On rare occasions I’ll sign on to Adium. I don’t usually talk to anyone, there aren’t many people I talk to on IM on a regular basis aside from Fiance and Liz when at work – they really get me through my days.
So as I was sitting, procrastinating and not even realizing I was signed onto Adium, I got an im.
The screenname was slightly recognizable.
“Hey” he said. “hey what’s up?” I responded as I responded to everyone then I looked at the screenname. It wasn’t the one I knew but it had the six numbers at the end of it that I knew it was him. Oh shit. i thought. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
My away message that I had up had auto responded and he said “Who are you Carrie fucking Bradshaw?” (it was actually a quote from Grey’s that I happened to see on Tumblr once and made it my away message simply because I liked it) “Who is this?” I asked suddenly feeling like I got punched in the gut. I knew who it was. I didn’t need to ask.
“Someone who knows you” was all he said before I blocked him and frantically searched for how to fix my privacy settings on Adium. I had no desire to continue the conversation or hear what he had to say.
I won’t get into the details. They’re mostly irrelevant. A mistake I made senior year of college, a yahoo profile created in jest, a saddened Valentine’s Day that left me angry and bitter at The Ex sent me again, looking for something – rather someone – better. Unfortunately, the only thing I found was a crazy bastard who was bipolar and abusive.
He seemed nice. At first he didn’t seem like the douchebag he turned out to be. He didn’t seem like someone who, in a matter of days, could turn into someone who would turn into one of my worst nightmares. Within days of meeting him my gut told me something wasn’t right. He told me he loved me days after meeting me, his temper turned in the drop of a hat. He put me down, he criticized me for not making him my priority. I wasn’t supposed to study, have friends, or have a job that kept me from spending time with him.
What’s even crazier was that all this came to fruition in the matter of 72 hours.
But i’m just glad I knew sooner rather than later that something wasn’t right…something was off. I didn’t want to end up like my sister – abused, lacking self esteem, any sort of confidence…eight years for her. That could have been me.
By the third day, I had decided I wasn’t going to tolerate bullshit. I told him to fuck off and never talk to me again. I blocked him.
The man had at least five other screen names. He kept im’ing me. He kept harassing me. I’d block each screenname before even accepting the messages.
These im’s continued over the next three years – becoming few and far between. The last one I got was before I moved in with Fiance.
Last night was the first time in almost three years that I had said anything to him without even meaning to. But seeing his screenname up there, and remember those wretched 72 hours was more than enough to shake me to my core.
We all have our mistakes. We all have our ghosts. But man, talk about being haunted. I could…do without that. I was…well…young. Naive. Stupid. I’m not perfect. I didn’t know any better, I take that back. I did. But I was stupid. Stupidity is my only excuse, but I learned my lesson – albeit almost the hard way because who KNOWS what he was capable of (I didn’t even get into the details – Liz knows them…and knows how crazy he is) I emailed her last night after the IM, and immediately even she was creeped out by his attempted return into my life.
*shudder*
