#syrg

The next day started out normally as ever, except with one thing: silence on his end. It was normal for me to send some kind of good morning and get a response. I sent a few sporadic text messages throughout the day without a response. As the day went on I tried my best to reassure myself that he was just busy with something or his phone was dead, but because of the previous experiences I couldn't stop the sinking feeling.

In the late afternoon I finally received a message.

"You crossed a line. You won't get away with this. -Dee" or something along those lines. I immediately felt my blood run cold and everything stopping a panic mode fall apart. I responded as calmly as possible with the frantic mindset. She went on to explain it to me: 'They' were there to deprogram him. They? Her and her assistant of course. Deprogram? What? I was the bitch who brainwashed him into being completely loyal and in love with me right? They had to wipe that away.

During the more recent sessions he had made me play along with, hypnosis-wise, he had said that he wanted to love me and just be loyal to me and not his girlfriend. But that was just a game, it wasn't a real thing, right? This couldn't be actually happening.

I contacted his ex and told her what was happening. She calmed me down and suggested calling the police. I agreed and she did it because I was afraid of making the call myself. Or so she said, because I got a text message a bit later mocking me for calling the police, claiming that Syrg's parents had sent them away. But if they had been called on a welfare check...that wasn't how it worked. I couldn't understand what was actually going on, I was scared to death, and I didn't want him to be hurt.

The following days were silent. Even the mutual Skype chat we were in was missing him. Two days after my incident, a strange vague message was sent to one of the members hinting at his condition. He asked the chat what the fuck was going on and later that day I tried my best to fill him in. The whole time I felt weird and stupid for spouting this nonsense but it was all I could do. I was exhausted and not eating much and plagued with constant anxiety. Nobody asked questions of me, which was a blessing.

The day after that, I woke up to a barrage of angry messages. How Syrg had just gotten out of the hospital and he heard that I was shit talking his girlfriend and he was livid and going to talk to me once he cleaned himself up. I couldn't be relieved. not at all.

When he got back, it continued. He yelled at me for being selfish and bitchy and claiming that we were dating when we were most certainly not dating and where would I get that idea anyway?

I had no will to fight anything. I just apologized and said I wouldn't do it again. He said he needed some time to think about this and didn't want me bothering him at all. I agreed and just kept to myself.

....But that was just the beginning of a horrible, vicious cycle. The first thing I found out was that he was playing it off like the romantic and sexual interactions between us had never happened. Like we had been pretty okay friends this whole time. Somehow, that wasn't my breaking point either. I tried to tell him things to remind him. It was made worse by the fact that he would occasionally drop hints about our romantic involvement, like he was pushing me to do little things and tell him this or that or whatever. I took the bait every time without question. There was no capacity for question at this point. It was like a blind rush straight into darkness.

This was when he started blocking me for being disagreeable too. It was a complete gamble on which version of Syrg I would encounter that day. My honest expressions of my emotions would be met with sarcasm, derision, eye rolling and dismissiveness and generally tossing me aside. Blocking would come out of nowhere but whenever I spoke up in the Skype chat he'd have something to say about it, usually condescending and antagonistic. But since that was all I had at this point, I had to deal with it. Not doing so would mean losing the little bit of social connection I had. I was kicked out, though, after breaking down and Syrg complaining about it and me being told I had to calm down first. I just broke down again. And even when I wasn't in there he would unblock me suddenly and give a bullshit reason as to why. And I couldn't care or fight or anything. There was nothing left.

There was nothing left so I left. Or I tried. Even when I tried pushing him out of my life he would come back and give more bullshit reasoning as to why. Pushing away didn't work, reminding didn't work, there was no way out. If I acted up he'd remind me of how easy it would be for him to live without me, how if I were to die tomorrow he would just go on with his life as if nothing happened.

He went so far as to just tell me to go die slowly of my illness.

