I didn't Know This Wasn't My Diary P.S. Trauma

I've decided because I'm camera shy with performance anxiety that Youtube is NOT for me, but I do have a story time.

I was in college when I first met Damien. My roommate encourage me to try dating sites after a really bad breakup, so I picked my poison; TINDER. I had a spree, the first guy I invited was a senior football player who had a gross kiss and when I told him that I was a freshman he said "Welcome to WIU" and gave me another wet sloppy kiss. I was not very happy when I escorted him out of my dorm room.

I tried seriously dating after that, there was a pancake shop near campus and I suggested another guy take me too. He was a nerdy blonde chubby white boy and he would have been my type had he not refused to tip the waitress and said the N word because his personality was "heavily rooted in political science."

Dating didn't seem to work at all for me especially with tinder. I was well on my way to giving up when I met Damien. He asked me out and I was so reluctant but I allowed it because I was bored one Friday night. He came to pick me up and when I got in his car I noticed he was on the phone and wearing sunglasses but I also noticed that he stared at me for a very long time. We started dating and I'm not sure when it became unhealthy but it did.

Our first date was very normal we went for Chinese food and I couldn't place if I liked him or not so I didn't kiss him goodnight. The next time he came around he asked to come into my dorm room and he helped me fold my laundry because that is scientifically proven to be the worst chore in the world. He met my roommate and called her skittish and I took offense to that because she wasn't there to stand up for herself. He had a habit of badmouthing his friends and I wasn't too happy about him doing that with mine.

I don't remember the first time we had sex but I remember our first kiss, it was our third time seeing each other and I had asked to get slushies. He didn't want one because of the sugar and honestly he was in shape. He was so hot and he made me nervous all the time. we were sitting in his car and he was looking at me and I asked him what was wrong. He said " I'm just waiting for you to finish drinking your drink so I can kiss you," I wanted to scream but instead I looked away and kept drinking my slushie and then he turned my head to him and kissed me.

Damien really liked my dorm because I had mirrored wardrobe doors and he liked looking at himself. He liked himself a lot. I started to as well. I have diagnosed BPD so he became my favorite person and he would stay in my dorm for days but then leave for days and I would miss him. I always called for him to come stay the night with me or take me out always something so I could be near him. It was intense. He started showing up less and I would resent him more every time he did come around. He didn't want anything too serious and I pretended that I wanted the same. But the truth is I had already developed really hard feelings for him.

I became depressed being away from home and decided to drop out. I told him that I wanted nothing to do with him anymore because it just made no sense to keep seeing each other and he disagreed. We stayed in contact and He would come down to see me every once in a while and we would get hotels and go on wild adventures all the time. He was explosive but so smart, this man was a genius and so strong. He was my nighttime best friend. He was seeing other people and so was I. But one time I was so smitten with him that I asked why we couldn't be together and he said "because i'm fucking other people" and that stung but I ate it. As much as I cared about him he never really gave it back. One time I wanted to know how he felt about me so I asked if he liked me and he said "you're likable" and it was so clear that he didn't care about me.

So many times I cut him out of my life and maybe I'd miss him or he'd text me and we'd go back to the same thing. I turned 20 and invited him to my birthday party and we ended up leaving MY birthday party early and together. bad move because we ended up sleeping in his car all night with one thin blanket. I didn't see him for a while after that. I moved on, with my life completely. We both started dating other people and I moved to mexico for a mission trip and he reached out to me again and we exchanged some apologies. I was really mean to him and I know it.

One time we were in my dorm room and he was getting ready to leave prematurely and it made me so upset. he told me that he'd be back and I told him that I didn't want him to come back at all. I told him that I hated him and I literally would rather be alone than be with him because he made me sad. he tucked me in bed and kissed me and told me that even though I was being cruel he'd be back and I didn't have to be like this. he came back and I kind of hated him more for it.

I moved to Georgia when I was 21 and stayed there for a few months where I had a serious adult relationship with a man that also didn't work out. I knew Damien was in Arkansas and I asked if I could visit him and that turned into me living with him and his roommates who were married. Damien looked different when he came to me at the airport he had developed an eating disorder but he still had such piercing eyes and he was still so gorgeous. we made it back to their house and it was perfect. Damien had a twin size bed in their basement and it reminded me of the time we shared my twin size mattress at WIU. I didn't know I was nostalgic to be held in his arms and something about that made my stomach uneasy. we talked all night.

Damien was terrible to me he spent all my money and because I didn't have a new job yet. He also starved me. His friends stepped in and fed me all the time. They also pushed me in the directions to "change" him. and I wasn't capable of doing that." Maybe if you tell him to be nicer to you, you guys can date." or "If you cook for him maybe he'll fall in love with you" and I did, and he didn't, He was not in love with me at all. He actually hated me, but he still held me every night. until he told me he didn't care about me. I cried that night and his friends allowed me to move out of his room in the basement up to one on the upper level where I had a double mirrored wardrobe like the one I had at WIU. He came into my room the next morning to apologize but I was not entertaining him. "you told me you don't care about me and now you're in my room? I need you to fuck off and get out." I said that to him and he left, he needed to go to work. his friends also left for the day and I spent some time by myself getting pretty to make myself feel better and I called my friends to vent and let them know what was going on with me. His friends came back and an hour later we noticed that their dog was missing. We all searched for him for hours and it was tense. Ody was expensive and they loved him, we all did. when we came back Damien was blasting his music which his friends absolutely hated. Then his friend yelled at him and told him to get out of his house because earlier in the day Damien accused his wife of letting the dog out of the house because " she was jealous". There was a lot of yelling and I decided to cut my losses and return home. I left their house and went across the street to an abandoned museum to speak to my family so they could send for me.

