Trigger Warnings: abuse, manipulation, love-bombing, narcissist, mental illness, cheating, trauma, suicidal ideation, gaslighting, financial abuse
In 2016, I wasn't in a good place mentally. I was still adjusting to my bipolar disorder medication, going to therapy and looking for work. As it turns out, I was suffering from a mixed episode so I was both manic and depressed at the same time.
Fortunately, I was able to land a job in one of the newly opened call centers for a customer service position that handled email support after two months of unemployment. The job was supposed to help me support myself so I can buy meds, go to my doctor and rebuild myself. As usual, I kept thinking that this is a new me and I was going to build a new life!
For additional context, I was already 27 at that time so I was feeling the pressure of getting my shit together. My friends were getting married, settling down, having kids and kicking ass at work. All I've got is a mental disorder and nothing else. You can imagine how envious, bitter and angry I was.
Since I was Manic Mimi at that time, I wanted to achieve the same things and to run in the same race. New job? Check! New friends? Check! New apartment? Check! New boyfriend? I was in a new company so there should be someone that I can hook up with, right?
While training for that company, I met Max. He sat nearby my station in the training room and always asked me questions about the product because I've handled it before so I had some experience in the product, service and customer issues. There were other guys in our batch and more guys in the office but I fell into the same trap that had caught me before.
Max got my number and started texting me everyday. He asked me out to breakfast and I agreed without thinking.
When I was single, I never said no to free food. I always thought that I'd be safe in a public place and I can always leave if I wanted to. This kind of thinking often led me into trouble, especially if alcohol was involved.
Anyway, he seemed like a nice person when we ate in McDonald's before going to work. I was completely clueless that he had admitted to our other coworkers that he was an ex-convict and was shady AF. All I saw was a guy who seemed kind, sensitive and listened to me.
You see, my problem was that I fall into love bombing A LOT.
As Wikipedia helpfully said, Love bombing is an attempt to influence a person by demonstrations of attention and affection. It can be used in different ways and can be used for either a positive or negative purpose. But men who can smell a girl's low self-esteem, awkwardness and desperation to be loved will use this for nefarious purposes.
Unfortunately, my first boyfriend and other flings had used this on me. Max did the same. Over the course of two months, he made me feel special and convinced me that he was in love with me.
I agreed to a relationship after watching Train to Busan because I was desperate to compete with my friends who were in happy relationships, doing well in their careers or pursuing meaningful goals. The movie should have clued me into the dark future ahead.
Manic Mimi thought that having a boyfriend to show off to friends in social media would mean that she's normal and she's working towards a life that included her own apartment, a great job and a boyfriend. As it turned out, my decision was wrong and full of consequences.
Things with Max started out fine. We went out on dates, watched movies and ate out a lot. When I signed the lease for my own apartment, we shared a domestic routine but I always insisted that he should go home by midnight. He always dutifully left because our shift started at 7AM.
In hindsight, there were plenty of red flags in the relationship in the first six months. He had no good relationship with his mother, he got angry very easily, he blamed our fights on my mental illness and he got fired from his job before the six month.
Whenever we went out, he told me to swipe it on my credit card but he'll pay it back at the end of the month. Most of the time, he wouldn't pay me back for all of those expensive meals.
Aside from that, we would always get into these intense fights. Once, he lost his temper and then he lashed out on an innocent tree. I wasn't the cause of that but I saw just how much he could hurt me physically. Seeing the man I loved lose himself to rage was unsettling.
Things went downhill for us when he lost his job and got disowned by his mom.
Since I had my own apartment, he asked if he could crash for a while since his mother threw him out of the house. I stupidly agreed because he'd already gotten a job in a different call center. Of course, I thought that he'd be able to help me pay for half of my rent and other bills.
I thought that we were in a serious relationship so maybe it was big step forward. Max told me that he wanted to finish his bachelor's degree so I was the supportive girlfriend. I even went as far as going to his school to enroll him, finish the papers and pay his tuition there. I didn't cough up the money for his tuition, mind you, but I did the legwork. Once he was enrolled, it seemed like he was on a journey to become a better person for me. Job, school and me! At least I thought that was his priorities. Boy, I was wrong!
He juggled school and work at the same time so he was out of the house most of the time. It was no surprise that he was also low on cash so he would borrow money from me. I let him borrow money at first because he would pay me back. But he did stop paying me back.
Max never failed to pay rent on time when we lived together but he depended on me for food like groceries and eating out. He expected me to pay our bills, laundry and other expenses on my salary without realizing that I was also paying off my credit card debt for all of the furniture I bought for my apartment on an intense manic episode.
Anyway, things still went to shit because his real nature came out. I thought that he would change to become a better person for me but he didn't. He went from bad to worse.
When we reached the tenth month of our relationship, I finally caught on his lies. He'd gone AWOL on his job and he was cheating on me with his ex-girlfriend.
How did I find out? The woman kept calling him at home and I just happened to be in the same room. He was in the shower so he didn't have his phone. When I saw the unregistered number on his phone calling repeatedly, my blood ran cold.
For the first time in my entire life, I felt cold rage wash over me.