And in my eyes, I couldn't escape even if I tried. So I stayed. I stayed and when he was okay I acted like nothing was wrong and when he wasn't okay I acted like nothing was wrong and then cried to myself.  When he acted like he 'suddenly remembered' everything I was grateful that things seemed to be okay, when he decided that it never happened and I was just being a lying manipulator I didn't bother putting up a fight.

Around that time, I made a forum thread. I made a Skype chat associated with it. Somehow people got deeply involved with what I was going through. They listened to me, they supported me, they did what they could to help me even though their help only went so far. When they'd validate my anger and sadness and frustration, all I could do was cry and thank them. Not only did I not see a way out, I didn't have the energy to try anymore. I just quietly accepted that this was how it was.

And the videos? The videos continued. I was coerced into recording one after hours of Syrg telling me he didn't love me, he'd never love me so I just needed to give up there. During the video he said things like "I just had a mental breakdown,  do you want to cause another one?" and berated me and insulted me and harassed me. Even if I had no fight left in me otherwise, I protested the video being uploaded. He did it anyway. He posted it on his twitter, specifically tagging it and calling it "the video [I] didn't want anyone to see" It was bad enough that people complained in the comments. The small backlash with my continued protests eventually brought it back down.

The night I finally did get out for good was...that night I was beaten so far down that I just screamed for help on twitter, as best I could with writing. I begged someone to take me out of this nightmare, make it so I could secure myself away from him. Someone spoke up, someone from the Skype chat we were both in. That person told me that I needed to get out for my sake, even if I cared about him and wanted to see him back to normal I couldn't destroy myself doing that. I had to take care of myself, I was important. 

I don't know how but those words got through better than anything else that had been said to me. I managed to scrape together a little bit of strength, block him everywhere I could and lock all my online accounts down. And then I cried and didn't stop for a long time. I cried for everything that had been destroyed, the fact I had been sucked into a living hell, the person I thought I had fallen in love with, everything.  But it was over.

After too long, entirely too long, my nightmare with Syrg was fucking over. If I could have felt any joy by that point I'm sure I would have, but I was in such deep shock after the fact that I just went numb. I shut down for real, my mind and body and entire self needing to actually reset and heal from the depth of the pain.

few months passed after our mutual feelings were finally hashed out. Months of video creation and good memories and me growing to be very certain about my feelings toward him. There were times, especially during commentary recording, that he was harsh toward me verbally but I figured it was just joking. Making fun of how I played the game or how I spoke or just little things here and there. I would get embarrassed and defend myself and ultimately assume it was more of an act than anything since he wasn't like that off-camera.

Even though it had all the makings of a romantic relationship, we both insisted it wasn't one. We were just friends. Denial has always been something I'm good at to myself unfortunately and I was really feeling uncertain about helping him cheat on his girlfriend even though he tried to make it sound like he was trying to find the right time to break up with her. Even with the problems, I was happier than I had been in a very long time. It felt like I had finally found some kind of peace, some kind of stability. 

And then that stability was broken. 

I was sent to the ER for problems breathing. To try to stop my anxiety I sent him a text message. He brushed off my situation and talked about how he was planning to drop acid with a friend. When someone he claimed to love was going through a medical emergency. 

He tried sending me a few messages when he was high. I just got mad. Then out of nowhere I received a text from his number, but from the person claiming to be his friend. He got upset with me for being upset at Syrg. He argued about why I was allowed to do drugs (referring to the medications I take for Lupus and such) but Syrg wasn't. He said that I was a cheating bitch and how Syrg's girlfriend deserved to know what a shitty person was fucking her boyfriend on the side. That I probably didn't even love him and was using him as some kind of emotional crutch or just didn't want to be alone so I had to find someone to cling to. I denied the accusations he threw at me, that wasn't the case at all. He was helping me a lot but I did love him. It didn't matter to this person, he still said that Syrg's girlfriend needed to know even though I thought she already had known about it.  By the time the conversation wound down, I was released from the ER. Anxiety wouldn't have let me hold off the conversation, so it turned into me needing to hide my sudden and intense fear from the outside world.

