Figuring out how to edit and post video and audio. Thought I’d start with this. (The links below are audio files)
I am being painted as a villain because I am constantly searching for the truth. I’m perpetually trying to make sense of things that don’t add up and don’t make sense. I’m constantly looking for truth because all I get fed is lies and manipulation. I’m vilified for desperately trying to find a way to tell my side of the story and be heard. I’m told that I’m a monster because I get lied to and gaslit, and I want to defend myself. The goalposts get moved all the time, and I get vilified for never knowing what the fuck is going on. This is why I feel so crazy.
April 11th, we have a huge fight at her house because she does something incredibly shitty and hurtful. (detailed in an earlier post)
I storm out and go home.
I get home and text her to tell her I want my tents back. Livid that she did this AGAIN, I call her a monster. She apologizes for the shitty thing. I say:
2023-04-11, 1:17 p.m. – That Robb Guy: My entire view of you, my rntire opinion of you.. just changed in the last 15 minutes. You are a fucking monster.
2023-04-11, 1:19 p.m. – Erica: I don’t know what to say. You’re tired of hearing sorry, but I am. I can’t make it better, despite wanting to. I hope you’ll forgive me someday.
2023-04-11, 1:22 p.m. – That Robb Guy: Lies. Lies. Fucking lies. If you wanted to make anything better, you would. You aren’t at all who I thought you were. That has never been clearer to me. You’re a fucking soul eater. How could you make a date with him WHILE I was there on MY time, TRYING TO FIX IT?”
More texting, more justification for her actions.
Suddenly, she’s at my house, uninvited and unannounced and pounding on the door. I go open my shop door. She stands in my shop, telling me how sorry she is, how she made a mistake, she’s sorry, she’s so dysregulated, yada, yada, yada. Same routine she always gives me to diffuse me when I’m upset. Standing there, meek, shaking, looking like a sad little girl. I instantly calm, offer her a chair, she asks for water, I get her some. We talk about the guy, the date, and all the rest, she says she wants to talk to him about poly/open relationships. She tells me that she wants to talk to him, to tell him how important I am to her and how I’m not going anywhere and he needs to be ok with that. She dangles ta carrot to diffuse my pain, hurt and anger. She tells me she’d like me to come to basketball and then go out for dinner after work on Thursday night. She even offers to buy. Sha asks me for a hug. She leaves to go to a Dr.’s appointment.
She calls me an hour later to give me the results of her ultrasound, make some chit chat and more apologies and offer supportive messages and reassurances. I send her a sad song that Spotify recommended.
2023-04-11, 4:33 p.m. – That Robb Guy: *sigh*
2023-04-11, 4:36 p.m. – E: Me too. Can I do anything?
2023-04-11, 4:37 p.m. – That Robb Guy: Fuck spotify today. Fuck, fuck fuck them. *Crawls into bed a cries self to sleep*
2023-04-11, 4:37 p.m. – That Robb Guy: (sent spotify song)
2023-04-11, 4:39 p.m. – E: Stop listening to sad music. You didn’t answer my question
2023-04-11, 4:45 p.m. – E: I know you feel so alone right now. I’m so sorry.
I was depressed, exhausted and drained and literally, crawled into bed and went to sleep. And “slept” until nearly 2 in the afternoon the next day. Really, I tossed, turned, sweated through my sheets, cried, had nightmares, and had one of the worst nights I’ve had in awhile.
I woke up the next morning to this audio memo message from her updating me on how her date with “D” went the night before. As is made clear in that message, there was no fear and a very clear and concise invitation to hang out and do the things on Thursday night. Not only a lack of any “fear” but seems eager to have me there.
I text her, and very calmly explain how I feel, what’s going on for me, where I’m at. Throughout the next 3 hours or so, we text back and forth a little bit. I’m still incredibly tired, out of sorts, and not in a good mental space. Not exactly in the greatest position to be making decisions. I explain a couple things, then send her 3 really calm, controlled, thought out voice memos of my own, as I got tired of typing. (message 1, message 2 , message 3)
She responds with this message while I was eating dinner and watching a movie. I listened to it, and took a bit of time to process it. I was still out of sorts and not sure where to go or what to do, and I still felt a lot of mixed and complex emotions. I was still trying to sort through the last couple days. (in this post, I didn’t even touch on the 3 or four hour fight we had in my truck while I drove around in the rain with her a couple nights previous. )
So, no. Full ownership here: I should have replied. I should have told her what I just told you. But there was a good reason I didn’t: She told me not to.
