Trigger Warnings: abuse, manipulation, love-bombing, narcissist, mental illness, cheating, trauma, suicidal ideation, gaslighting, rape
Manic Mimi doesn't want to stop talking about exes because it's the theme for this week.
I don't really mind because it's good to talk about things and it's much better to get it out of mind. As I mentioned in my last entry, it's exactly like sucking the snakebite poison out of an open wound even though you have a horrendous mouth sore.
In the interest of honesty, I want to disclose that I've only had five serious boyfriends in this lifetime. There were only five steady boyfriends with less than two years before they reached their expiration date.
I've had countless flings, hookups and dates but it's never serious enough for me. I certainly practiced the "collect then select" mentality when I was younger.
As a slim, attractive and vivacious young woman in my early 20s, I didn't have any problems attracting male admiration and I basked in the male gaze. I was pretty shallow and self-absorbed when I was younger. I also had a lot of problems with my self-esteem and my own sense of self-worth. Honestly, I don't think I even loved myself considering all of the bad choices I made that landed me in very hot water.
To be fair, I didn't have a decent relationship with my own father. I still don't. So I was almost always attracted to the wrong type, entertained the shady characters and sought the worst kind of scum on earth.
As a young girl, my dad was never around. He was a strict, no-nonsense, no affection and no attention type of person who worked in the military. When I was a child, he was almost always assigned to far-off military bases so I didn't form a decent relationship with him. If he was around, he would order me around, verbally abuse me or ignore me. He did the same with the rest of the family.
My father was a hard-drinking, gambling alcoholic who cheated on his wife of 26 years with another woman. He's an old dinosaur who belonged to the baby boomer generation and didn't believe in parenting his offspring. All he cared about was his circle of friends, his nightly inuman sessions and his roosters for his cock fights. He left all of the parenting to my mother.
As a child, I would yearn for his affection and even try to win his approval by being a good girl and the golden child. I helped my mom, looked after my siblings and tried my best to grow up just so he would notice me. But he never did.
In the nonprofit organization that I worked for, my bosses were older men who also paid attention to me and gave me validation for both my work and my looks. Although I wasn't really fit to be an executive assistant as an undergrad student, they kept me around because they wanted someone who was young, pretty and enthusiastic to look at.
So it was a no-brainer that what I was looking for was a father figure, a sugar daddy and an old, rich gentleman who wants to have a pretty young wife to spoil. I thought that I could just trade in my looks for lots of cash because I was so tired of working for my family.
You see, my father retired from his military job in 2007 for reasons unknown. I decided to get a job in a local call center to earn money and to defer enrollment for my senior year in the local college.
Starting from 2008 to 2011, I worked hard as a working student to support myself, my two siblings who were also going to college and to pay the bills.
In all fairness, I was able to work and study at the same time so I earned my degree with tears and blood.
By September 2012, I finally landed a very good job opportunity in a major call center in Makati that meant I could leave our province, live in my uncle's house without paying rent and earn more money for my family. I was finally free! I was ready to become independent and self-sufficient! I was finally leaving my horrendous home situation!
I didn't realize that living in Manila for the first time alone meant that I had to cook for myself, look after myself, go to work daily and manage my budget.
Oh my God, that budget! I remember grocery shopping and keeping it under PHP 1,000 for two weeks. My clothes all came from the ukay-ukay (secondhand shops) and I bought the cheapest makeup in the drugstore. I still had to make sure that I had a hundred pesos for my daily allowance but I never had pocket money. I didn't even have savings.
Like all young Filipino professionals, I worked hard so I can send all of my earnings to my family in order to help my siblings finish their own education while my father wasted his time and pension on alcohol, gambling and other questionable vices.
To combat homesickness, I went home every weekend to Batangas just to see my family and then come back to work on Monday.
I didn't have any time to go out on dates, see my friends due to different schedules and to engage in other hobbies. I just wanted to spend the weekend asleep at home, be fed my mom's home-cooked meals and feel like I'm still part of the family instead of an ATM.
Looking back, I wish I'd known that I was slowly becoming depressed, empty and hollow for a long, long time. If I'd known that, I would have gone to a psychiatrist ASAP. But I was not aware of my mental illness and I was also afraid of being considered a lunatic by my own family.
By the time that I met my most horrible ex-boyfriend, Reggie, in December 2013, I was sick and tired of being a workhorse. I was getting burned out by the night shift at work, the pressure of my workload, my daily commute and my lack of discretionary income. I was ready to kill myself and was also developing my dangerous coping mechanisms.
To make things worse, I was also seeing my friends and relatives settle down in happy relationships, make strides at work or travel more often.
But it was the fact that they were all falling in love that made me most envious and bitter.