A couple hours passed before Syrg finally returned. At first all I could do was apologize repeatedly and continue the self-deprecating. His reaction was completely different from the usual gentle support. This time he told me to cut it out, why was I acting like this. I couldn't say, I was afraid to explain and cause conflict anywhere. He said he wasn't in the mood to deal with my bullshit since he was still really hungover and that I needed to just say whatever was bothering me. And if I wasn't going to, to stop bothering him. I took a bit to compose myself and then explained what had occurred the night before. That his friend had taken his phone, that a horrible conversation had occurred. After everything was out in the open he apologized for being harsh before and said he'd make sure his phone didn't get into the wrong hands.

It didn't matter though. That encounter and the resulting reaction was enough to create cracks in my trust of him. Even though I didn't question the events at all.

A couple weeks passed. A third meeting of ours was supposed to happen and I was told to keep bugging him over the phone to make sure that he got up in time. My role as alarm clock was interrupted rather suddenly, though.

"Who is this? This is <girlfriend>" the text message read.

I froze. I started shaking from the sudden onset of anxiety and remembering what had happened with Jon's girlfriend. I was terrified but I still replied. That afternoon instead of seeing Syrg, I texted with his girlfriend. She claimed that she had gone through his text messages and upon seeing some of the content, tied him up on his bed.

That immediately sent me into a worried frenzy, something she tried to calm down by saying that he was perfectly okay, just asleep still. She wasn't angry with me at all, after all he was the one doing the two-timing. She said she was mad enough she wanted to castrate him, but just on the tip. The failure to understand castration confused me but was meaningless below the alarm bells ringing in my head at this conversation. I got upset with her, I told her not to do anything like that, I apologized for my involvement in things. She said she thought it would be better to think of this like a contest and see who would actually be with him in the end. I was allowed by her to do whatever I wanted with him, but sex was out of the question. After I agreed, the negative comments started. That I was just using him as a crutch and didn't actually have feelings for him. I was being clingy and needy and he was just going to throw me away in the end. After a while of that my low self-esteem kicked and and I joined in on her deprecation. Calling myself worthless, broken, horrible for doing this and being like this. She wrote it off as me being needlessly dramatic and left the conversation at that after I told her again to untie him. I was so shaken that I didn't even stop to question validity.

A couple hours passed before Syrg finally returned. Like the time before, I ended up only being able to apologize and self-deprecate and not actually explain what was going on. It was just more intense this time because it was actually his girlfriend and because it was another instance of me suddenly being attacked, though for good reason. In the end he told me that if I couldn't compose myself and tell him anything he was just going to bed. I pleaded for him to stay, this was when I least wanted to be alone. He ignored it. So I sent a made up story about something that happened. He got annoyed because he said he was going to bed and I needed to be quiet but stayed for a bit anyway. To the point where things seemed mostly okay again when we said goodnight.

But something still bothered me. It bothered me how both his friend and his girlfriend had talked down to me in the same ways. It bothered me that her writing style was so close to Syrg's. It bothered me but I pushed it to the back of my mind because I didn't want to think about it. It was starting to become clear that when these things hapepned Syrg wasn't going to take it well and if I wanted things to stay stable I would have to stay stable myself. Follow his lead, don't be too much of a disruption, things like that.

Somewhere in the midst of all of this, he divulged something to me. A fetish of his. He explained that he was really into hypnosis play and voiced interest in me playing along. I was skeptical, extremely so, but I wanted to do it to make him happy so I agreed. That became something that happened on a regular basis, which is extremely important. After the incident with his girlfriend I tried to put up a boundary where sexual activity was involved. Even though I was trying he would still be trying in the other direction, to get me to 'play' with him. By asking a lot, or  being a bit pushy, coercion, starting out playfully and then suddenly taking things in a very lewd direction without warning.

