About That...

I just realized today that since I wrote about my friend D's abandonment of me, that I haven't been thinking about her as much. I haven't been searching for her on Facebook as much, and not scouring the Internet for her, looking for any tidbits of information. Yes, I have a problem with cyber-stalking. So sue me. I have a hard time getting over past hurt's, and D was one of many. I thought maybe if I wrote about another past hurt, the same thing would happen? It's worth a shot.

My high school/college boyfriend, B. Sigh. What a mess. The whole 3 year on-and-off- again affair was always a struggle. If that relationship was a highway, there were many exits I passed up, and many detour signs ignored. Like that person that ignores the signs on the interstate warning "Accident Ahead" and doesn't get off the freeway, I sped along to see the carnage for my own eyes. The first red flag was the first time I ever went to his house. His mother answered the door, shortly told me he wasn't home, and slammed the door in my face. Wow, nice to meet you too, bitch. She never liked me, by the way. The very first day after we had the "DTRT" (designate the relationship talk), I felt something was wrong, and wanted to break up with him. My best friend convinced me to give him a chance. I should have went with my first instincts. And when he assumed that I was a virgin, I lied and told him I was. You can't build a relationship on a foundation of lies.

I met B. at the tender age of 17. I extremely vulnerable at the time. My parents were separated because my dad had had an affair. My mom had breast cancer, and was going through chemo and radiation with no one else to talk to, save for her 17-year old daughter. I had an eating disorder, and carried 100 lbs on my 5'5 frame. I was weak. He was hot. And he liked me. No one like him had ever even paid attention to me. I fell hard into lust. We had a typical high school relationship, and fought about everything.

We kept going for a year and a half this way. We went to separate college's, about 100 miles apart, but stayed together. I put on the freshman 15, and that's basically when things went south. I became insecure, and so jealous. I called him a dozen times a day, and obsessively checked his email and social media accounts. Eventually we came to that day that many young loves come to, the day that we broke up.

It was 4th of July. 2001. We were at a beach party on the Oregon Coast. We got into a screaming match on the beach because I had to work the next day and wanted to leave. He did not. The fight was definitely fueled by the amount of alcohol we drank. I told him I was leaving. He said if I left, it was over. I defiantly walked away. He lunged to grab me, but only grabbed my hand. I had a deep, fresh cut on that hand from the meat slicer at work. I shook him off, and stalked to my car. When I got to the my car, in the light, I looked down. My pristine white sweatshirt was covered in blood. He had re-opened the cut on my hand. I remember staring at it, getting in the car, locking the doors, and starting it up. The drive home? I don't remember. It's a miracle that I didn't kill myself, or someone else on that drive home.

After a couple of days, I had sobered up and was sorry. But I couldn't find him to save my life. He didn't contact me for 2 weeks. My heart was broken, and I, again, was an emotionally distraught mess. When he finally did come back, he told me he'd been staying with another girl. I fell into a ball on the floor, sobbing. Somehow, after talking all night, we got back together. This time around, he transfered to my school so we could be closer.

We were back together, but nothing had changed. We still fought. I was still jealous. I had begun following him around campus, checking on his stories. Finally one day, I caught him at a girl's dorm. With a girl. I forgave him. I saw him at bar, making out with another girl. I forgave him. I found pictures of him at a sorority dance with yes, another girl. I forgave him.

Looking back, I am completely disgusted with my lack of self-respect. How could I let him walk all over me like that? I look back at that girl that I was, and she doesn't even feel like me. We ended up breaking up for about 2 months, later on that year. I'd starting dating someone else when he came back, and told me he wanted me back. I'd just started to move on, and he pulled me back in. For 1 week. 1 week later, on a very cold February night, with driving down rain, he blindsided me. We had just finished studying and were standing outside the library when he told me it was over. For good. He left me standing, sobbing in the pouring rain, outside the library.

