Colorful and hopefully optimistic but maybe hateful occasionally

[littleoc]

Man, I was so distracted by the house I'll have to go to that I didn't even notice I got triggered, or that I handled it so amazingly well that my service dog just made a boundary between us rather than removing me completely.

Friend pushed me toward her bed, which is too high for me to climb into without being picked up. Gigantic no no, because it reminds me of Pedo and his bed. (My friend was not trying to harm me, for the record. She was tipsy and she is slightly impulsive, but it was nothing sexual -- she was joking that she was going to "keep me" instead of let me go home, because she'll miss me being around the college campus. Obviously a very triggering situation for multiple reasons, but I'm totally fine.) I'll probably feel incredibly proud of that when I'm not purposely exhausting myself.




I purposely played certain music to go into a fantasy world. B isn't there anymore. It's just mine again. I'm planning on making a book out of it at some point, which is completely different from a maladaptive daydream. More effort. But it feels good to have somewhere to hide from everything stressful without having to dissociate.

It's nice that no one is constantly questioning me about if it's real, and nice that I could study this past week without juggling B's emotional problems, and it's nice to not HAVE to have my phone on Low Power Mode to survive (in case she texts suddenly and I, the fungus, need to be available).

Some of the sorority girls were telling me about weird things they pretended to believe as a kid. Aliens and ghosts and other supernatural stuff. I guess it may have been like that with B, originally? Just... she really needed to believe it for some reason?

I remember once in 2013 or 2014 trying to justify that everything WAS real, because then I wouldn't be lying. My logic was so weird that trying to recall it now literally hurts my brain. Literally, I'm in pain now. Haha.

Basically it was that, because I believed it was real (I didn't usually, but had to for survival... so I did I guess?), that meant that my mind knew it was... which somehow had to do with atoms and reality... actually, I can't quite remember... it made no sense. Because I could see them in my head, it was possible that i couldn't be making them up because ... ... the universe? I must have been desperate to get away from the massive guilt I had by then been feeling for five years.

I had felt guilt the exact second I played along with B and the supposed demon S in her head. I thought it was a game, I knew it wasn't real and I thought she was like me. Just having fun. I couldn't have known it would get so dangerously out of hand. But I felt guilty for "lying" because of past experiences, and because of my aunt M who wasn't really a good person anyway.

Past experiences being a history of me as a child wanting to involve friends in my fantasy worlds and games, and pretend they were real. But nothing I ever did lead to anything as dangerous as my relationship to B.

I was afraid to admit that last part since the very start of this diary because I thought it was proof that I am a monster after all, who lured in a lonely desperate girl. I now realize that I was manipulated, not even just by B. I just thought I was awful and literally deserved the way she was treating me, even the non-consensual sex. I wish I had known years ago that the moment I started hating her, I could have just left her. Because that was back in high school. I would have been a lot better now if I had left her.

Although to be fair I'd say I'm doing pretty well now. I got reminded of a dog assaulting pedophile and didn't scream, dissociate, or run out. Sure, I'm purposefully maladaptive daydreaming, pacing in place for several hours trying to exhaust myself and taking sleeping aids (prescribed. to be fair to myself) to make it hard to think, but I'm doing my best, and I'd say it's going shockingly well at this point

 

[Swift]

Man, I was so distracted by the house I'll have to go to that I didn't even notice I got triggered, or...

You're doing amazing, @littleoc.
I'll have to read some more to understand, but you are NOT a monster who trapped someone in a spider's web of abuse. B did that to you, and then convinced you it was your own doing. It isn't.
You dealt amazingly well with being triggered! I'm really proud of the way you handled that, if that's okay to say.
I'll read some more of your diary to get up to speed.
Wishing you well.

 

[somerandomguy]

You are working incredibly hard. I'm constantly inspired by you.

You're no monster. You're an amazing, hard working human being. I'm so glad that you realize that.

 

[littleoc]

if that's okay to say.

It is, thank you :)

You are working incredibly hard. I'm constantly inspired by you.

You're no monster. You're an ama...

Thank you both! :)

 

[Freida]

rl. I now realize that I was manipulated, not

WOW!!!! Look at you go!!!!!!! I can't even!!!! I'm so very proud of you!!!! Talk about leaps and bounds...