"Why couldn't you just say no, just ignore him?" Because at this point in the game, I was simultaneously in love and afraid of missteps. Knowing what he would do if I pissed him off, I would do everything I could to avoid that outcome. He knew that he had me right where he wanted me and that was reflected heavily in what he would do with 'playing'. He had a very clear goal in mind when he would get into the 'hypnosis' and that was to control me. From the first time he did it, he would push things in a direction that made it clear he wanted submission and obedience, someone he could give commands to and they would carry them out. He would ask on an almost nightly basis to play these games with hypnosis. But he would offset the control talk with things to push my buttons on an emotional level. Providing warmth and comfort and support and promises of always staying close and protecting me.

I was the perfect candidate for being part of a control game. Most of my life has been a chain of being under the control of another person, to the point where I was still unsure how to function as an independent person. My family had made sure I never really learned those life skills, and my disability left me even more vulnerable. Even though there were little issues he had shown for months, in my mind, that he was someone I could trust. Or thought I could trust. The idea of being in a submissive position to someone who wouldn't use it against me, wouldn't use it to hurt me, was something oddly comforting to me and so I was more than okay with it. 

That might sound bad when put that way but there was a surprise benefit to the arrangement and he did do something good with it. He used it to help me figure out that I could indeed go against people who were trying to hold power over me. That I had a strength and independence of my own and I was capable of using them. That I was valid in my own right and deserved to be happy and I wasn't the horrible person I thought of myself as. That my family had tried to convince me I was.

Most people think that abuse is a black and white situation, but it's far from it. The gray areas are what can make walking away so difficult. They're what can cause so much confusion and uncertainty. They can drag out the healing process with confusion and questioning over what was really going on. Love can exist in abuse. A twisted and damaging love, but love nonetheless.

After the interaction with his girlfriend, problems came up more and more often. They spoke, he learned about the 'rules' she had set down. When he'd start pushing too far I'd remind him. He'd claim she only meant sexual intercourse and not other sex acts. She spoke to me again, with harsher warnings and berating me for breaking the rules that had been set down. The second time a conversation happened, I pointed out how interesting it was that she and Syrg shared such a similar writing style. Even stranger, she was chatting to me about not knowing how Steam worked and claimed to have accidentally joined a TF2 game under his name. I had already stumbled on some information about her that had proven that she was computer literate, very much so. The inconsistencies were starting to really bother me and this time I told Syrg about what happened. Right down to the harsh treatment I received.

He didn't believe me. He said she was too sweet a person to say anything like that. That I should really watch what I say.

If despair hadn't set in before, it had by then. I wasn't the strong kind of person who would be able to walk away and I wasn't the type of person who would be able to say 'no' to anything he tried on me. He started acting happier in general and I started to withdraw into myself, putting on a happy face in conversation and then talking endlessly to close friends about the problems that were going on. My true feelings were obscured by a veil of my positive personality though I still pushed the issue of him breaking up with his girlfriend like he repeatedly promised. If he loved me as much as he said he did, then why would he be continuing a relationship with someone else like that?

I should have known there wasn't going to be a change there. But after my past experience, hearing a definite 'yes' about it kept giving me false hope. All his manipulations and mind tricks worked like a charm on someone like me who wanted, for once, to just be loved by someone.

Things remained rocky, with glimpses of stability here and there. Glimpses that this would all resolve okay. But the stress was still catching up to me. They were met with anything, ranging from him raging at me for being such an overemotional and unstable woman to halfassed kindness and comfort. He would initiate some kind of Skype sex and them pull away and start yelling at me for making him do it when I KNEW his girlfriend was saying we had to knock that off. When I would point out it was him I'd get a halfassed apology in return. I was withdrawing further and further, breaking down relatively frequently while trying to hide it. Falling to the point of suicidal thoughts which I hadn't really dealt with in  YEARS at this point. This resulted in him connecting me with an ex-girlfriend of his. Someone who had dealt with him telling her that she should go kill herself over something minor. Someone who had seen his rages in full force too.

The last day things were stable he said he wouldn't be going anywhere and he'd always be there for me. No matter what. I thanked him for that. And most notably, on the last day things were stable he actually did end it with his girlfriend.