My phone started to die and I had to go back to their house to charge it. The house was empty except for Damien who had been bothering me all day. I started and finished packing when he came into my room and noticed my bags. "where are you going"? I told him I was going home. " he was talking to me not you" and then I asked " then why aren't you packing"? and I have memory loss so I'll skip to the parts I remember. we were on the floor in front of the mirrors and I asked him to leave me alone countless of times which he wouldn't. He even said "well since you're leaving, I live here more than you do and I need to chaperone you". I let him know I was extremely uncomfortable. He said " what are we going to do about the women in this house, they're so disrespectful" then he started taking off my shoes from my feet. I was so scared he was smiling at me but saying nasty things. He even accused me of letting Ody out. I wrote down all the terrible things he was saying to me in my favorite purple notebook while he was recording me. I remember writing "Am I going to die"? I didn't respond to him at all, then I grabbed my phone to text my friend Mel to let her know I was afraid and she called me immediately. I answered and pretended everything was okay with me on my end in front of him and pretended as if she had a problem with a coworker and wanted to vent.

Me: "Hey Mel whats up?" I said it in a calm voice

Mel, who Damien couldn't hear:" I got your text are you okay?"

Me:" Oh she's still being mean to you?I bet that's annoying. You don't have to cry, I'm sure we can chat about it"

And I excused myself from Damien to "chat" with Mel but as soon as I got outside I started hyperventilating. I really couldn't breathe I ran down the street out of eyesight from the house.I met up with a lady from earlier when we were looking for Ody and she said it was okay that I stayed in her yard while I figured everything out. I let her know I felt unsafe where I was. I thought about leaving everything there and just calling an uber to the train station but I left my passport, ID and cards in my wallet. and My wallet was in one of the bags I packed. Mel suggested that I call the police but I had my reservations seeing that I was black, Damien was White and we were in Arkansas. But I called the police anyway and to make sure I had a fair shot I let them know I was wearing a yellow sweater and needed help from a boy I was living with.

It was intense, the police knocked on the door to the house where Damien and my bags were. and he opened. He looked gray when he opened the door. So small compared to the cops who were just standard size. he looked at the three of us for such a long time one by one with half squinted eyes, and when he looked at me it looked deathly and I looked away. He still scared me.

At first he refused to open the door, then said that I don't live there and when the cops asked me if that was true I was pissed! "I'm visiting, My stuff is still in there! I've been here for three weeks!" and that was good enough for the police to threaten him with a domestic abuse charge if he'd refuse to return my things. Damien let us in but started recording again and let it be known to the police. They didn't care because they had their body cams on. Damien wanted me to return some hair care stuff that he got for me and it was on the very bottom of my bag. I said "this is embarrassing" and he responded "you're embarrassing" and the police shut him down immediately. Threatening him again with another charge. That sucked because he always said things like that to me for as long as I knew him and I never registered it as abuse and it was. I slid him the jar and started to leave. the policemen were carrying my bags and I stopped one and asked if I could sit in the police car because not only was Damien still recording me he was following us down the street yelling mixed messages. "God Bless you! Good riddance! You're going to come back and I hope I never see you again! I hope you have a great day!"

Timing is amazing because as I was walking away from Damien being escorted by the cops his friends show up with Ody's little head popping out of the window. I waved to them to say goodbye because I planned on going straight to the airport now that I had what I needed. But they didn't let that happen. They wrapped back around immediately because in their eyes Damien called the cops on me for something and that didn't make sense. Their eyes were so red from crying when they came to me. the policemen explained that I wasn't going to jail and that I was just being protected. I got in their car and they decided to take me to the airport themselves. we drove for hours because I missed my flight and we all needed to calm our nerves. we ate at some cute the hamburger place and I got a chili dog which is my favorite thing to eat. We decided to go to Kirk's mother's house, she had drinks for us and beds made up. she offered to make biscuits and gravy in the morning which I also love so I was excited. she wore a shirt that said " Eat my beaver" which was very on brand with her because she was open with her sexuality and hilarious. She wore it to make me laugh. I didn't think it was very funny I was tired. I booked my flight for the next day in the afternoon.

That morning we played with Ody and Kirk's mother's dogs. Then we went to her farm to pick cherry tomatoes and they were so sweet. We met a lot of Kirk's family I even got to drive a farm tractor for a minute. But I was tired of pretending that Damien wasn't getting to me and tried to bring him up, I wanted to Know what was going on with that situation. Michelle, Kirk's wife didn't want to talk about him at all. Turns out they were wanting me to be distracted because no one wanted to deal with the fact that he was still there or not there. It was more clear that I was supposed to be distracted when Kirk's mom took me to see her boat which was ironically decorated in flamingos. It was still so beautiful.

Then I was on the plan on my way home and I wanted to read the book "You" by Caroline Kepnes and I couldn't it reminded why I was so afraid of Damien and that I was afraid of him in general. I made it home and my dogs were happy to see me and so were my friends. But I was terrified that Damien would just show up one day. This was intensified the next day when he called me five times in a row and tried reaching out. I blocked him but asked Kurt to tell me what happened; turns out Damien stole Kirk's eight hundred dollar bike after Kirk kicked him out. But that's all I know. That and my favorite purple notebook went missing. for weeks I had nightmares that he would show up at my house and in my waking day I legitimately thought he was living in my house like in the horror thriller "The Boy". I felt irrational and it's been 9 months since I've seen him last and I wish I could say that I'm not afraid but I am.