As I continue to pour through our old texts and conversations, I am experiencing both rage and a profound sadness.
I have these moments where I fluctuate between missing her so completely that I feel utter despair at knowing I will never see her again, and utter joy at the idea of finally being able to break free of her manipulation. One minute, I feel a deep, intense love for her, the next, the deepest, most intense hatred. But then I realize – it’s not love. It’s addiction.
From the time I was really young, all I wanted was to be loved and wanted. My parents fought all the time when they were still together, and divorced when I was really young. From my very earliest memories, our home was chaos, fighting, screaming, and violence. When my parents finally split, I was only 7 or 8. Somewhere in there. They ended up going to court over custody, only, they fought over who had to take me. My dad was married to his job, my mother wanted her freedom to do whatever.
I ended up in group homes and foster care, and was in and out of the system, from William Roper Hull Home, to Woods Christian Homes, to Forest Lawn Group home, to Radisson receiving and assessment center. There was “Cluster H” and the Calgary Children’s hospital, and finally, The Stampede Ranch For Boys. I never belonged anywhere, and I was never wanted anywhere.
While all that was happening, my Dad, who was EXTREMELY abusive – physically, mentally and according to my sister and the court systems, sexually – got re-married. That ghastly beast that I was forced to call my stepmother, did everything in her power to drive a wedge between my father and I, and to have me excised from the family. And was incredibly successful at it. My dad had a new family now, new step kids, and had himself a happy, nuclear little family.
I met Erica exactly a month before my dad was killed in a motorcycle accident. The same day he died, I was in an accident myself, and had a badly broken pelvis, a displaced fracture of both my collarbone and a rib, and multiple greenstick fractures in several of my other ribs. I was on copious amounts of morphine, bedridden and barely lucid. Erica was living in Vancouver at the time, and a week after my accident, came to the island to take care of me. Ostensibly, to give Shawna the opportunity to go camping with the boys and take a break from having to care for me 24/7.
If I’m being totally honest, the details of those few days are a bit fuzzy. I was very high on extremely potent painkillers. But what I DO remember is Erica putting on her therapist/Counselor hat and talking to me at great length about my dad, his death, and how I felt about it, and she helped me process. She helped me talk it through, and she listened to me cry, a lot. She made some really deep dives into my head, at a level that to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever gotten into my head before, ever. She cuddled me, comforted me and held me – and my teddy bear – the only thing I own that physically connects me to my childhood, and like me, is a survivor. It is a deeply personal memento to me in ways that I can’t articulate to you.
To you, it’s just a photo. To me, this is someone who was holding and comforting my childhood. It was care, on a level no one will ever understand. At least, that’s how I saw it. I sure don’t see it that way anymore. I see it as an abuser who used it as an opportunity.
But, you know what else she did?
While I was broken, while I was drugged, while I was in excruciating physical pain, and while I was in excruciating mental pain, and while I was at an unprecedented level of vulnerability – she also had sex with me. She climbed on top of me while I was in bed, my body full of broken bones, and she took what she wanted from me. She exerted control over me, physically and mentally, and it gave her a ridiculous amount of power to do it. She got off on the idea that I apologized to her for being in too much pain to go “all out”.
[2019-09-16 8:13 PM] Erica: It was supremely satisfying that you couldn’t go all out, actually. I doubt I’ll ever have that level of control over you again…. I don’t envision you lying there letting me do whatever I want to you all night very often in our future.
I’m not a trained therapist. I’m not a doctor, I’m not a shrink or a counselor. So I’ll never know, for sure. But looking back, I feel like this was a pivotal moment. This is where I think I (to use her terminology) I became trauma bonded to Erica. I think that while I was broken, vulnerable and there was a crack in the fortress wall I’d built around all my childhood trauma that kept me safe for 35+ years, the wall that protected me from the pain of never getting the acceptance and love I desperately needed from all the caregivers that cycled in and out of my life, and when the traumatized little kid that is at the core of all that I am today… Erica stepped in and promised me the entire world. She knew all the right things to say. She would repeatedly tell me that I was worth it. That I was wanted. That I was loveable. She could say all the right things that had me chasing that desire to be wanted, to be good enough.
She knew exactly how to make me feel like she was the person I really needed when I was a kid. When I was the most vulnerable. She figured that out pretty quickly, and figured out how to tap into that to satisfy her own dopamine needs. From the word go, she had me wound around her finger, knew exactly what she could take without having to give anything in return.
I was hopelessly fucking addicted to her promises. To her reassurances. Without ever knowing it, she hooked me into chasing her for the dopamine hit of validation, of feeling needed and wanted. Because even more than me, SHE needed the validation of being good at her job. It was never about ME, it was about validating her as a good therapist. She needed to be seen and acknowledged. That was the new standard. I became her validation. And because it made me feel needed, like I had a purpose.. I drank that shit up. It was never about wanting to ACTUALLY care for me, it was about protecting her source.
