A little About Me

Just before I turned eighteen, my family moved from a rural town in Oklahoma, where I’d gone to high school, to a small city in Minnesota. I had just graduated from high school, and I didn’t know anyone. I ended up living with my parents into my mid twenties. Since I didn’t know anyone, and had difficulties meeting and making friends in person (my parents are super controlling and religious) most of the people I talked to were online. My parents didn’t really like that.

As an aside, When I turned eleven, my parents psych warded me for wanting to run away from home, and I was given medication for psychiatric issues. The medication and sequential psych wardings whenever became Too Much for my parents, shaped me into a rather fragile individual. The medications affected the formation of neuro pathways, ensuring that as an adult I couldn’t function safely without it. I didn’t learn that until I tried going off all my medication with my doctor’s permission.

So here I was, isolated, and trying to cope without the crutch of my medication. My depression was really deep and my emotions got really big and scary. My only way of coping-talking to friends online at night when the symptoms were stronger- was further crippled by my parents actually turning off the internet at ten or eleven at night. One night, I was doing rather poorly, and I was desperate for someone to talk to before my internet was turned off.

A guy that I’d been casually talking to had offered me his phone number. Originally, I had declined, because I felt weird about it. That night, I knew if I didn’t have someone to talk to, I might not see the next day. That’s how badly I felt. My depression was consuming me alive. I went back, and asked if the offer still stood to talk on the phone. He said yes, and I called him after the internet was turned off.

He talked to me throughout the entire night. That guy probably saved my life. After that phone call, we ended up in a long distance relationship, where our only connection was pretty much on the phone. We talked almost every day, and quite literally was my lifeline. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I was dependent on him to the point I’d do almost anything. I paid for his phone bill, bought him food, sent him money, maxed out my credit card trying to make sure he wasn’t too poor to keep in contact with him.

Unfortunately, whenever I self harmed, his reaction was to freeze me out, and not respond to texts, calls and voicemails. I’d be so upset and desperate that I’d make plans to end it all if he didn’t call after a certain amount of time. I was in a really bad place emotionally, and he, who claimed to care about me, would remove my lifeline.

When I ran out of money, I freaked out, afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep in contact. I tried to think of things to do to earn money, but the only things I could think of were things like working at a strip club or something. He was very against it. To be honest, I didn’t really want to either, but I couldn’t think of anything else. Eventually I convinced him to accept $3,000 from a friend of mine to free him from the shackles of debt. I had to assure him multiple times it was a gift before he was okay with it.

The thing is, after he was freed from debt, he said he still didn’t have enough money to keep up with his phone bill and stuff, and he broke up with me when I tried to tell him we needed to have a serious conversation. It turned out the name he gave me was fake. That the whole relationship was a scam, and I was left with overwhelming credit card debt, and I owed my friend three thousand dollars.

I’m on disability. I don’t get much money. It took a long time to claw my way out of debt, both to my friend, and my credit card. To this day I struggle with the trauma of being frozen out or ignored when people can’t talk to me when I was under the impression that we were going to. Even if it’s not punishment, because they are just busy or exhausted, if I don’t have a clear idea of what’s going on, it triggers that sense of desperation. I guess that proper communication is really important to me because of that and maybe in part because of my autism. I can’t read people, and I tend to take people literally.