I don’t have enough fingers or toes to count how many times we’ve gotten into it because I texted while she was at work. See, if I text her while she’s at work, out with her friends, about to go to yoga, standing at her front door, about to go in her house after a bike ride, or am at the door about to say goodnight… If I start any kind of conversation, I get accused of “door-knobbing”, or “baiting her with just one more question, comment or question” to “keep her on a hook”. And do not even THINK of saying “I have something I’d like to talk to you about” without finishing THAT conversation.
2023-04-08, 6:33 p.m. – That Robb Guy: I’m not sure when KL is scheduled to leave, but after she does and you make other plans, I would like 15-20 minutes of your time.
2023-04-08, 6:40 p.m. – E: Monday afternoon, but still trying to figure out timing because I work and she has to walk on now
2023-04-08, 6:42 p.m. – E: I could meet you now?
2023-04-08, 6:45 p.m. – That Robb Guy: No, it can wait. I don’t want to cause any ripples in your visit with KL, and you’re not exactly rested, regulated and all that. 🙂
2023-04-08, 6:45 p.m. – That Robb Guy: You’ve just asked me not to wait till the very last second to book time with you so I’m letting you know now that if you can find 15-20 minutes, half an hour tops, I’d like to have a few minutes with you at some point before you go making other plans. 🙂
2023-04-08, 6:46 p.m. – E: Well… I had another hour nap, and am feeling better… and your request doesn’t really leave me feeling anything other than panic and anxiety that you’re going to drop a bomb, so I’d rather know now
2023-04-08, 6:46 p.m. – E: I don’t mean to make assumptions, but If it has to wait so you don’t cause ripples on my visit with her, it can’t be good.
2023-04-08, 6:49 p.m. – That Robb Guy: You and I have a long history of going out for ice cream and a bike ride while both in fantastic moods, and it’s blown up on us. Even when it’s good, and can get “not good” in a hurry. Lol. So. There’s that.
2023-04-08, 6:50 p.m. – E: Can you just come pick me up and go for a drive? I’ve wanted to see you today, and you obviously have things to say. I’m not going to be able to sleep knowing there’s a conversation coming anyway, so I’m as regulated as I’m gonna get
2023-04-08, 6:54 p.m. – That Robb Guy: I can’t go anywhere right now. I’m just out of the shower, undressed as hell and sitting down to eat supper. 🙂 Can you trust me that I’m not mad, pissed off, upset or disregulated or anything? Trust me that you don’t need to worry?
2023-04-08, 6:55 p.m. – E: I guess I’ll have to.
2023-04-08, 6:55 p.m. – That Robb Guy: Would you ever let me get away with saying that to you?
2023-04-08, 6:57 p.m. – E: No, probably wouldn’t. But Asking for 15-20 minutes of my time without any context sounds like a bomb is about to get dropped, and THAT is what will ripple through the next few days of my time with her. You never want just 15-20 mins with me unless it’s bad.
So, no, I wasn’t about to message her while she was at work to say “hey, you really did some damage and fucked me up, and a quick hug in my shop and a bunch more promises you’ll break anyways didn’t fix it. I’m REALLY hurt and upset with you and I’m still trying to work through it”. That would have “activated” her and led to a colossal fight. AGAIN. It’s a no win situation. If I don’t ask ahead and make a plan, it’s a problem. If I leave it until the last second, it’s a problem. If I ask, it’s a problem. If I don’t ask, it’s a problem.
So, 6:15 Thursday night rolls around and I still haven’t heard from her. I don’t know if she’s at work or not. I have no idea what time her game starts. Yes, I was annoyed at the miscommunication AGAIN, because she won’t just text me to let me know, and I’m not sure if texting her will cause a problem. It always seems to go down this way.
So, I just go to the basketball court. I get there about 6:30. Park, and go in. I look around, watch her play ball for a bit, and after about 15 or 20 minutes, I get thirsty. I decide to go to the mall a couple blocks away and get a bottle of water and a granola bar. As I leave the parking lot, I notice a guy in a Dodge Ram truck watching me intently as I go by. He gives me the stare down. Odd. I go to the mall, and come back, the guy is not in the truck anymore. I get in, watch some more basketball, and realize suddenly I left my bank card in the machine at the store. I run back to grab it. As I leave to come back, I see Erica turning towards me on the road as I pull out of the parking lot. She sees me, looks DEAD at me, then brakes hard, changes lanes, and pulls into the lot I just pulled out of.
I am like… “What the fuck?” We’ve run into each other in the wild MANY times, and she’s never done THAT before. So, I circle around and go back, she’s nowhere to be seen in the parking lot. She’s disappeared. So, I call her phone. It rings twice and goes to voicemail. I call back. Straight to voicemail. I call back. Admittedly, more than once. I have NO idea what’s happening or why. It is VERY clear she is trying to hide from me and avoid me. I am VERY confused.
