Today I am thankful for diaries.
I stayed up until 4:00am reading my diaries (plural). There are many that I've kept since 1982.
I think I'll burn the one from 1982. It details how my step-father murdered my cat playing with a gun (her name was Spice). It also details the lecherous Sheridan cop who stared at my mothers breasts while threatening to haul me away to jail for not doing what my "dad" told me to do. Dad was drunk and wanted a sexual favor. I told Grandma. I was taken away and returned several months later.
When "dad" was sober, he taught me what to do when guys made the same request. I was to kick them and never look back. I did as I was told. Didn't think a cop would threaten me over it.
I don't want the kids finding that when I die. This guy was the one who murdered my mom. I was whisked away the day she died, the diary re-united with me many years later.
I'll keep the others*.
*****
After 2005, I started keeping them online which makes it much easier to find stuff. There is a dream diary by my bedside just solely about the dreams of this guy.
The dreams have been plaguing me more often than I realized.
I had these dreams before we actually started to hang out (weird, eh? ) I knew of him, though, so that might make sense on some level.
It must have been something about the way he stared at me.
*****
There is actually a reason I run from him when I see him.
He does what a lot of those so-called "nice-guys" do when they're in pain.
It's embarrassing.
It's not a lot of fun.
It's the quickest way to run a private INFJ off.
He sarcastically humiliates and ridicules me in public when he is not getting his needs met.
This is an INTJ thing and possibly a difference of communication styles.
*****
For instance, in high school, I overheard him tell someone that I was gay. Then I remember hearing that he was gay, too and that we were covering for each other by pretending to be straight.
In 1986, when I was a devout Mormon, that was a tad bit hurtful. The worst part of it was that people actually believed him.
I think it was because, at the time, I was in denial that we were in a relationship. I had not defined anything, hence the shameful sarcasm.
If I wasn't going to define the relationship, he'd do it and get a laugh.
There were a few more of those incidents, too.
Once he shamed me for laughing and giggling with my girlfriends. He told me that I liked to be the center of attention.
I was probably not giving him the usual attention because I was with the girls.
The girls were upset with him so they tried to get other guys to ask me out. A couple actually did and I refused. At the time, one of them was sharing my diaries with her cousin. I eventually married this cousin and he turned into the stalker-dude.
In 1988 or 1989, the man in the nightmares sent me a bizarre letter saying that when he saw me, all he saw were "rivers of baby blood" (he even illustrated it...ugh!!). The year before, my sister ran around spreading gossip about me. I'm sure this was a slam about that.
Someone allegedly called me fat. She claimed to have retorted with her usual ' she could be pregnant ' and the story took on a life of its own. I tried to confront that gossip head on but he didn't want to hear it.
I figured he already knew so I let it go. If one did the math, it didn't add up. Then I got that letter, and didn't know how to address it.
Then there was a September 7, 1987 entry where it is claimed that he followed my roommate to a 7-11 and threw him into a beer case. No, I don't believe he'd do that. My roommate who was very close to my sister made the same claim to upset him and said a few other choice things.
That was my 18th birthday. That day, I was informed that my old friend was underneath my apartment window. There really was a man under my window but he didn't look like anyone I knew. His hair was the wrong color so I assumed my roommate and sister were messing with me.
Oh, I remember now.....it was also Labor Day. Sampson had a bad day that day. My badass Persian cat knocked over a cage and literally ate his pet scorpion. He loved that scorpion. I can see Sampson make up a story to get back at me. Honestly...I think he was messing with my head.
Or it could be that, perhaps, my old friend wanted to visit me on my birthday? If so, how did he track me down? I pretty much hid and never updated my address with the post office. His visit didn't make a lot of sense to me.
The more I read, the muddier it gets.
Too much of this doesn't make sense. Usually when things don't make sense, someone is lying or I'm missing pieces of information.
*****
When men do that hurt guy shaming crap, it shuts me down.
When a kid is 16 or 17, I can understand it. They may not know how to communicate what they're feeling.
I can even excuse doing it at 19 and 20 due to the gossip of a jealous sister and the fear associated with not knowing what is going on.
