199: What if your deepest friendship was your darkest fate?
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This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services. I was too ashamed to reach out and say, look, I'm confused. I don't understand what's happening. I think I'm going crazy. I don't know how to get my life on track. Please help me. From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein. You're listening to This Is Actually Happening.

Episode 199 What if your deepest friendship was your darkest fate?

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I was born into a Ukrainian Jewish family and I never knew my dad so I grew up being the only kid and I was brought up even at a really young age to be polite, to be well presented. So when I was six, mum and I left Ukraine, went to live in New Zealand and four years later we brought her parents over.

Moving to New Zealand, I do remember that I obviously had to learn a new language. I was very naive. I was always a really open and accepting child. I was really outgoing and I was bullied quite a bit at school because I didn't speak English initially and then I spoke it with an accent.

I spoke Russian at home with mum and my grandparents, so I am bilingual. And I think that sort of set me up not so much for failure, but to be a target for certain bullies and for certain kinds of people, because I was always quite trusting.

And so a lot of my primary school days were riddled with bullying, but I don't think I realized that that was what was happening until I entered high school and got my own group of friends that I still have to this day and sort of realized that, no, no, no, you know, what people were doing before was not friendly.

And the bullying took on different forms. So I would get apples thrown at me because, you know, the boys thought it was funny. I was never a particularly athletic person, so I'd always come last in running races and I wouldn't get to first base when we were playing softball. And, you know, people would laugh at me there if I said a word wrong because I didn't speak English or I was learning English at the time.

I'd get shoved, I'd get pushed over, I'd get laughed at a lot. You know, kids would steal my clothes in the changing room and hide them somewhere. And for a while, I thought that that's just how it was here. And I actually became a bully for a little while, I think.

It's quite a common cycle for kids or even adults, I suppose. If they've been bullied, they try and become stronger or I suppose they try and become like their abusers in order to keep themselves safe. And so for about half a year, I tried to be the bully and I would laugh at other kids and I would make fun of them. But it always felt so wrong.

I was born assigned female at birth, but I realized quite early on that I didn't quite fit the mold. I didn't feel feminine, I didn't feel like a girl.

In Russian, there are genders to words and obviously to people. And for about half a year of my life, when I first started to talk, I'd refer to myself in the masculine. And while I was corrected, I was never told, how dare you do that? That's horrible. It was more like, oh, you know, the kid is learning. Let them learn. And after that, you know, I started referring to myself in the feminine.

I just thought that throughout primary school and going into high school that I was just a tomboy because I didn't like wearing skirts and dresses. I didn't like putting on makeup. I didn't like playing with dolls. I had a whole array of toys. And I just assumed I was a bit weird. It wasn't until much, much later that I realized that I wasn't quote unquote just weird. It was just who I am and who I am just happened to not be feminine.

I didn't actually have a term to use such as transgender or transmasculine until I was in my early 20s.

It never occurred to me that you can be transgender from female to male. You'd always see representations from male to female. And I just assumed for some reason that it didn't go the other way, that it just didn't happen, it didn't work. And so until my early 20s, I had no term for who I was. I just knew that I didn't feel right in my body. Once I did have a term for it, it was incredibly freeing.

For a while, mum sort of shrugged it off a bit like, "Oh, you're just following trends. Okay, I guess, whatever." And so I don't think she took me particularly seriously. When I told her I was dating a girl, she wasn't happy about it. She kept asking me, you know, "Are you sure? Why are you doing this? That's so odd." And that's when I started to feel a little bit uncomfortable.

I didn't know if I could, I suppose, trust Mum to accept me or to accept this part of me.

And I think for a while, I didn't talk to her about how I was feeling. And I didn't bring up the fact that I felt weird in my body, that I didn't feel like a girl, that I hated the fact that I had breasts, that the reason that I cried every time we went to buy me a new bra wasn't because I didn't like the designs, but because I just hated how my body felt. My grandparents were quite homophobic for most of my life. I never actually came out to them for that reason.

And so I packed that down quite tightly and sealed that off because it felt like it wasn't relevant in my life. It felt like it was bringing on more problems to express who I am than to just sort of keep it sealed in and keep it quiet.

