Not so interesting title, for a reason.
This post is very long & may be triggering to those just into recovery or those suffering from Ps that are also stalkers.
I'm going to tell my story, yet it will seem familiar to those of you who have actually read it before in this very forum. That's right, I'm not as new here as it seems. I have told my story before, but got spooked as so often I do & asked the Administrators to disable my account & change my name. If you're ever afraid, please do not hesitate to contact an Administrator / Moderator, they work in lightening speed & there are little questions asked as they move quickly to protect you like you've never been protected before. I want to pause here and give my sincerest thanks and appreciation for this forum and all of the people here who make it what it is, my new home, my safe haven.
Suffice it to say, I'm going to tell it again, but not in so much detail as to give away any information to the P, should he be out there watching, which I'm certain he is.
Here goes.
Years ago during my depressed days, following some severely traumatic family events, I used to frequent an online virtual society. One that has avatars & voice chat, everything you would expect to find in real life except it all happened via the computer. This site, at the time, was highly addicting to me (and many others). In fact, at the time I had many addictions that I used to numb myself including cigarettes & alcohol. It was at this time in my life that I thought I had conquered all my "demons", I wasn't dating, wasn't even into real life relationships at all (in hindsight completely not healthy). I used this virtual game to stay hidden from the real world, my respite from repeated failed relationships & the covering I needed to disassociate with people who sooner or later I felt would hurt me, judge me or my children. I was so naive. I wore rose colored glasses. Even the most rude people were good deep down inside. I posted ad nauseum those flowery memes on facebook "It is those who don't know how to love that need love the most", my innocence not yet shattered.
This online virtual society wasn't my first rodeo, prior to that there was another that had closed down shop & all of it's members dispersed somewhere into the cyber world. Prior to that even, chat rooms galore. Looking back, it is clear that I was addicted to all of them, they consumed nearly all of my waking hours to the detriment of my children. I simply couldn't face all that had transpired in the years before. My children victims of abuse at the hands of neighborhood pedophiles while I wallowed in the guilt blaming myself for not being there & didn't know how to restore us all. A single mom all my life, I stopped going out at all, never left the house...the internet became my 'friends', my 'party'. As I said in some other post here, I was for all intents and purposes, ripe for the pickings and pick up my psychopath did. He easily scoped me out & 'befriended' me. He related his 'abusive childhood', his 'abandonment issues'. He lifted me up (seemingly) by telling me everything I wanted to hear. All of this over the span of a year. I went into his "clan" online in this seedy virtual online world. My gut feelings ignored. I knew something wasn't right. Something wasn't right with any of it. I became virtually chained to this man. Then, the worst, after one year of this less than desirable online arrangement I decided that I was "in love" with him "in real life" and took off to another state to visit him one weekend. I paid for everything of course. He ordered me to disrobe, I did without question, but very ashamed. He disdainfully had sex with me. It was not even marginally satisfying, yet I was "in love". I left, so unsure of myself, not sure if he "liked me" or not. Little did I know what a shit storm I had started.
Determined that this was a real relationship (my first in over 8 years) I embarked on a mission, yes a full blown mission to get this man to love me. What I didn't know what that I had already been ensnared, trapped even, by a psychopath. My inexplicable fall for love after almost a decade of celibacy and no relationships wasn't nearly as inexplicable as I thought. I later learned I was groomed, very successfully by the P, we'll call him Captain Dramatic. Aye Aye the Captain and I had a "love/hate" relationship...he hated me and I loved him. From the moment he realized he had me, the devaluing began. It wasn't even subtle. It was right in my face. Other women swooped in like vultures feeding on road kill. Wading through a sea of abusive language & degrading behaviors I trudged onward; I would be the one to show him "how to love a woman". I would stand tall and shoulder the burden of his anger, soothing him and coddling him like a Mommy to it's baby bear cub, the ferocious wounded animal just needed love, just love. I was so innocent, so naive. His word salad tasted so good. I lapped up every word like a puppy begging for more. I sniffed out the crumbs of his affection, so happy to be graced with just a smidgen, I figured there was more of where that came from, it would just take time to heal his wounded soul. I was so wrong. I continued my state to state escapades, beautifully submissive, humbled and determined. Little did I know I was courting a MONSTER.