A major turning point came a bit unexpectedly, on a night I was mostly crashing and crying at god knows what time of the evening. He made it a mission to distract me from what was going on and then asked me something out of the blue - "want to do a couple videos together?"

Naturally I accepted. It was late, I was more than a bit sad and definitely not going to be getting much sleep. It would be a good distraction for a bit.

That's what we did for a few hours that night. I was still sniffling from crying my eyes out, I was bringing a heavy dose of negativity and exaggerated frustration into the commentary, but it made me feel better than anything else really had. In between we'd swap links of art related to the game and I'd have to try my hardest not to laugh loud enough to wake anyone up. In short, I was happier than I had been in a long time. It made sense to me. After all, he was someone I was incredibly comfortable with. Someone I could actually speak around, express myself with though a bit awkwardly, someone who seemed to take an actual interest in being around me.

....but whatever I was starting to feel was colliding with the residual feelings from my old relationship. And hard. At one point, while riding down to my mom's place, I unloaded my worries on a friend through text messages. I rationalized there that I was just happy and comfortable feeling protected by someone. It couldn't be anymore than that and anyway he had a girlfriend. A girlfriend, meaning taken, meaning I couldn't develop anything further. I even gave him advice about his relationship and would listen to various stories about it.

Even if I tried to rationalize like that, the long conversations would continue and my feelings would slowly become deeper and more complex. If I was having a hard time, I went to him and he'd be supportive. Ironically, that first part was the most stability I had experienced in a very long time.

The floodgates opening on my crush opened during the first recordings of the Birth By Sleep LP. One night we planned to record he was incredibly drunk and incredibly excited to record. Within a few minutes of starting, he started making lewd jokes and even straight up asked me what kind of guys I was into. My knee-jerk reaction, as usual, was to reply with whatever I could to shut him down. Not because of disinterest, though, it because I was embarrassed as hell and shocked. After the video had ended he was messaged by his girlfriend, which seemed to curb the comments. Even so, I immediately started messaging another friend who was up telling them about what happened, wondering what this could be, expressing a lot of doubt that it was anything serious since he was so drunk and all.

I didn't ever bring it up to him after the incident, but things continued and our banter grew warmer and friendlier over time. We would talk over social media and over Skype almost constantly and talk about maybe actually meeting up. My shutdowns started lessening and I'd just play any advances off casually. It was during one talk that went until 5AM that we both seemed to realize there was something mutual there. He kept slipping up in his text, kept making sexual references and instead of brushing them off like I usually would...I called him out on them. It actually turned into flirting and laughing and both of us having to force ourselves to bed because the sun was coming out. He ended that conversation by telling me "I love you." Even though I was surprised I tried desperately to brush it off as 'it has to just be as friends! HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND DON'T FORGET THAT.'

It all came out the night before we planned to meet for real. The first couple times things had come up and my mom was trying to convince me that no matter what I was going to be stood up and that he was horrible and don't trust any man, things like that. The time before it had resulted in me going to the park and crying and telling him all the things my mother had said about me being stood up, even though he had a reason. I remember that after I said she called him an idiot, he said something like "Well, this idiot wishes he was there with you right now." That was enough to cheer me up so I could go back to the apartment.

The actual meeting, though. The nights before, conversation had become particularly intense. I had talked about my extensive mental issues, I had thrown out warnings and admitted that I was extremely nervous about the developments between us. He comforted me and told me that he wouldn't push anything further than I wanted, he would be careful. I did calm down and at some point the conversation turned sexual which led to him directly telling me that I could do what I wanted with him. So naturally I....immediately made an excuse and went to bed and tried like hell to keep my heart rate down and flustered excitement to a minimum. This wasn't a relationship, after all. I had gone to him about issues like this, he was just trying to make me be more comfortable with them and not run away flustered. So much for that. Then the exact night before, the first explicit conversation happened.