But here’s where it gets tricky.
I couldn’t recognize it at the time, but I was absolutely being used. And I ABSOLUTELY was not permitted to choose myself, my family, or anything else over her. She was the first priority. Always. And if I ever did chose myself, my family or put my needs first, she would manipulate me and twist me into feeling like I was hurting her. That I was disappointing her. That I was failing to keep my promises to her.
The following text was an exchange between her and I on the night of August 25th, 2022. It was a Thursday night, after her last client of the week, when she finally has free time, and 9 times out of 10, when she has nothing better to do and would like me to fill that void.
It’s crucial to note that August 25th was also 2 and a half weeks after she had picked a fight with me all the way to and from Tofino, and 2 weeks after she imposed her will on Shawna’s kitchen and caused a HUGE rupture within my marriage – Shawna wanted to go to her house, drag her outside and punch her in the face with a Buick, and I kept defending Erica and it pissed Shawna off and we ended up in a huge fight – then two days later, blindsided me with a horribly thought out and executed breakup while out on a bike ride while eating the lunch she let me buy for her. The text exchange was also a week after meeting me in a park where we had a HUGE fight, she told me she broke up with me so she could go on her big California road trip for two weeks and not have to answer to anyone, and she made a point of flinching and recoiling every time I moved to make it clear she was terrified of me assaulting her. It was also the day I had my very first therapy session after all the things I had JUST mentioned had driven me past my mental breaking point.
Please keep in mind all of those things as you read.
I have dozens of exchanges, just like this one. Dozens of times I said no, took space for me, prioritized someone else, and I got THIS bullshit. manipulating me into feeling like a failure, a disappointment, and an awful human being. This is standard Erica manipulation. She would blow into her little dog whistle and my Pavlovian self would go running, because I needed to provide care and comfort. Because that’s what I needed when I was a kid, and she tapped into that.
Prioritizing my family and my own mental health pissed her off something fierce. My choosing myself, my wife and my kids sent her into a tailspin. She was furious that I wasn’t eager to run to her, despite the fact that she’d put me through absolute HELL for a month prior to this night. She expected to dump me, break my heart, break my spirit, put me in front of a therapist, cause ruptures between my wife and I, and that STILL, my role is to run to her and give her snuggles, hugs, and soothe all her wounds? She honestly thought that she could BREAK me, and that I would run to fix HER?
But here’s the fucking kicker:
I DID go. I got in my truck, drove to the street she TOLD me she’d be on (because she fucking KNEW I’d go get her) and instead of taking care of me and mine, I was taking care of her. She can tell her family, her friends, and everyone ese that I was a terrible person, and I’m terrible to her. But for almost 4 years, I put her second to none, not even myself. I can see now, that she manipulated me into being her Sexy times vending machine, her rescuer, her fixer of things, her fantasy, her adventure. And when she got bored with me, or I started asking for more, demanding more and expecting more, she started looking for a new source. First it was me when she stopped being excited by B, then it became Ross when she stopped getting excited by me, then it was Wil, then it was Dillon…. It’ll always be someone new when she gets bored.
For me, the takeaway here is this: Erica fooled me into believing I was more to her than just a solution to her 7 year itch. She hooked me on a line baited with promises that no matter what, she would always be in my life in one form or another. She told me she loved me, she told me I mattered and she promised me she wouldn’t hurt me. And then she hurt me. Over and over, she lied, broke promises, and then when I reacted to that, she blamed me and said it was my fault that she lied. She kept using me, kept promising me a future, making promises, and then when I finally snapped because of YEARS of lies, manipulation, gaslighting and abuse, she simply cut me off, brushed off her hands, painted ME as the villain, and played herself off as a victim to her new source.
The funny thing is, when you accuse someone of being awful, treat them like they’re awful, tell your friends they’re awful, when you gaslight them into thinking they’re awful so you have more control over them… Eventually, they’re going to believe you.
I know I’ll never get the apology I deserve. I know she’ll never look in a mirror and see anything but a victim. I know none of the good things that the last 4 years will matter. I know she’ll tell her parents, friends and everyone that I’m a monster. She will NEVER see the difference between “fundamentally awful person” and “fed up with being lied to, gaslit and manipulated for 4 years and reacting appropriately”. I know that no one will ever get the truth from her.
I know there’s never going to be any fixing this. So, fuck it. I have nothing to lose.
After 4 years of feeding the wolf named “Hope”, I’m now feeding the wolf named “Hate”.
~ R
Next: Threesomes, client confidentiality breaches, and gossip.
Leave a Reply