The online thing was getting complicated since I now considered us "real life", the arguments a fury of finger tapping late into the night. I was a career woman, strong, able, independent although emotionally broken from my family's traumatic events. Wish that I would have seen the freight train coming, maybe I would have jumped out of the way, but nay...in a twist of dramatic fashion I might have stared straight into it determined that I would be the one persons life that that train wouldn't claim, the one person he wouldn't be able to run over.
He moved in four months later. That same day, he virtually married another woman while I sat at my computer just inches away with tears literally pouring down my face. Soon, I wouldn't even be able to speak aloud in my own home, where I paid all the bills. I would be banished to my bedroom to live out the remainder of my time with the P...the first time. During my imprisonment, I would be allowed downstairs to service the Captain of course. Feed him, F*ck him, you can imagine the rest. While I went to work all day long, he lounged around smoking cigarettes, playing online with his computer mistresses. He wouldn't work. He wouldn't clean. He hardly showered. He began begging me to sleep with other men "because that's what got him off". I refused for 9 months, but alas I caved in to the pressure, was so sick of him accusing / begging me to do it. He won, I began thinking I was crazy. I found a man I hardly knew & that night I went to his apartment and just like that I had sex with him, then I called the Captain to report. What I thought would finally be a respite from all his begging & pleading that alternated with accusing, turned out to be the worst berating I have ever experienced. I can only relate it to being sexually abused, but worse because I did it willingly. I didn't know that I had been brain washed. The Captain seemed so angry, but there was a strange glint in his eye as he told me to go take a shower, that I was nasty. He did all this on purpose, he didn't really "get off" on me sleeping with another man...he "got off" on his control over me, on his ability to sexually abuse me from afar. He was a cowardly Captain indeed.
I never lived that day down & soon every man I passed I was "f*cking" if you would believe the Ps versions of the story. What that did to me psychologically cannot be undone, as I was sexually abused numerous times as a child & this P knew that. He instinctively knew how to degrade me the most. Eventually, I got my nerve and had enough & told him he had to leave. He hunkered down and insisted he had no job, no money, how could he leave. I in turn, paid him to get out. He lingered for a week, but one day while I was at work he quietly packed and left. All of my anger over all of the things he had done to me got the best of me & I began a mini smear campaign of my own to his online loves, his 'fan base' as it were. Needless to say, there was a virtual mutiny on the bounty. I was so naive, so innocent still. I didn't know what was coming.
Through typed words he managed to put me in enough fear of my life that I went for my first restraining order. I packed up house & moved across town to an unknown location. My family was relieved. It was time to begin healing.....
Until he told me he was sorry, he didn't mean to hurt me, he was abused as a child & it was his mother that made him act this way. I was the best thing that ever happened to him and now he needed me bad, how could I ask him to move in with me then force him to leave and abandon him as now he was completely homeless and where would he go? Back to state to state escapades for me. Until the online activity again became unbearable and I discarded him...again. Except...one of those trips resulted in a pregnancy. A pregnancy from an man who doctors told would "never be able to have more children" due to his "childhood treatments for cancer". That's right, gullible me actually believed the ultimate lie that the Captain ever told. Well, maybe not the most ultimate, there was more. Suddenly I'm faced with the reality of the situation. I have to clean my act up quick. I contemplated my situation, what would I do? Do I tell him? Do I not? I waited, waited, waited. I asked GOD for a sign. Then, another email from the Captain, which in my delusions and hormonal condition thought was a sign..it was not but I was too far gone now. In a blathering of sobs I typed in an email to the Captain that I was indeed with child & my fears "I don't want to be a single mom again".
He moved in that very next day, traveling all day and stopping at my job to gain possession of the key to my new place (the one I had moved to to get away from him). Before I could even make it home from work he had scoured my entire computer, an ominous text sent to me indicated something was up. I couldn't even make it up the front steps when he was telling me he couldn't do this, it was over. But oh, so much more was to come, so very much more....