Of course, I was stupid so I desperately wished that I was also in love and in a relationship so I could fill up the empty hole inside my soul and feel like I belonged to someone. I desperately wanted to feel like my family valued me and cherished me for my efforts to provide. I just wanted someone to see me, to cherish me and to be with me.
Before I met Reggie, I'd already had a long-term affair with Mon who was my first married fling. He was older than me, separated from his wife and had a car. He willingly spent money on me for expensive hotels and dinners. He acted like an infatuated schoolboy with me and I was smitten with my own sexual power.
With Mon, I'd learned to separate my feelings from my sexual conquests and to become cold and calculating. I kept our affair because it made me feel valued and adored. He was a father figure to me who looked after my career, my well-being and my current lifestyle. In fact, he didn't mind it if I went out with other guys as long as I practiced safe sex with them.
I was also a commitment-phobic so I thought that married/engaged/in a relationship men were easier to deal with because I could break it off anytime. I can just live off the fantasy and I didn't have to deal with them 24/7. They were just my distractions from my own sorry, pathetic life.
When you're in a dark and desperate situation like that, it would be easy for a predatory, manipulative psychopath to spot you, charm you and then take full advantage of you. I was easy pickings to anyone who had ulterior motives and an evil heart.
In this terrible setting, I met Reggie in an open Christmas party in a bar in Timog, Quezon City hosted by the shady underground messaging board, manilatonight.
A work friend named Trudy was a fan of the website and she wanted to go but needed a wing-woman for the party. I agreed to go.
In the end, I arrived at the party alone because she backed out. I clearly remember that I'd put on my only LBD, heels and silver jewelry. I was still slim, blonde and had eyelash extensions so I was feeling beautiful that night.
It was my first time to go to a bar and I was alone. I had enough money to hail a taxi to go home but I decided to spend an hour in the party. If I went home with someone then it's a good night for me.
Anyway, I sat at the bar and looked around while nursing a bottle of lukewarm San Miguel Light beer.
A guy tried to talk to me but I didn't like his look so I snubbed him. Then that guy introduced me to a fat, bald and smoking man on his right. That man in the lavender dress shirt, black slacks and a pack of cigarettes introduced himself as Reggie.
When he asked me if I wanted to have coffee instead of alcohol, I readily agreed. He had a blue Montero Sport which I later learned was a luxury car. I was impressed but I didn't show it.
We drove around Mandaluyong at 2 AM but all of the coffee shops were already closed. So he drove me home to Pasay and dropped me off by 4 AM. In the light of the morning sunlight, I fell asleep while waiting for his text message.
He texted me around noon to ask me out. I remember that I was very excited for our date on Saturday.
What bothers me now is that 22-year-old me didn't even bother to conduct a background check on this guy before agreeing to that date.
If I could go back in time, I would have bitch-slapped myself for being naive, too trusting and too stupid not to ask if he had a girlfriend, wife or live-in partner.
That was my first mistake. When he said he was a lonely bachelor, I naively believed him. I should have demanded to see an ID, a CENOMAR, a COE (Certificate of Employment) or even a cedula. Anything! I should have asked for any kind of identification that showed his civil status. No, his driver's license doesn't count!
During our one year and half relationship, I was able to visit his condo unit in Mandaluyong, meet his "cousin" and get introduced to his coworkers. But I was not able to find out about his civil status until the end.
My second mistake was believing him when he told me that he didn't believe in social media presence.
This was the time when social media was starting to become popular and when Facebook was becoming an integral part of a person's identity so having no social media was unbelievable.
When I found someone in Facebook who had the same name as him, a profile picture that showed the same shirt that he owned and the same checked in places matched, I told him immediately.
Lo and behold, he told me that it was probably a poser account. When I tried searching again, it was gone. Years later, I realized that he'd blocked me because I found his FB profile. How stupid I was!
We had a whirlwind romance in less than two weeks. We even went as far as Subic with my younger brother and his now ex-girlfriend for a weekend trip. We watched a meteor shower in the beach, kissed for the first time and confessed our burgeoning feelings towards each other.
Reggie started on love bombing me from the moment that we met, in our short trips and in the first weeks.
He was attentive, sweet, eager to listen and ready for fun. He made me feel like I was the smartest, prettiest and most wonderful woman in the world. He convinced me that we were falling in love.
We also went to Baguio with my family, including my mom and siblings, on his expense before sleeping together and declaring on my Facebook page that we were on a relationship. It was a trip that was supposed to convince me and my immediate family that he was serious about his intentions and that he was the real deal.
After that, I proudly introduced him to my friends and family as my boyfriend.
Unfortunately, he was successful in making me believe that he was going to marry me in less than a year. He even asked my dad for permission to court me and then marry me as soon as we've save up for it. Stupid, hopeless me fell for this trick.
