; the girl who met a 35 year old man at a party and asked if he wanted a good time. She was love drunk – and real drunk – on the aforementioned man ghosting her so she decided to just accept her “inevitable fate” of being a floozy.  The girl who tried to convince this man to stop smoking and drinking so he could focus on moving out of his parents’ house, to which the man responded “I love you so much, I will do that for you.” – But of course he didn’t.  The girl who eventually had to ghost this man who would incessantly call her phone professing his love for her despite her telling him things were over, and would never work between them. The girl who reached back out to this man 10 years later when she was single. The girl who figured at least he was familiar, even if he was still a mess. 

It happened to me; the girl who met a 28 year old man, fresh out of divorce, with an 8 month old daughter. The girl who told him she wasn’t interested in being a family person at that time and that she just wanted to have a companion.  He – of course – said that sounded like a great arrangement.  Eventually “companion” meant live-in-babysitter for the girl. The girl who wanted to enjoy her life but wound up tied down, and home alone, with a child she didn’t help create but whom she loved dearly.  A child that kept her far longer than she should have stayed, this girl who had been through so much couldn’t stand to be the source of pain for this little girl. This girl started acting out when the child was with her mother, the girl started texting ex-flings because she was utterly alone.  She became careless, she didn’t want to cause a conflict but she couldn’t stay in this hell any longer.  When the boy found the extraordinarily detailed account of her transgressions she thought that was it, “He won’t possibly stay after this.”  “We need counseling.” He said.  So the girl, the only one employed at the time, spent her nights alone googling therapists instead of texting ex-boyfriends. Finally a therapist told them to take a 7 day break; the boy packed a bag for him and his daughter and they went to spend a week with his brother.  She looked around the apartment and realized he hadn’t taken a single one of the child’s favorite toys, clothes, books, shoes – he took whatever was easy with no regard to the child’s feelings.  She called him and said they were done, because she knew he would never be the partner she wanted or the father her future children deserved.

It happened to me; the girl who thought it was fun that so many of her friends had such flirty personalities.  The girl who went to a party surrounded by said friends because they made her feel worthwhile.  The girl who let them pressure her into drinking an alcohol she knew didn’t sit well with her but she wanted him to like her even more.  The girl who was having hot flashes so she excused herself to the bathroom and took a cold shower only to turn and open her eyes to the party of 6 people staring at her naked form in the stand up shower.  The girl who drank more, because she pushed it, and eventually put herself to sleep while the party raged on.  The girl who woke up with her friend’s dick in her hand and another friend’s hand on her breast.  The girl who clearly drank too much and went in and out of consciousness and caught glimpses of his dick in her hand, her stopping, saying, "What the fuck are you doing?", "If you’re going to do this at least get a condom", him getting a condom, the other friend urging him on and rubbing her clit, her faking an orgasm hoping that’s what their motivation was, but they kept going, the condom breaking. The girl who told the boy the next day to “just drop it, we're fine”.

It happened to me, the girl who met a guy on a dating site and then quickly realized he wasn't actually single. "I'm just looking for friends" he said - because of course he was. The girl who entertained the idea, swore to keep things PG so she wouldn't be part of the problem. The girl who invited him into her empty apartment to watch TV. But then he would just want to stop by at all hours of the night. The girl who was flattered on the days she wasn't intimidated. The girl who tried her best to keep to her rules, who sometimes just pretended to be asleep to avoid temptation. The girl who got drunk by herself one night and foolishly opened the door. "Are you drunk?" "Maybe a little." The girl who was convinced to let him "Just sleep over" but then more happened - because of course it did. The girl who laid in bed, wide awake, as she sobered up and knew that this could never happen again. 

It happened to me; the girl who revisited a high school fling because they both came up single at the same time.  “This is fate,” she thought to herself, “This is my ‘What If’ becoming a reality, if we can’t make it work this time then there’s no chance for us.”  The first year he played games just like the rest, he wouldn’t contribute, he’d come and go as he pleased, he refused to label them, refused to go places with her friends or anywhere that seemed “too serious”. Eventually he succumbed to a label and they started going to each other’s holidays with family.  The boy took on an impressive job title he wasn’t prepared for, the boy prompted a move so he could take over the bills, the girl did not refuse.  Suddenly the girl was spending  a lot of nights alone again; and a worse type of alone, an ‘alone but living in the same house as someone’ alone.  She wanted to have a wandering eye, she wanted to go places she didn’t belong and gain the attention of strangers.  But she didn’t, she chose to learn from her past and do differently. But she still had to leave.  The girl who told this man she wanted him to have the very best, but she wasn’t it. The girl who took her things while he was at work, like she asked him to, and they went on with their separate lives.

It happened to me; the girl who left all of those relationships a little scarred but a lot smarter.  The girl who thought she had seen and out-tricked every trickster in the book.  But even this girl was no match for this master-manipulator. This man who swooped in with all of the things a girl could want to hear.  “You’re beautiful no matter how you look.  Of course I want to spend time with your friends, they’re a part of you. Of course I want to read your poetry, and talk about your favorite books, because they’re a part of you.  Of course I’d never ask you to buy anything to accommodate me.”  That lasted for a few months.  Life seemed so serene.  This girl had someone to come home to, someone who undisputedly wanted to only spend his time with her (and for her to only spend her time with him).  Many blissful afternoons spent laying in bed in his arms thinking of nothing else in the world.  Until the once a week bliss filled days became overnights, then overnights turned into two overnights, four overnights, to staying all week, to asking to move his turtle in, to asking to use the girl’s address for food stamps, asking her to put gas in his car, get him a Redbull if she’s going to be drinking a Monster – how is that fair, convincing her to get something he wanted to eat instead of what she want to eat because if she cooked a dinner he wouldn’t eat then how is it fair that she got a home cooked meal and he had to eat canned soup or something? A year of him not even trying to work, followed by a year of spotty applications.  After three “we need to break up fights” he went back to working for his old supervisor and bringing in just enough money to cover his expenses – barely, and not with any regularity.  During this time he started ignoring her for video games and group chats more and more often.  She was relieved at this point, she wanted out but didn’t want the conflict.  But he would start it anyhow, over the alarm clock,  the shows she watched, or the dishes in the sink, or her not taking care of her cat as well as he thought she should, that they weren’t having sex enough (that was a big one).  Nothing she did was ever enough, and she was convinced that she owed him something even though he’d been living on her dime for a year and a half.  All of her friends told her what a fool she was, and she knew they were right, but she felt out of options.  ‘It’s this, or it’s loneliness.’  To which her friends told her – maybe you could use a little loneliness.

It happened to me; over two years of my life spent with a manipulative and emotionally abusive partner that I was convinced I could leave at any time. As I was packing his things into boxes so I could take his things down to him I realized how many ties he had put in so many places to make this process that much more difficult.  Even with my diligence of wanting this confrontation to be the last, I still overlooked things that are important enough I can’t ignore the fact that they’re his and they’re here.  

I fell for it.  After all of the things I’ve been through, all of the things I thought I was stronger and smarter than, and I fell for it. Here’s to the next version of me – may she be stronger, smarter, and clear sighted.