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Back into the routine I fell, yet I set some ground rules. Still so innocent actually believing he was going to abide by the new house rules, the new role change my lack of total submission any longer. That night a trip to the emergency room, as I was bleeding profusely, a miscarriage appeared imminent. Miraculously, baby hung in there tucked safe and sound unaware of the chaos brewing on the outside. The P put on a good show of concern for the length of ride to the hospital but quickly lost interest when I was taken back to see the doctor, they wanted to do an ultrasound..would the Captain like to see? Nay, he's fast asleep in the waiting room, onlookers confirm. No, I insist, wake him he'll be so excited. Grudgingly his feet scuff the hospital corridors as he makes his not so excited entrance. He's rushing the technician, she's trying to explain the image on the screen, he's not really looking. "Baby's ok?" OK GOOD as he rushes back out of the room. Ah well, maybe nervous father, maybe just sleepy? I was so innocent, so naive.
Back home again, two weeks was all it took for the flimsy foundation to crack. A man has needs, why am I not submitting when he wants sex? Come on the doctors don't know what they're talking about, my other baby's momma...(an aside in the story, he claims he raised a child from birth who is his only biological child because he got the mother pregnant before his childhood trauma of cancer but immediately after he wasn't then able to have any more children, except there's even more to this aside story that may be told on another day in another post) my other baby's momma would have sex whenever I wanted it, she also smoked the weed and my child is smart as H3LL, come on lets do it! No, I say. NO NO NO. I won't. I feel my resolve slipping, I can remotely see what's starting like one of those out of body experiences so many talk of when they know they're dead laying on the stretcher. The black poison is beginning to ooze from his figure over to mine, just a light wispy looking trail at first.
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Months go by, the Captain has landed a lucrative position in Management. Historically his claims have been that he was a business owner wrecked by a lawsuit that named him along with his underlings in an unfair charge for something that happened during the course of his regular business duties. Yet, his serious glee over landing this mediocre management position was palpable. Well, maybe there is a light at the end of this train tunnel after all? Suddenly, I'm doing his bidding at night after my full time job...I'm saddled with the paperwork from HIS job as he goes into the man-cave to do God knows what (later I find, it's more online dating activity). The filth is reaching monumental proportions. My pregnancy a distant fading moment to him, but everything to me. In the meantime I'm reading all I can find, I'm almost like a brand new mother since this child is 20 years younger than my first and 18 years younger than my second. Watching every Teen Mom episode, even though I'm double near triple their ages, it's about babies after all. DVRing the Baby Story. Absolutely ludicrous is my bliss, this miracle baby has suddenly become my lifeline. I quit drinking as soon as I knew, I had quit smoking months before. My virtual gaming days long over. Instead, I'm bracing myself to be Betty HomeMaker, cleaning long hours into the night, dutifully ironing his clothes. He had by this time moved himself into another room of the house.
Backing up to the escapades that resulted in my pregnancy, his hoovering (as I now know it's called) attempts included extreme stalking, bullying and even stealing money from me via the use of my credit card to the tune of a thousand dollars. His antics all an attempt to force me to communicate with him. It worked every time. I was so naive, so innocent.
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My pregnancy progressed uneventfully. The Captain unimpressed with the whole process, never goes to a single prenatal visit. Once, I announce I'm coming home early from work I have to go to the doctor I'm not feeling well, the P responds good because I'm hungry. I drive by, see his car parked at the house, but he cannot be bothered to come with me to the doctor has no problem waiting on me to cater to him. I comply, the warrior that I was from only months ago announcing my rules begins shrinking in stature. I am beaten at this game already. The mind games continue, the begging me to sleep with other men and accusing me of the same continues, the crazy making is amped up. I'm losing it. I'm terrified, I'm bringing a child into this world. What will I do now?
Late in the night about two months into this second move in, I creep downstairs and he has left his phone on the sofa. This phone had became a major point of contention for me, as he was obsessed with staring at it / typing into it at all hours of the day and night. I know other women's photos are stored in there, it's not that that I am concerned about. Something is looming in the distance, the black poison is rapidly growing into a fog surrounding me. The years of verbal abuse are taking their toll. I know his phone code, I've watched him enter it many times. For the first time ever, I snoop. What I find changes the course of my life.