If there's one thing I can say about him, he does now how to defuse situations when put to the task. Any nervousness I had about the meeting, any feelings from the night before's interaction, were put to rest by nothing else but a full hour of being text messaged horrible puns while he was in transit.

And him going to the apartment building my mom lived in instead of our predetermined meeting place at the park then being embarrassed when I said I wasn't there.

When we finally found each other, it came together almost naturally. I teased him about his attire, he teased me about my phone, we found a place to sit down, he tried touching me but my fear of touch was still very much in effect and I flinched away. After a bit of walking, though, and sitting down elsewhere, I did move closer. And picked up and carried a bit because I was so much smaller.

...and then things escalated but no, not that far you perverts, clothes stayed on! I'm not someone who's ever been comfortable with lots of touching but after his first attempt I didn't flinch at all. Even though I can barely stand being touched by family members I was letting him have physical contact with me without feeling even slightly nervous.  The most surprising part was when he suddenly pulled back and kissed me, saying "You didn't think you'd get away without me doing that  did you?"

[2013]

After going through hell with Syrg, becoming a shadow of my former self, and starting to live with my mom, I got a PM out of the blue from Jon. He was apologizing for what he'd done before, saying I was right, and regretting what he'd done.

I was happy to receive it and happier to re-initiate contact but hearing that he regretted showing me his feelings did hurt. I mean yeah, cheating, but that didn't mean that what he felt was invalid, right...?

One of the first things he established was that he wasn't interested in dating and wanted to work on himself. I was totally caught off guard but explained that I wasn't really looking for that kind of relationship because of my situation. This carried through our entire time together where he'd regularly flip out on me because I said something he'd interpret as hinting toward a relationship. Even the WORD 'relationship' set him off. Even though I could make sexual advances without that reaction and even would get responses sometimes.

Things went okay until the end of September. October 2013 would be the one-year anniversary of my life becoming hell and I warned Jon that I was afraid of going back to Syrg. He said he'd help.

Then I made a huge mistake I still regret: I admitted that I loved Syrg still and that I felt I always would. I had told Jon upfront that I loved him and in my eyes there was no conflict. I did love them both but I hated myself for loving Syrg and I trusted Jon enough to share with him. I didn't realize that it might hurt him to hear.

But it got worse. As October went on, I grew more unstable and was subject to frequent breakdowns. There's no way in hell Jon would have been able to make sure I was okay all the time, he had a life and I didn't want to be that needy and it was something that he didn't really understand. Then one time, when he was streaming and neglected to tell me, I broke down again and this time contacted Syrg.

Who told me he still loved me, and that was a radical act since Jon was never the type to explicitly say anything about caring about me and I was too deep in my bad situation to detect implied things. I told Jon, who initially reacted with anger but then kind of accepted it. Oddly, that had felt bad like the last part of my stable self had been hoping he'd be able to keep me out of doing something bad to myself.

But nah, he just got more distant and changed little things about himself like Skype avatars which was weird when that hadn't happened for years. If I ever asked about the changes, he'd excuse them away as just something he felt like doing or that he was distant because he was busy. If I was having problems he'd be more prone to yelling at me about them instead of being understanding like before. I grew more and more uncertain in the weeks leading to Magfest.

In that time, I also finally escaped living with my mom when she stranded me at my grandparents' for not putting a bag of groceries away then totaled her car on the way home. Mom stories are for another time though.

[Magfest]

Magfest was....weird. Of course he didn't recognize me and I ended up stuck in a wheelchair most of the time because it was easier. We ended up in a large group most of the time and in contrast to the first time he was getting a ton of attention from fans. It was surprising, really.

There were things that stuck out to me though: he was paying a strange amount of attention to one of the women in the group, for starters. But because he acted nothing like he had with me back in 2011, I couldn't think much of it. And, in fact, there was an effort made to eliminate suspicion. Going off alone had an excuse though the unsettled feeling was still strong there. With all the abandonment before, this was not good and caused me to start sinking into anxious actions. To even start being nervous to be around him because this felt like it was leading to something distressing and I couldn't handle any more of that.