This was one of the hardest time period's that I've had to overcome. I don't think my heart as ever been broken more. It had been shattered with a sledgehammer into a million pieces. For a long time after that, I felt like I didn't even have a heart anymore. My self-esteem had also been shattered. I didn't feel like I would ever be whole again. I would never be able to trust anyone again. I hated him with every fiber in my being. I hated that I laid in bed at night, unable to sleep, images of him with someone else in his arm's flashing through my over-active imagination. To this day, I have no idea why I allowed him to degrade me so entirely. I didn't date anyone seriously for 3 years. The first serious boyfriend I had after him, is now my husband.

We had one last conversation, after that incident in front of the library. It came via phone call late one night, about 3 months after the end. He was drunk, and said some of the most horrible, vicious things anyone has ever said to me. At the end of the phone call, he said, "We'll be friends again. You'll forget what I said. I don't care if it's 1 year, 5 years, or 10 years from now. You'll forget everything, and you'll come back". I said, "I will never forget". I hung up the phone, and that was the last time we ever spoke.

So, it's 9 years later. Time heals almost all wounds. I'm married, and I'm happy. But I'll never forget. I still find him on Facebook from time to time. He's fat and balding now.

Is it bad that that makes me happy?

Difficulty Getting Over Loss

I've had a hard time getting over losses my whole life. Every time I lost a pet when I was a child, I was inconsolable for weeks. When I became a teenager and started dating, each breakup was harder than the last. I've lost several "best friends", and I experience a never-ending cascade of hurt and guilt.

I think I must be a hard person to be friends with. I've lost every single best friend I've ever had, save for my high school best friend, who never really knew me anyway. The only one that still hurts to think about, "broke up" with me two and a half years ago. We were so much alike in so many ways. She is an abuse survivor like me, so she has plenty of her own issues. I'll call her D. She left when I had been married for 3 months.

What hurts the most is that I came to depend on her. She has experienced so much of what I've experienced. When my husband and I were first married, he was unemployed. Laid off. We started our marriage with him out of a job, and having a hard time finding a job as well. D. and her husband started their marriage with him unemployed. I struggled with my husband's unemployment and how to help him, and there were times I ached to call D. and ask her how she got through it all. I'm struggling now with my abuse issues, and I'm sad that she could give me advice, but I can't reach out to her.

What happened? Everything exploded in October of 2010. She had been staying at my house when her husband and her got into a huge fight over the phone. She went home later that day. She called me the next day, hysterical. Apparently, she'd been sleeping with her husband's best friend and her husband found out. He was leaving her. She was on the verge of a breakdown, and her father was on his way to take her to the hospital. I was blown away that she had cheated on her husband, she had never confided that in me. She ended the conversation abruptly.

I didn't hear from her for 3 weeks. I called, and called, and called. I left many messages. Coincidently, I got a new cell phone in this time period, and a new phone number. I called her on my new phone and she answered the phone. I was floored. As soon as she heard that it was me on the phone, she became cold. I asked her how she was, and she paused. She proceeded to tell me that she couldn't be my friend anymore. That I was a bad influence. That if she wanted to make things work with her husband, she had to get rid of every thing from her past.

My heart broke. It hurt me to hear these words. In a small voice, I told her "Ok". I said goodbye and I hung up the phone. I stared at the phone in my hand for a minute, and then I deleted her phone number out of my phone. I never called her again. I never spoke to her again.

I still hurt over this today. I'm so hurt that she said I was a bad influence. I hurt that I can't get her advice anymore. How was it so easy for her to walk away and act like I never existed? Did I mean so little to her that I was that easy for her to cut out of her life? I feel I never even knew her, there were secrets she kept from me. Like her affair. I told her everything, I never kept a secret from her. I told her things I've never told anyone else. It's been almost 3 years since she's been gone, and I still think about it. I Google her sometimes on the Internet, and I am enraged and full of hate if I run across anything about her. Anything that shows how easy it was for her to move on with her life.

Often, I was wish I could go all "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and forget about her. All the hurt, the rage, the loneliness. Unfortunately, my mind thinks the lesson I've learned is not to let anyone else in. They are going to leave anyway, they always do. So don't let them in. I haven't let another woman into my life since she left. I don't think I ever will either.

I will add that there is more to this story than what I've said, but that's a tale for another day.