It's the one he did on Facebook at the age of 41 that I'm struggling with.
Based upon my journal entry, a woman asked him what he liked to to. I thought he was about to get lucky. It started out super cute.
His response wasn't cute. He wrote to her, very publicly, that he had nothing better to do than to hunt down his ex-girlfriends and compare them on a personal scale as to how happy he is that they are out of his life.
Then he went on to compare ME to Ayn Rand (Grrrr).
Now, I'm fairly certain that if he had written anything else this woman would have found something fun for both of them to do.
That was the strangest thing to write.
NEVER invoke an ex when a woman wants to flirt with you.
I felt guilty as if my presence had cost him a possible roll in the hay so I unfriended him, blocked him, called him and told him Facebook was too weird for me. He could always call me but Facebook drove me crazy. We could do Google Plus or something.
This happened back when comments came through on all of your friends' feeds.
I was running for office! My frenemies saw it.
He was probably hurt that I was in the paper and told the truth of my marital status. I never lied to anyone about my marriage. I WAS technically married. This was right after that city deposition when the government attorneys were trying to dig up dirt and they found out that my ex and I slept apart.
A city attorney made an accusation that my ex-husband beat me up in the middle of the night and threw me around our shared bedroom and into a wall. In order to dispute the lie, I had to divulge our separate bedrooms and describe that my room is walled with bookcases - it would have been impossible to throw me into a wall.
It was decided that should the press get wind of the trouble in paradise, the answer would always be "we cohabit for the children."
That shut the story down before it could take off.
*****
Typically, my old friend's shameful sarcasm is in response to something that hurts his feelings.
I have so many faults, this guy could find a thousand things to criticize me for. The older I get, the more I physical faults I see in myself and the more he can find to shame me with.
Truth be told, I was never good enough for him. He always had something to nit-pick. When he left me, I thought it was so he could find someone more to his liking.
It's painful to remember that.
*****
I am a dolt. I rarely see things about myself and relationships that are right in front of my face.
When he came out to visit those days after high school, I thought he wanted answers about the 1988 -89 math. He never asked.
I had assumed that's why he visited me three times.
He didn't know he sent a bizarre letter and told me that he "[hoped] it wasn't mean." I asked if he wanted to see it.
He said, "no."
I went home and burned the letter.
A couple of years ago, my eldest daughter asked me why this man keeps coming up as someone she knows on her Facebook feed. He was blocked by me at the time because 'Facebook is weird.'
I don't remember what I told her. This guy looks like me, except his eyes are blue. This kiddo is almost thirty-one years old and she looks like me with blue eyes.
I could see the confusion but she is ONE year too young to be anything that would worry him (closer to two years but, nonetheless, he need not worry).
Maybe I need to talk to him about it?
I have no clue.
After my daughter's revelation, I unblocked him on Facebook.
If he needs answers, I'd better give them before we die of old age. I tried to give them to him 32 years ago (after my sister came clean about the gossip!)
I should have kept the bizarre letter with the illustrations of a blood bath. I initially saved it because I feared I'd have to address it someday. I should've known to keep ahold of it.
It was a painful thing to have in my possession.
*****
Now, as an old lady looking back on it, I wonder if he possibly wanted something else.
He probably knew my life was horrific due to the stalking.
In 2011, he asked me to go off with him to California as we sat in a restaurant during a busy lunch hour. He didn't know the couple at the next table were my ex-husband's sister and fiancée. That was when I tried to tell him that the city was getting on my nerves and I had brand new political aspirations because I wanted to shut the crap down.
He became quiet.
I assumed that I heard him wrong or it was a joke.
Now, I realize that I probably broke his heart.
I wonder where I really fell on that so-called ex-girlfriend rating scale?
It's weird how the same challenges presented themselves after our absence of twenty years.
He left me in high school so I could pursue a college education. It was the same thing.
I told him I received a music scholarship. He became quiet. The next day I got a note saying he was leaving [me] so I could do all the things I wanted to do in life.
