Long post, written on mobile no less. Please be gentle.

I started dating my ex in late august 2023. I’m not gonna lie, I saw the red flags way before we started dating. We worked together and he spent the whole shift snacking or in the bathroom. The other employees honestly thought he had a medical condition but he said he just liked to hang out in there so he wouldn’t have to work.

Nonetheless, I somehow developed feelings for him. When I told him, he reacted with disgust and ignored me for weeks. We hung out for the first time after I snapped at him for ignoring the “customer service associates to the front please” alert & leaving me with a line wrapped through the store for hours on end (holiday weekend.)

After some attempts at conflict resolution (mostly from me,) he asked me to come over in the middle of the night. He lives in the neighborhood across the street from me [relevant later] so I figured i could probably get home quickly if things went south. Call me paranoid, but if I learned anything from the trauma I’ve endured, it’s that you always need to have a quick exit accessible.

When we got to his room, he showed me a hole he punched in his door because he thought his dog was gonna die. Even at the time, I thought “oh. He never learned how to process sadness and converts it into anger. That’s not healthy... But he loves his dog!” [narrator: he barely interacted with his dog.] We hung out several more times. At the time, it was completely platonic. We just watched movies and rarely talked, never touched.

A regular from our store recruited me, I switched jobs, and he asked me out through text a few days after I quit. I agreed. Even at the time, part of me knew I was falling victim to the sunk cost fallacy. Nevertheless, we dated.

I ended up injuring my shoulder making him a custom mask with lacework that was to his exact specifications and based on his favorite character. As I was his first relationship, he had no experience removing bras; so I left one at his place so he could practice. Dumb, but whatever. This is relevant later.

Around mid-September, he got fired. I was honestly surprised it took so long.

The night before my birthday, my grandma died. He insisted we go through with the birthday plans, which i paid for and he almost made us miss because he waited until I was picking him up to iron his shirt. Like he just wanted to show off that he knew how to work an iron. Also, after I got us back to his place, I wanted to order some food but was a few dollars short and asked if he could spot me. He said he was flat broke… then an hour later ordered from his favorite restaurant.

Around that time, he started dismissing any concerns i brought up, when before he at least pretended to care.

He also got jealous if I stayed home to do laundry, like he’s try to convince me to bring it over to his place and accuse me of finding someone else when I refused. My washing machine works and honestly I needed the space by that point.

The final straw was when he [well aware of my preexisting PTSD] thought it would be funny to “play angry” at me bc he noticed I was nervous about asking if he’d mind getting a half-cheese pizza going forward. Not “order me a whole new pizza,” not “why do you keep ordering food with meat when you know I don’t eat meat” not even “can I have something else to eat.” I just ate my sad soggy bread and asked if it always had to be this way.

He insisted that since I was fine picking off pepperoni the first time, I must be fine eating sad soggy bread with a hint of tomato forever. Also meat was mixed in the sauce so it was unavoidable.

I know it’s weird, but even having an accidental bite of meat in my mouth for a second makes me retch and sometimes even throw up. He was well aware of it at this point.

I have trouble advocating for myself in general, so you can guess how if affected me to be screamed at [even “jokingly”] after making what seemed like a reasonable request.

I tried to stick it out and patch things up for another week, but I couldn’t. I broke up with him the same way he started the relationship— through text. It ended October 6, 2023. So technically the very last straw was him texting me “respectfully will you please come over and suck my dick” I said no because my shoulder was [and is] still fucked up from the mask-making. He said I was “treating him like a chore” and I ended it. No regrets.

Immediately afterwards, he started spamming me with text messages; begging me to reconsider and insisting that “such small issues weren’t worth ending such a great relationship.” I told him I wouldn’t reconsider and blocked him.

Within a week, he reached out via Facebook, instagram, cashapp [requesting exorbitant amounts of money for things such as: when he paid me back for gas because I was giving him rides all the way across town, the times he ordered delivery from his favorite restaurant and got something for me, and “fuck you grow up,” because I told him to pay for the mask or give it back. It took a lot of time and skill to make, so I wasn’t letting such a jerk have it for free. I admit that was petty on my end] and somehow used his email to FaceTime me. I’m not tech-savvy and didn’t know that was a thing, but I blocked all of those as well.

From then until mid-March 2024, he used upwards of two dozen “textfree” numbers to belittle, gaslight, and otherwise attempt to manipulate me. He vacillated between love and hate, but remained creepy. He also sent me a cyberpunk music video titled “I really wanna stay at your house” and insisted it was just a cool song he wanted to share. He had never sent a song link before.

He also sent screenshots from his twitter account which revealed that his profile picture was of him wearing that damn mask… and the bra I left at his house. I told him that was creepy and gross of him and that he needed to change his profile picture to literally anything else.

He responded “if I fart you’d accuse me of intentionally contributing to half of global warming,” and told me I was “treating him like Hitler.” I don’t think Hitler was known for crossdressing, but I don’t really know enough about him to argue. After I went to sleep, he texted me “I’m changing it back because fuck you,” then “never mind but still fuck you.” Okay, whatever.

By mid-March, I had blocked over two dozen numbers and changed my own phone number; but by now it has taken a massive toll on my mental health. I ended up leaving my new job because the boss noticed I was struggling and responded by cutting my hours and demoting me. Their empathy really helped me through a dark time. /s

I also learned that he’s been going around telling people that I’m a narcissist, a stalker, abusive, and threatening to kill him??? NONE of it is true. And for some reason, now all the guys at the store we worked at started acting really friendly towards me, when before they were neutral-ish. I stopped going to that store. I can’t shake the feeling that he told them something weird about me and that’s why they all seem so interested.

Now I have a different job with irregular enough hours that i don’t have to worry as much about having an easy pattern to follow. But every few nights, I hear footsteps in the rocks outside my window.

I told my family, but they don’t seem concerned. I told the police, they brushed it off. I tried to file for a restraining order, but beurocracy breaks my brain. I bought cameras, but they suck. I don’t fall asleep until after sunrise.

I don’t know what to do. I’m in a support group but it doesn’t help. I’m trying to find a therapist but nobody’s taking new clients. I can’t shake the feeling that he’s going to kill me. I have a strong intuition, but everyone is treating me like the girl who cried stalker.