I think the chance to live at school is fabulous!!! You have earned it!

As for mom and her stuff? It belongs to HER. It's awful being on the outside and wondering why they just can't get it together...especially when we are working so hard to make our own lives better. But sometimes people can't help themselves . And we can't do the work for them. You are not abandoning her. You are respecting the limits she sets for herself

Maybe a good thing to talk about with your T? How hard it is to stand back and watch someone else self destruct??

 

[littleoc]

It's incredibly weird to me that I was required to know more about B than about myself, or than what she knew about herself -- and I STILL didn't realize that she was being manipulative. I mean, I DID but... didn't register it? But I do know that she was convincing herself otherwise. She didn't believe she was hurting me. She believed I was hurting her, and she was always a victim.

She acted as if i had brainwashed her and was evil. She told me she felt I was a schizophrenic psychopath.

She didn't know me at all. She doesn't know herself either. I feel weird knowing so much about her. I wish I could forget it, because it is useless. And she's frankly in need of professional assistance.

 

[littleoc]

Maybe a good thing to talk about with your T? How hard it is to stand back and watch someone else self destruct??

This seems like a good idea. :) Thank you

 

[littleoc]

I'm wondering if I should talk about the abuse I suffered while hospitalized, to help me deal with this house (it happened as a result of this house, so I should probably deal with it), or if I should talk about B some more because I'm still terrified that I brainwashed her. But I couldn't have. She came to me already saying she had a demon in her head who shapeshifted, and I thought it was a game. I didn't make her believe anything. She chose to and she got insane.

I've stopped having obsessive daydreams of B suing me for being evil and making her live a fantasy. It was daydreams in which I was defending myself and winning the case because I had real arguments for the abuses I suffered, and proof. I based it off reality and what I truly did have, because I was convinced that I would really have to defend myself. My t disagreed, so...

Although it's bothering me that she didn't block my number. I blocked her after it finally dawned on me how toxic she was -- which my friends had been telling me for four years straight and I ALWAYS agreed with them so...

I remember when she lost her mind the most. Actually, that was lots of times. I wasn't allowed to say anything against her. So instead I had to do it carefully through A, me as a fungus. Or as a shadow person, or as a bird... completely ridiculous. I was literally a slave at one point. Literally. I got commands and wasn't allowed to drink water.

But one time I cut her off. It was supposed to be for good. It felt good, to not have to keep track of her. It felt good to not be expecting texts from her. My best friend at the time A told me he would support me through the whole thing. B was bad news.

So what happened, which is something I will keep typing out despite it being the second time so far that I have (it helps me, and anyway I want able to finish it anyway last time because I got way too upset), was that on my birthday a professional said something about rape and I decided to leave the room. I don't remember leaving the room, I was a bit dissociated, but service dog helped me out, took me to the dining hall, where I freaked out for a minute and then was all fine and good. I could handle it.

But service dog was still laying on me and asking me to wait until I was fully calm to get up. Sure thing. I trust you, pupper.

So I decided what would speed this up would probably be socializing. I love socializing. So I called A to chat and ask him about his day. He turned out to be in a class and couldn't answer (though later he said that if I had told him I was having PTSD problems, he would have run down anyway, which was sweet and flattering though I told him I was perfectly fine and he didn't need to leave his class or do anything out of his way -- which was not me being modest, I was seriously okay).

So I thought, what the hell? And I called B, to catch up.

Mistake. She didn't even say hello when she picked up. She said, "What?" in the nastiest tone I'd ever heard.

I paused and regretted. It didn't occur to me to hang up -- the one time I fell asleep on the phone, I was berated for it for two or three months straight. And I knew I HAD to answer or she would keep forcing it out of me, and then complain later that I was playing my games again -- that I would force her to fish information out of me like some kind of sick game and she was obligated to play along or else I would get crazy. I believed her because I believed everything she said about me. It took my best friend A pointing out that I was very open (in an appropriate way), kind, and entitled to my privacy to realize how f*cked up this was.

But anyway, I decided to cheerfully tell B that I wasn't in class, a brief description of why -- and then I was interrupted by her angrily saying that I needed to get over it, because history is dark and I'm being childish.