Syrg still encouraged me to try something, to test and see where Jon stood. ...Naturally I didn't because I was too afraid of causing problems!

But whenever we were alone together, which happened a few times, he seemed to be off. Nervous and skittish and at one point when things could have easily come off as a date it really seemed to be the case. I might have joked about it but I had my anxiety on my mind instead. There was one time I asked him to help me get back to my hotel room, and at first he seemed to be unsure but I didn't notice because I needed the help. It was only after I noticed the situation that I decided that maybe Syrg was right....nope. I tried, but I aborted the try equally fast.

In the end, nothing really happened except me being anxious and getting sick and a few instances where it seemed like Jon was annoyed with me that just aggravated everything. I like to think I was able to put on a happy face long enough though.

[Fighting]

Things only held up about a week longer than that. It started with a winding conversation that led to me admitting that I had tried to make a move in the hall that night. Or thought about trying might have been the better thing to say but I'm good at not saying things right sometimes.

Either way he got mad even though he said he suspected it. And he told me something like how not okay it was to do that because he was in a relationship and didn't do things like that. I had thought something was up, but it still shocked me. He had meant to stay single to work on himself but 'sometimes things happen'.

...Meaning his old problems and issues were all still intact, and on top of that I had been lied to. Of course I got mad. Of course I said something bad about him there. After the last relationship and my role there, knowing that he could still have unresolved issues with me, it felt so damn irresponsible to be jumping into something. It wasn't like keeping me away would do anything, because just EXISTING seemed to be enough to set him off judging by his romance-related outbursts over those past months. Because he had told me his reasons for holding back on me were "Because I don't know what I want anymore."

....because...it was the same as it had been back in 2008, really. When he entered that other relationship, lied about how he felt toward me, then proceeded to spend that entire time hung up on me but unwilling to persue it because ???

AND HE WAS USING IT AS A WEAPON HERE EVEN. Like some kind of checkmate against me acting on my feelings when I didn't know a factor like that existed!

He was even angrier that I wasn't happy about it, but how could I be in the face of something like this? I was told I was toxic, negative, that he was trying to keep people like that out of his life. That my recent behavior had reminded him of the parts of me that were difficult. It didn't take well, since I was shaken already, and I just broke down to a point where I weakly promised that I would try to change myself. He had been hoping that I was going to change after getting away from my mom and become like the person I once was. Even though there was a healing period to contend with and this wasn't a simple 'get over it' situation.

I tried to point out things that suggested that he saw me in a significant light, but as always he had rebuttals. The problem is that no matter what he does. He's been in love while arguing that he hated me before. The only one I remember was pointing out his tendency to hug me goodbye all the time, he said he does that to everyone but I remembered a time where he was saying goodbye to people and only ended up hugging as the result of a joke. So it seemed wrong.

It's sad that I have to result to analysis like that to decipher what's going on in his head, but he's never actually opened up too much about any positive feelings toward me. It usually ends up implied or stated vaguely.

But still, I just submitted and promised I would try to act better. I was scared and anxious enough to just give in because I didn't want to fucking hurt anymore.

After he left, I talked to Syrg. I talked to other friends too likely. And it slowly dawned on me how much of a repeat his behavior was from the past, since I had been told the same things then. I had lied about my relationship status in an effort to protect myself, but still. I saw that if I stayed there, it would get worse. That I was a target now and that if I was that much of an irritation to him, he would just hurt me more and more and deepen the already-existing trauma.

So I wrote. And pointed out what he had done. And of course, that went horribly with him and he just sent me a final word kind of goodbye that ended with something like "have a nice life".

....And that was the end of that, we haven't spoken since though he never blocked me on Skype or removed me or anything. I tried to make up for what I saw as my mistakes, but never reached. I was 'with' Syrg for a bit after that and that fell apart and I couldn't stop talking about Jon then. It had left a hole somewhere and the way he behaved had left an impression on me.