The honeymoon phase lasted only three months. It's true that we had a lot of good times but we fought more often than laughed together. I was feeling antsy already from spending so much of my time in motels and not being introduced to any of his family.
I kept thinking that if he wanted to marry me then he should be in a hurry to introduce me to them, right? I came from a tight-knit clan so I wanted to know if he could at least show my face to his mom and dad.
But Reggie was adamant that I couldn't meet any of his family members because they were all abroad. They were all in SFO and they ran the family business so they didn't have the time. Not to mention the time difference. I accepted this excuse in the first year but became suspicious as more time passed.
Most of my friends and family members became suspicious of Reggie over time. I often cried or complained to them when my boyfriend was acting weird.
He didn't have social media, he disappeared for days on end and he never introduced me to his side of the family. If we didn't run into his female "cousin" named Shee Ann in Starbucks then I wouldn't have known anything about him.
Since Reggie introduced himself as a lawyer, he had a rebuttal for all of my accusations. He was very good at arguing and was a master of gas lighting. He knew exactly how to make me feel small, dumb and helpless. All it did was make me feel stupid and crazy.
Because his disappearing act was slowly driving me crazy, he encouraged me to contact Shee Ann whenever I needed to talk to him. He said she'll pass the message along to him and I believed him.
Aside from his previous career as a US lawyer, he told me was that he was now working as a call center agent with a large business on the side so he was a very busy man.
Aside from the business, he also took care of his female cousin and her children who lived with him in their condo in Mandaluyong until she got back to her feet. According to him, she'd recently separated from the father of her children and was in a rough patch.
I was insanely jealous of this "cousin" but he kept telling me that it was unfounded. We even went as far as going on dinner-and-move dates with his cousin as our permanent third wheel. We even ended up as textmates. To prove that they were just relatives, they often invited me to come over to their condo on weekends to hang out. We also had a lot of sex in the master bedroom while Shee Ann played with her kids or made merienda for us.
At the same time, Reggie urged me to resign from my job in Makati to take some time off and to rest since my siblings had already finished school and was ready to join the work force. He said that they're earning money already so I could take a breather. I impulsively resigned from my cushy corporate job and settled into unemployment at his behest.
He told me that he wanted me to stay in my uncle's apartment to get better and to recover from my depression.
There was no need to worry about money because he gave me a sizable monthly allowance for six months. He showered me with gifts like mobile phones, expensive dinners and vacations too. It was obvious that he wanted me to be always available for his pleasure and he expected me to be faithful to him.
Unfortunately, Reggie also tended to disappear for more than two weeks at a time and would only call me on weekends. I couldn't call him because I was blocked on his phone. All I did was text him long, chatty and desperate message. I cannot call him because he would call me.
That's why I ended up being textmates with his "cousin" because she was my main point of contact.
Since I didn't know anyone in his family, I was driven crazy because I didn't know what's going on with his life. I wouldn't even know if he died.
There were even more red flags ahead of me! Aside from his Harry Houdini act, he was also insanely jealous and suspicious of me. He wanted me to text him everything that I was doing, where I was going and who I was seeing.
He prevented me from going out of the house and he didn't want me to go home to see my parents. Stupid me stayed at my uncle's house in self-imposed isolation while waiting for him like a stupid puppy pining after her owner.
Reggie slowly but surely planted toxic seeds in my mind that I should avoid my male friends then my female friends and then my entire social circle. He even went as far as driving a wedge between me and my family because he wanted to make sure that I was isolated, alone and unable to rely on my old support system.
My despicable ex was also a master of gas lighting and would often leave me doubting myself. I gradually developed a distrust of my friends and family because he didn't trust them too.
I desperately wanted to make him happy and contented with me so I agreed to whatever he said. I did whatever he wanted. In the end, I was nothing but a shell of my former self.
Our relationship was a never-ending cycle of fighting, making up, jealousy and gas lighting.
As time went by, the man that I fell in love with disappeared and was replaced by a cold, heartless and unfeeling stranger who used me in all kinds of despicable ways.
If I said no to sex, he would rape me in both orifices. If I told him I went to see a friend, he would hit me everywhere but leave my face unblemished. If I asked about his past or even his most recent whereabouts, he would lead an argument that would crush me because I had no proof.
He even gave me an STD and accused me of getting it from another man. Oh my God! I was trapped in this toxic and suffocating relationship with him for nearly a year and he still had the gall of accusing me of fooling around. But he took me to an OB GYNE, bought my meds and looked after me as I recovered.
On our first anniversary, Reggie wanted to make it up to me by taking me to Puerto Galera for the weekend. It was a great idea because I was severely stressed at that time.