(1) Our professor had told us a personal story, not a history lesson, which I had already explained to B.
(2) I have never been one to behave this way, ever. Before this point I took a class on children and women in Early Modern Europe, in which we had a small warning about 1400s Italy and Florence in particular, because a lot of rape and other crazy crimes were committed frequently toward orphaned boys, but mostly girls because they wandered the streets quite literally before orphanages were invented here, because of families just getting rid of them left and right for reasons I won't get into here, but it wasn't fair and was incredibly disturbing, and I took that class knowing this had did perfectly fine.

Also, this was my birthday, by the way. I was expecting B to tell me happy birthday, but she didn't. She asked what I wanted and acted like I was ridiculous for telling her anything.

This is a person that I memorized therapy sessions for because she needed to know every detail of my life to be my friend. When I finally told her that I didn't want to share details from therapy, because my mother showed concern that this was happening, B immediately said, "That means you talked about me." That was in 2010.

I ended up hanging up on B that day (back to 2016), if my memory serves me right. I wanted an apology that day. It was my f*cking birthday, and I wasn't even asking for help. She was saying I was, and trying to force me to tell her what was "wrong" because she "was expected to fix it." And then she served me with that, when I hadn't even asked for her assistance anyway. I was literally looking for someone to have a nice chat with.

If I hadn't called my bestie A first, I would have believed B that I had been trying to force her to help me in the past, and therefore it was my fault that Beas treating me this way. But A was shocked to hear these things, and assured me I wasn't abusing anyone. I couldn't help her reactions.

It turned out later that B was most angry because I told her I had called A first to not bother her. Which I said as defense, by the way, because B frequently accused me of trying to tell her way too much information. Which I just believed. Until my real friends told me that (1) I am entitled to my privacy and (2) I am not like our shared friend Alexis, who constantly talked about her problems. In fact, the whole image B had painted of me was not only wrong, but incredibly controlling.

Anyway, I had a good birthday and a great three months of not hearing from B. My friends were proud of me. I was proud of myself. It's hard to cut off someone who convinces you that they are the only one who will ever care about you. Who constantly tells you you are weird and gross, when your real friends can't figure out where B is coming from.

 

[littleoc]

In May or 2016, I got "lithium poisoning" (very, very, very long story short). I was fine, but not feeling great.

I was drugged up a bit for pain and such. I would be starting my summer job, as an IT tech available for public questions, in the next week. Life was fine.

That night, B texted me. Not with an apology, but with a text that said something about "when are you going to text me back" or "so you're not going to apologize for three months now" or something weird like that. I was excited to hear anything back -- in my right mind I wouldn't have replied to it.

I wouldn't have. I was so done with B. My friends were supportive of it and I had even gotten a new therapist SPECIFICALLY for putting her into my past at this point. I was ready to move on.

But drugged up me was excited -- and also acutely aware that I would not be happy with me in the morning for texting her back.

When I was upset with B I would write letters to B (not meant for her eyes) talking about how upset I was, to make me feel better. This was because B wouldn't allow me to talk with her about these things. She would get upset and throw things back at me, be generally unreasonable, gaslight me, guilt trip me (and say I was guilt tripping her), get overly angry and cry and say things like "well now you're making me feel bad," and all that. I had given up years ago -- even not liking the same music as B could be dangerous.

But drugged up me sent her one of these uncensored letters thinking, I guess, that it would provide some understanding of why I wasn't texting back, why I was upset, why I was fed up.

It backfired. B got so upset that she apparently had a panic attack in a car, her girlfriend (the ex from middle school she never got over; the one she cheated on me with) had to pull over, and her girlfriend sent me a serious of horrible texts about how awful I was, how I was making up all the abuse I had suffered because otherwise B wouldn't feel so bad.

Supposedly B didn't ask J to do that. My real friends all doubt it, despite me saying otherwise, because they say that in similar situations they had been through, that had never happened. Whether they were on the receiving end or not.

I was confused and ended up just hating myself, being sure I was the one f*cking everything up. So long story short, I VERY UNWILLINGLY became her friend again. A was so sad about it. But I thought I had ruined B's life or something, and was upset that J was trying to convince B to just cut me off. I for some reason felt the need to prove I was a good person to J, and to be there for B. I really did love B and I really was worried. I don't know. It was weird and incredibly unhealthy.