I go home. I’m a block from home, and she finally calls. She tells me she’s confused and has NO idea what’s going on. I explain what happened. She denies seeing me pull out of the lot and tells me she had to go to a store in the mall after basketball to get some stuff, and came out to see I’d called a bunch of times. She acts totally oblivious, but tells me she’s TERRIFIED of me, TERRIFIED.
We talk back and forth, she says a bunch of things that are bullshit and do not add up at all. She contradicts herself a bunch of times. Finally, I just ask her to meet me in person, and we agree to meet at a roadside pullout off the highway. I drive there (but not before stopping to get water and chocolate to help both of us regulate) and meet her in the parking lot. She gets in my truck and starts lying her face off.
She tells me she turned off when she saw me pull out of the parking lot in front of her because I called her a bunch of times and it scared her. I tell her she’s full of shit, because I didn’t call her until after I saw her run away from me.
This is what gaslighting in action looks like. This is audio pulled from my dashcam that is always running in my truck. Always. She tries to sell me some bullshit, and I don’t buy it, so she changed tack and tells a different lie. This is what happens EVERY time. She throws word salads at me and makes me feel like I’m CRAZY, and by the time we get to the end, I’m so confused at what’s real and what’s not that I question the reality of the situation. For example: She’s upset I didn’t reply to her message about the invitation to basketball, but then says she was too busy all day to check her messages or look at her phone anyways. She didn’t look at her phone, she didn’t look at whatsapp, she didn’t look at anything. So, even if I DID return the message, she wouldn’t have gotten it anyways.
That’s called “moving the goalposts”. It’s a no win situation.
Then she goes on to tell me that she didn’t tell me NOT to come because I would have been super shitty and there would have been fallout that she didn’t want to deal with. This is where the psychological component comes in. Because I didn’t reply, she didn’t message me to confirm or cancel. But she didn’t KNOW I didn’t reply, because she didn’t check her phone. So, it makes no fucking sense.
As far as I knew, based on EVERY exchange we’d had in the days prior, she was eager to have me there, eager to have dinner with me and talk it out, and there was NOTHING whatsoever to indicate that anything had changed. I walked into a fucking buzz saw, and didn’t see it coming. She said (and you can hear it in the link above) that she wasn’t scared until I started calling. She turned and ran because she was scared. But I didn’t start calling until well after she ran away. When I pointed that out to her, she changed it up. NOW she was scared and ran because she saw me come out of the mall parking lot JUST after basketball was over, and she was like “WHAT THE FUCK!?”. With all our previous exchanges in mind, and all the voicemails above, and all the calm, caring exchanges, how is my being in that parking lot so terrifying, exactly?
None of what she says makes a bit of sense. It’s all bullshit and lies. She wasn’t afraid of me, or even my reaction. She was a terrified 15 year old Jr. High girl afraid of a situation she created and she panicked.
Every fiber of my being and 47 years of experience and almost 4 years with Erica tells me, that 1 of 2 things happened, though I’ll never know for sure, because this is the way with Erica. I’m left to figure it out my own, and ALWAYS questioning reality:
A, Because I didn’t reply, she figured I was out. So she made plans with the new supply. New supply was at Basketball. He saw me, and when basketball ended, he says to Erica “I saw Robb here”. She panics because the last thing she wants is both of us in the same space. She flees in a panic.
B, Because I didn’t reply, she figured I was out. So she made plans with the new supply for after basketball. Someone tells her they saw me there, and she panics and flees. And tries to “control the situation” and play both sides down in a way that doesn’t make it uncomfortable for her.
Now. Here is the worst part. Regardless of either option, and this is the entire thing, for me… How dare you, Erica Van Driel, for framing ME as a monster who is violent and scary and dangerous and how DARE you use ME as a smokescreen to try to hide your own panic and fear and getting tangled in an awkward situation that your lies and deceptions created. Not that you’ll read this, but HOW DARE YOU make me a monster, to hide your bullshit and cover your own tracks. How fucking DARE you make me question everything about myself and who I am so that you don’t have to question anything about yourself?
Anyone that would set fire to another human being that they purported to care about just to avoid an uncomfortable situation is a monster, and just reinforces the entire first paragraph in my previous post as being absolutely accurate and factual. A woman who works with victims of violence and abuse, gaslighting someone into believing that they’re violent and dangerous as a means to insulate herself from the fallout of her own bullshit is just fucking evil. Because ANYONE will agree – a woman who is as terrified of a guy as she claims to be *might* run away in a well lit parking lot of a busy mall in the brilliant sunshine with people everywhere, but she sure as fuck wouldn’t meet him in an isolated parking lot on the side of the highway in the dark with nobody around an hour later.
That’s not fear. That’s manipulation and gaslighting.
~ R
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