When we came back, we'd already made a baby. Three months later, that baby will be taken away from me in a horrid miscarriage. Fighting with Reggie about the baby truly pushed me to the brink of insanity.
My third and most fatal mistake was staying in this long, abusive and very toxic relationship. Our relationship lasted for a year and half. When I lost my baby, I felt like I'd finally lost my mind. We fought about the baby all the time and he still avoided the topic of introducing me to his family.
I had to live with the suspicion that I was just his side chick every single day. My mom even told me that some people were born to become a second wife. My God. I ended up crying buckets over that.
With all of these events, I can certainly say that it's the reason why I developed bipolar disorder 1 in the first place.
Like an idiot, I stayed with him for the allowance, the car rides and the uneasy companionship to start over with a new life while remaining depressed and suicidal.
He helped me find a new job, supported my move to a dorm in Makati to be closer to the said job and gave me money to jumpstart my career. He said that it was the least that he can do.
As I made friends at work and settled in, I slowly realized that I was unhappy and I didn't want to be his girl anymore. I couldn't bear it when he touched me and I couldn't stand his presence. I was slowly but surely disassociating from my experience with him.
In an effort to find help for the slow deterioration of my mind, I went to a psychiatrist for the first time. She told me that I was depressed and I needed to take some pills for it. But it was a step in the right direction and a chance to recover my life.
I was finally getting tired of my current situation so I did some digging around. It was also around this time that I also started on my very unhealthy habit of looking for flings on Tinder while on a relationship with Reggie.
That fling was good at research and using his resources as a journalist/photographer wannabe.
Nikon told me that he searched for Reggie and found his Facebook profile. I confirmed that it's the same profile that I found last year. Then he told me that they had mutual friends so he asked them for more info.
It turned out that Reggie was an old, married guy who lived in Mandaluyong with his wife and three children. Guess what? His wife's name was Shee Ann! When I scrolled through the pictures and captions that Nikon sent to me, I felt my stomach sink to my feet.
To say that I was shocked was an understatement.
I was friends with his wife and I was his kabit all along! I never had an inkling and I was completely in the dark. Oh my God! That was the worst kind of news that I could ever receive and it was also the confirmation of my suspicions that I was the other woman.
What makes my head hurt today is the fact that they played around with me. They both manipulated, lied and deceived me! Both of them! Husband and wife testing out their weird polyamorous arrangement on an innocent person! Shame on them!
Then I was contacted by his wife and we had a nice chat about the entire charade. She told me to stop messing with them and that she was tired of putting up with me. In a sweet tone, she told me that I should kill myself for destroying her family.
What the actual fuck?! You were there on our dinner dates, movie dates and my visits to your condo! You were complicit to all of his lies! If you were a decent person and if you were on your right mind, you wouldn't agree to being the bridge between your lying shitbag husband and his side chick?!
It was the way out that I needed.
I clearly remember my last phone call with Reggie on December 2015. Since it was almost Christmas, I planned to go home to see my family. He called me while I was on the bus ride home.
"Where are you?" Reggie asked me, clearly mad.
"I'm on a bus." I answered absently.
"I was thinking that I should see you. I wanted to talk to you," he said slowly like I was retarded. "But this also works."
"I want to break up with you already," I said calmly. He started talking but I didn't pay attention. I've already said what I wanted to say. Before ending the call, I asked him. "For the last time, do you have a wife and children?"
"Of course not! I keep telling you that I'm single! God, what's wrong with you?!"
I turned off my phone because I didn't want to talk to him anymore. When I arrived in my parent's house, I ended up crying to my mother and father in the kitchen table for a solid two hours. Neither of them said anything. They were at a loss for words.
After my breakup with Reggie, I continued my fling with Nikon but that's a story for another day.
Then Reggie went 360 degrees by trying his best to win me back. He even wanted to take me to a hotel just to "talk". I downloaded an app on my phone and promptly blocked him.
All I had left was my broken, empty shell of my soul when we finally broke up.
My entire life still went to shit post-Reggie. I was still grieving for my baby, unemployed and slowly going crazy. I was making all of these crazy decisions that would lead me to dangerous situations and self-harm. You can even say that I lived everyday like I had a death wish.
Perhaps my doctor would even say that it was the catalyst for my eventual mental deterioration. It took me five years to recover from it. Now that I think about it, I'm still trying to piece myself together.
It still makes my head hurt to think that I was a long-term mistress to a psychopath, duped by a Fred and Rose West combo and driven to near madness by their actions. I'm still going to therapy for all of this.
I just have to pray to God that I would never, ever run into them so I can't do anything that will potentially land me in jail for a life sentence. Crucifying them in this entry is more than enough for me right now.
At the end of the day, I still made the wrong choice and I'll have to live with it for the rest of my entire, sorry life.
No comments:
Post a Comment