I don't even like either of them by this point, no matter how much I loved B. Isn't that insane? I should have kept on with my plan to cut them off.

 

[littleoc]

This was also when I ended up having to be a fungus for a long period of time. From May 2016 to October 2017. This was the main bit that f*cked me up. Although all of it did.

The fantasy world had been going on from 2008-October 2017. Nearly an entire decade of brainwashing and abuse. And me being CONVINCED it was my fault. Absolutely convinced.

Thinking I was a liar. Listening to B tell me she would die or kill me if it wasn't real. Listening to her call me an evil liar with nothing better to do than hurt a poor, lonely, desperate girl that was B. Listening to her tell me that I was probably crazy or schizophrenic.

I realize how it was control. She was controlling me. And it doesn't matter if she was aware of it or not. It shouldn't have happened.

I wish when she reached out to me, as my fungus self, and said she needed help, that I would have had any other option but to tell her I was there for her. I was panicking trying to figure out how to cut her off NOW, now that she was messaging a fungus that wasn't me EVERY DAY. Every. Single. Day. 49+ hours a week.

There was not an option of saying no. Not with A the fungus. That's not who s/he is. A wants to help and is a friend.

I tried to say no. I really did. I kept a distance while she explained how depressed and angry she was. I let her talk it out and said almost nothing in order to get her to realize that it was her deal. She even said, "I'm not sure talking to you [fungus] is helping." I felt bad for that. Truly. But I didn't want this to happen again. This is exactly what I was trying to escape.

She even told me she was angry at me [not fungus] because I hadn't considered that her nasty talking on my birthday call was because SHE was suffering! How dare I not consider HER when I was "always having problems" -- which I was not. If it hadn't been for my bestie and actually good friends I had made (without B's permission!) I might have fallen for this.

But I did fall for it eventually. Because even after I kept a distance, she messaged Fungus again THE VERY NEXT DAY. Which the same kinds of words, and then the next day, and then the next day. I was convinced she would stop after the week, before I had to work, before it got any more out of hand.

But no. She won. I ended up becoming her therapist, because I was getting mad and finally realized her distortions and started trying to help. I fell DIRECTLY into that trap. And I felt guilty and also like she truly needed my help anyway.

It was the worst. Guilt kept me up at night. Why didn't it keep her up at night?

I'm thankful my friends noticed that my health was declining. That they realized it was these constant messages with B, that they even guessed that B was forcing interactions that shouldn't have been happening. They have me strength to finally say, in my Fungus messaging, that I am littleoc. They were there for me that night and I wasn't alone. It was the luckiest I have ever been.




Which is great, because all the coincidences making the fungus thrive were insane. I was going to lose my mind to a fungus. I wake up some morning wondering what my life is like as a normal human being, because I can't grip it totally sometimes, because of B.

And she had the audacity to think I did something to her. Pathetic, honestly. I'm so upset I ever fell for it. That I ever thought she was my friend, when she was forcing me to do sexual acts on her or face consequences such as getting yelled at all night while she said bad things about her body and how no one loved her and she was ugly and fat enough to die. And cut out her stomach fat. That she told me I was disgusting and the shame of her existence. Why did I believe that?

Because my dad and the pedophile and bullying at school set me up for it, I guess. But that didn't give B the right to exploit it, whether she was a child at the same time I was or not.

 

[somerandomguy]

Wow. You didn't do anything to B. She did everything to you. I don't mind saying that she's a horrible person, an exploitative person, and I'm so glad she's out of your life.

 

[littleoc]

I'm glad she's out of my life's too. I'm glad I blocked her so she can't ever rope me back in like that again.

I get thankful every time my phone dies and I realize I don't have to worry about if B will call or text.

(Though I remember once when I texted her after a nightmare, how she called me to make sure I was okay. But this was after the time she told me she hated me "sometimes" because I went to college without her. Like that was my fault?)

I love that I can put my phone on Do Not Disturb and nap any time I want to without fear.

I love that my phone doesn't need to be on low power mode, that I don't have to hide the app I communicated as Fungus to her with whenever we were in public together. Because no way (1) I have nothing to "hide" and I'll never hang out with her again.