He left me in 2011 so I could pursue a political career. I didn't want a political career. I wanted asshats who harassed women to knock it off. I wasn't the only woman they were bugging.
It's also strange how we repeat the same behaviors over and over until we learn the lesson.
I think the lesson is to communicate and be open and honest.
*****
I don't know if I want to get into the mansplaining.
I'll admit it. I am an idiot.
I'm an idiot with a master's degree in psychology who loves research. I also dabble in politics.
It's bizarre when an IT guy tries to mansplain research involving the evolution of schizophrenia to me.
To his credit, he did agree to disagree. He wasn't exactly wrong, he just missed the twin studies showing the impact of environment on the illness.
He did the same when he tried to mansplain economics to me and who will get hurt when the US economy crashes (which it will). He posited that it will be the Chinese. I believe it will be US investors.
If the US government defaults on its debt, it will destroy the retirement accounts of millions of US citizens. They will take the biggest hit.....not the Chinese.
At least he agreed to let it go before I tried to turn in a thesis on the topic.
He could mansplain anything else and I wouldn't care because I don't know a lot about a lot of other stuff. I still let musicians mansplain bass strings to me or the need to use a pick (lol - I hate bass plectrums - too thick and they just get in the way).
I only know what I know.
These are the reasons I stay away from him now. I don't know how to communicate with him. I don't trust that he'd be able to tell me when he's hurting. When he's in pain, I tend to walk away shaking my head, wanting a lobotomy and cosmetic surgery because he'll point out a few of my flaws and say some bizarre things that confuse the tar out of me.
These are the things I forgot to remember.
I recorded them so I wouldn't forget and that I could refer to them when I don't understand my hesitation around him.
I always knew he'd come back.
When he's upset, it's like he'll give me a pop quiz that I will typically fail.
There is this sense, it's only going to happen again and leave me feeling like crap.
I cannot be his friend. I don't know how.
*****
It is strange how the mind forgets the bad stuff when it comes to love.
I remember all the good things as the years pass.
I literally have to look up all the bad shit that drove me off.
Maybe that is the nature of love?
To see the true beauty in another soul despite all the pain the deep emotions can cause and the irritations of daily living and miscommunication.
If there are more insights, I'll share.
Hopefully, this puts an end to the nightmares.
I think the point of the dreams is that I can love someone dearly without putting up with childish bullshit. This guy holds a lot of hidden hostility towards me (as evidenced by the sarcasm). I'll pray a little more but I can't think of this person any more. It hurts too much. It's disappointing that we cannot be friends.
Perhaps the lesson is that I need to date people in my own occupational and social sphere. I need to date successful people who do the same kind of work I do. That way, I don't wind up arguing about the epigenetic development of schizophrenia over coffee with someone who builds video games.
Maybe not.....
You know, there is nothing wrong with a little variety either - just so long as it doesn't ridicule you in public to make itself feel better.
Was I the person who wounded him to the point of attack?
I hope not.
Love ya,
S.
Thinking about the one experience listed above that really bothers me, I realized that I could have handled it differently.
Now that I'm older, I probably would take a guy invoking my name when a woman wants him to get some coffee and talk some sense into him. Or I could hypnotize him.
Maybe I'd say something like, 'If a pretty chick is hitting on you and you like her - she is the only woman in the world at that moment. All other women fade away when you're with her.'
I'm sure that would work -
unless....
no....
this isn't even a remote possibility with this man....
but the only case in which it wouldn't work is if the guy wants me
(trust me, that's a rarity).
Love ya,
S.
Edit Two Days Later -
Well...I think I know what the dreams are about. I was a little spoiled heathen who didn't know how to tell this young man that I needed alone time. Apparently, I ran away from him a lot!
Teenage introverted artists need alone time to create. He liked to spend every waking moment talking to me.
Maybe this is my guilt coming home to roost.
I probably didn't write about all of my crap. Maybe the dreams are karma. I gave him nightmares as a kid. Now, it's my turn to have the nightmares.
Sigh
He is owed the prayers.
* I think I'll burn all the diaries I can.
((( Hugs )))
S.