He had been carrying on multiple affairs through this phone, one with a 14 year old child as he pretended to be much younger than he was. His ex, charging him with molestation in another text. Another woman had created a pornographic video just for him, in her mind he was her man...he was sending for her to come live in the state, going to buy her a car, give her a job, he's ready to settle down and take care of her and her children, this woman is quitting her job and planning her move to him. More women he's selling pipe dreams to. The glaring evidence in my face that there is more wrong than what I originally thought.
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I discard again. LEAVE I say. Get out. I'm reporting you to police, you pedophile!
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He's gone again. He leaves his clothes behind, he'll get them some other time he says. He don't give a shit about me he says, do whatever I want with the baby he says, get rid of it he says, give it up for adoption he says, you'll never get one red cent out of me he says, who will ever want you a single mom with 3 kids by 3 different fathers he says. He says, he says, he says.
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Then,
none of it was real he says, there was no 14 year old girl she was actually older and they were playing a role game he says, the ex? oh, she's just saying that because she is mad I started seeing one of my daughters friends who is definitely over 18 but she's just mad that's all he says. I would never put my hands on my child he says. I never meant anything I said in those texts to other women, you're my family. We have to make this work now, we have a child on the way.
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And, he's back again, just like that. More months go by, but now I'm really worn down. I can't get these phone texts I've seen out of my mind, I stay far away from him only robotically performing for him when I have to. After this move in, it's not even two weeks before it all starts again. The manipulation, the triangulation, the verbal abuse. Suddenly, my older daughter is in terrible trouble and needs to move back home can she come? Yes, of course. He makes nice nice for a few weeks, later my daughter tells me she is uncomfortable he's looking at her strange, asking her to 'party' with him, offering her little tokens of his admiration....
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It isn't long now, baby is coming. Daughter is in the hospital with me, she'll be my birth partner not he as he's no where to be found. He's busy after all, a working man. He's texting my daughter while I'm in there, not me. It's all confusing. I am a champion, pushing baby out in 3 seconds flat. I can hardly believe how easy the birth is. Baby is here, I'm in love. Captain visits 8 hours later, stays for an hour, doesn't hold baby, rather watch a movie. So disinterested. It doesn't matter, I'm in love with baby.
The grand finale, a call at 3am that same night/early morning, "Mom I'm scared"....
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"What's going on?"
"Somebody is texting my phone saying that I have to tell them the last person I slept with or else. They are saying don't tell or they will know I did." I'll refrain from typing the explicit sexual content that was texted to my daughter, as it is excessively degrading and distasteful. It is the Captain after all, he's read her diary & is demanding the details. He wants to have sex with her. he's gone after my oldest child, while I'm in the hospital recovering from the birth of her sister, his child.
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The bottom falls out of the foundation, I am in shock, I'm confused, I'm terrified, it can't be, please not this, please God no. Yes, it is...get it together your child is afraid. Tell your brother I say, go right across the hall (the P is in the basement texting to her phone). Daughter does as I say, gets my son involved. P runs out of the house. Everyone is on high alert, I'm forced to set up a defense in the hospital while my children take up fort in my house against a possible return of the P. It is a terrifying 3 days. The P steals my car from the hospital parking lot, I can't get home. My son catches wind of this recent activity (the theft) and all hell breaks loose, the shit hits the fan, all that. My son, who shouldn't have to take this on himself, enlists the neighborhood to formally and irrevocably discard the P from the house permanently. His stuff tossed out in the rain in garbage bags half haphazardly thrown on the lawn. My chest is tight, I'm not able to breath, I don't sleep...waiting my time out in the hospital wth baby.
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The P finally brings my car back and drops it off somewhere in the parking lot of the hospital, I'm forced to leave baby with a nurse (against hospital policy) and hike it on foot around the mountainous lot to retrieve my vehicle. I drive it back to the maternity ward and it's smelling like a tobacco factory in there. It's raining out. The car seat hasn't even been properly fitted & I've got to put my precious baby in this mess. Dear Lord I say, please help me. Please God Help Me. Get me home, keep us safe. Please remove him. Please.
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The stalking then begins in full force, this is the 3rd discard. Remember there are 4. I get a protective order, the cyber stalking continues relentlessly under alias names that cannot be tracked or proven. I move again. I change my number. I take every precaution. But, yet again I'll be tripped up just one more time by the Captain. After all, I didn't think I was going to get away with this did I?