I loved this past week, being able to spend all day focused on studying without being interrupted by the 49+ hours a week of B texting me.

I love being able to be myself. I don't have to hide certain knowledge I know because Fungus knows it.

I'm just so thankful for every moment of freewill. So thankful.


She really was a piece of work. I remember being at a gas station and her COMMANDING me to go in and pay for the gas, and when I got up to do it I suddenly turned around and said that it would take me longer and more effort to do it than her because I have a service dog and would have to unbuckle her.

She got angry that I wanted to bring the service dog in. She told me just don't. Then she got angry and went in and paid for the gas (this was to HER car, by the way).

Later I "made her feel bad" because "I didn't tell her that I had thought that I saw my rapist in there" or she apparently "would have understood" suddenly and "gone in for me," but she supposedly has some kind of social anxiety. Because apparently simply saying that I wanted to bring in MY service dog if I had to do this thing I wasn't required to do wasn't enough for her -- which we all can tell that she didn't care if she was "made" to feel bad or not. She was being controlling. Apparently I needed some kind of justifying reason for HER benefit.

And no, I saw no one that looked like a rapist in that gas station. It doesn't matter why I wanted the service dog in there to do a chore I shouldn't have been required to do anyway. She just wanted to make the situation my fault instead of hers.

f*ck that noise.

Similar thing happened when my mom tried to get me to enjoy the gym once. B was with us. I got scared of the machinery (for reasons I'll get into at some other point in this trauma diary, most likely) but I was trying really hard to get comfortable. B wouldn't have it. If I stood on a treadmill trying to relax, she'd lean over and turn it on and roll her eyes when I panicked. Didn't matter if it was a trigger or not. She was annoyed I wasn't doing it with her, because she felt bad she was fat or something.

I eventually panicked and went outside and cried, because PTSD and panic. B followed me and starts berating me. Telling me they're just machines and I'm being a crybaby like when she forced me to watch a triggery movie involving someone getting killed by an exploding grill and (the part that triggered my PTSD) the pieces landing on his own mother's plate. She was always acting like I was a problem to her, and she was reminding me of this outside the gym. I felt like I was dying.

Then my mom comes out, and bless her heart not knowing that B is being so insane, asks me what's wrong.

f*cking B of all people replies, "She's scared of the machinery," in this creepy sweet voice that haunts my nightmares. My mom, being an actually caring person, showed concern and warmth and gave me a hug.

THAT'S when B came in and hugged me.

I couldn't take it. I pushed them both off (my poor mom...) and stormed to the car.

If my mom had known what really happened, she'd have asked me to not be friends with B. Although she's wouldn't have banned it. She never had strict enough rules. It got all of her kids into serious danger at one point or another. My sister almost died from it once.

Rules are important. There needs to be rules.






f*ck B. She wants to tell me she cared? The truth is she may have once, but she was never a good friend. And she didn't love me, she loved Fungus, she loved the Shadowy King that made her a Queen, she loved the entire world around me. She never got to know ME. I have friends now who did, and now that I know what that feels like, I know that B never tried to get to know me after 2010. Never.

No, even the start of our friendship was f*cked up. She was using me even sexually to fill a hole in her heart that J left IN MIDDLE SCHOOL because she couldn't deal with things like a normal person. She uses me, through and through. No one I have ever told this to has ever said otherwise, no hospital staff, no professional doctor, no professional therapist, no adult person who should have helped me when I asked for it in high school. No one has ever said, "Oh, well, she probably made you finger her because she loves you" or "she probably needed that fantasy world you have because she's amazed that you're so creative."




Yet I still feel terrible, because me the Fungus really loves her and cares for her. I really want her to get better and be an actual person, but I'm aware it might be impossible for her. I taught her to make resumes, cover letters, and how to look for jobs, and at first she was thankful but then she kept saying she was stuck and the world was against her.

Well, I tried. I really tried. And I came away from all this loving and she told me she hopes I suffer. That's because all she knows is suffering, and all I know is trying to help people and make the world a better place.

So I don't deserve this guilt, but I'm happy I have it because it means I'm nothing like you, Brandi. f*ck you.