When he came out of the shower, I told him calmly that someone was calling him. As soon as he saw the unregistered number, he went pale like a ghost. I asked who it was. He couldn't look me in the eyes to answer me directly. I had to ask two more times before he admitted in a small voice that it was his ex-girlfriend. The woman before me. The woman he was cheating with. The woman he spent the PHP 2,000 he borrowed from me on!
The phone rang again. I held out my hand and he reluctantly gave it to me.
"Who's this?" No answer from the other line. "I'm his girlfriend. Who's this? Oh, can't talk? That's because all you have is a vagina and no mouth!"
After ending the call, I felt my ears grow hot and I unleashed my wrath. I started to hit him everywhere that my hands could reach. I wasn't going to cry because of this. I was so angry that I nearly threw his phone out of the 20th floor.
Instead of apologizing to me and asking for another chance, he told me that he was moving out. He wanted to end our relationship! He was going to go home to his mother! He kept trying to leave and I blocked the door. Failing that, he went to the bed, lay down and faced the wall.
I was so humiliated! Oh my God, my pride was wounded at his statements. After all of the money and effort that I spent on him, I wasn't ready to take that sitting down. Manic Mimi told him to stay, to pay off his debt to me and to make things work. Manic Mimi desperately wanted to keep him because she didn't want to be alone and broke at the same time.
In hindsight, I should have kicked him out and ended the relationship then and there. It was a long goodbye. It took us another two months to break up for good. I am very regretful that I let things go as long as that.
I was driven to jealousy because of his betrayal so I often checked his phone. He texted his pretty classmates and tried to strike up conversations with random women on FB. I'd blocked his ex but she made a dummy account so they were still talking. He was still betraying me!
This really hurt me but I used the hurt to build up the courage to kick him out of my apartment on the week before our first anniversary. In my mind, I knew it was the right decision to do because Max didn't work on our relationship and didn't even bother in asking for forgiveness. I didn't trust him anymore and my love lessened every minute.
He just went on with his daily routine, found a new job and steered away from me. We landed in a very uncomfortable situation as roommates and exes.
I knew that I was trapped with a cold, manipulative, sociopath and soul-sucking leech. This was a toxic, hurtful and abusive. I had to end the cycle myself. At that night, I was supposed to go to work but I came in for half a day.
"Get out of my house." I told Max coldly.
He looked up from his game of Mobile Legends. "What?" he asked stupidly.
"Get your things and get out! Leave my house!" I said angrily. "I can't sleep, I can't eat and I can't claim this as my safe space anymore."
"But I've got nowhere to go." Max looked at me expectantly. "Do you expect me to sleep in the street?"
"Go home to your mother!" I yelled. Then I called his mother within earshot so she was aware that I was kicking him out. He deserved to be kicked out.
"But what about my things?" he asked me again.
I raised an eyebrow. "I paid the deposit for this apartment. I paid for the furniture and for everything that you can see. Ang dala mo lang dito ay bayag mo, gago!"
We had a big fight before I managed to leave for work. Nobody knew that I had bruises on my legs under my black stockings.
Max started to abuse me in every way possible after that night. He casually threw statements at me that was aimed at my mental health, my self-esteem and my whole being.
Like this: "My next girlfriend will be prettier, sexier, better in bed and more obedient. She will take care of all of our decisions and she'll put me first."
My heart hardened at his words. I was all of those things and more. I put him first even though he didn't deserve it. I paid for all of our expenses, bought him stuff, picked up after him and took care of the house. I didn't deserve this kind of treatment! My mother didn't raise me to be this pathetic person!
"You know what?" I spat at him. "You don't need a girlfriend. You need a mother! Get out!"
As a cold-blooded sociopath, he knew exactly what to say to damage me. He even went as far as sexually abusing me. It still hurts my head to think that he did those abominable, unspeakable and repulsive things to me. I couldn't even fight back or report to the police because he told me that he would kill me.
Unfortunately, it took him a full three days to get out of my apartment. He stole some of my things like my original Jansport backpack that my brother gave me. When I confirmed with my landlady that he was gone, I called for a locksmith to change the locks and to install a security bar. I told them to inform the security guard to never let him in.
As soon as we were broken up, he had the gall to post on Facebook that he was looking for his next victim.
It's more than three years since I got out of that abusive relationship. I wonder why the doctor hasn't diagnosed me with PTSD yet. Almost all of my relationships were toxic, abusive and manipulative that left me nearly dead inside.
Anyway, when they searched for him in Facebook, they found him and his disgusting statements online. I wasn't surprised that he was harassing other women and doing the same shit that he did to me to others. I just hope to God that I'm the last victim.
Writing this entry has been incredibly cathartic. I've told this story a million times out loud but I've never written about it. Now that it's out, I just hope that I will never, ever forget this lesson that life taught me. I also hope that other women will find some moral lesson in this experience.
Love bombing, gas lighting and rape within a relationship is real. I swear to God that I won't make this stuff up for attention. Nobody deserves this kind of hellish torture. I won't wish this to my worst enemy too.
Anyway, I walked away from it with more damage, more emotional trauma and more work to do on myself.
I've learned not to trust easily, not to fall for the love bombing and to trust my psychiatrist when he tells me to stay away from that type of man. It took me more than two years to recover and to find love again.
Sometimes, you really have to break so that the pieces can fall back into place.
No comments:
Post a Comment