I realized I was quite unhappy, but I didn't realize it was depression because at the time, first of all, in my family, the idea of mental health didn't really exist. The idea of mental illness was just under the framework of quote-unquote insane, and so I just assumed, you know, I'm tired, I'm sad, I'm lazy, rather than I'm depressed.

But I kind of sucked it up, lived through it. And at the end of high school, I applied to film school and I got in and I was so happy. I felt like I was in my element for the first time ever. And it was at film school that I started meeting people who are a bit more like-minded.

So Abby and I met in one of our editing lectures at the beginning of the year when all the lectures were open to everybody to come and go and decide what you wanted to do. And the reason that we ended up even interacting is because some guy was hitting on her and she really didn't want to be hit on. And my instinct sort of kicked in like, oh, I better rescue this person. And so I just jumped in and I was like, hey, we met on the first day. You're Abby, right? And the guy clearly got the hint and moved off. And that's kind of how it started.

The reason that we clicked so much is because she was just so bubbly and fun and she had the best sense of humor and it was just dry and sarcastic. And I was like, yes, this is my people. Abby didn't live too far from school, but she didn't have a car. And one day I just offered to give her a lift home. And that became our routine. We would hang out together. We would sit in the car and talk for ages. We'd get coffee. And in between our classes, we would always hang out.

And it became a bit of a trio. We had another friend, James. So James and Abby and I were sort of the three. It even became sort of a school joke that, you know, "Oh, there's James, where's the other two?"

And I think that's when Abby started opening up about how she was depressed, and that was a word that I didn't quite understand at that age. I was still of the belief that things like depression make you crazy, and you know, you can't be a crazy person, no one will like you. I don't think I understood my own struggles with depression enough to even voice them to people.

So I felt that I was misunderstood by my own lack of ability to express myself. And so it was a bit of a loop. Abby was sort of, I suppose, the first quote-unquote crazy person I'd ever met. I was thinking, no, but, you know, she's so normal and she's upbeat and she's fun. And not only that, but wow, I have these same feelings. Maybe I'm depressed, but no, no, no, I can't be depressed. I can't be crazy.

I felt at once as though I was being trusted with the biggest, most important aspect of someone's personality, the deep, vulnerable core. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I was a bit worried like, ah, we're already discussing such heavy topics. Is that normal? Do people do that? And I started to feel understood. Abby and I would sit in the car and talk about how

Yes, both of us used to self-harm and she would explain to me, "Oh, when I was at the psych hospital, this is what they told me." And I was sitting there wide-eyed like, "Oh my goodness, I know someone who's been in a psych hospital and they're so normal, so maybe I'm normal too. What's going on?" I think that was the crux that she ended up hooking in on because we felt so connected with these darker aspects of ourselves.

One of the reasons that I started to self-harm was because it felt like a physical representation of what was going on. And I would cut myself in places people couldn't see.

Outside of that, I would stop myself from sleeping quite often. Later on, I realized again that that was a passive form of self-harm. I was punishing myself for getting bad grades or not presenting a certain way and my family being uncomfortable that I wore a blazer to the movies rather than a cardigan.

I stopped eating for a while because I thought that if I was skinnier, then I would be prettier and I would look nicer in dresses and I would feel more comfortable. So I was anorexic for a few months. And I think those physical representations of my betrayal and my hurt, none of them quite captured that feeling and none of them made me feel safe or better physically.

And so, surprisingly, considering I have quite an addictive personality, I left them behind and I didn't use them to cope anymore. So in 2010, we all graduated. I got a job being probably the lowest position you can have on the editing spectrum, which is digitizing videotapes. It would be overnight work. So I would go in at seven at night, finish at seven in the morning when everyone came into the office.

Abby got jobs on and off, and Abby would spend time with me at my job, and she would catch a bus or get her mum to drop her off, and then she would hang out overnight with me, and we would chat, and we would make popcorn and hang out, and we'd spend a lot of our night times talking about the deep and meaningfuls. That's when I got more of her story about how she's also a single kid of a single parent household now,

It made me feel like we had that in common as well, that, you know, oh, you have such a good bond with your mum. And it didn't occur to me that it was a really unhealthy relationship between her and her mum.

But she'd tell me a lot of things like, "Oh, sometimes mum gets really angry and her anger makes me feel uncomfortable and it gives me flashbacks to when I was in the psych ward." It started to sort of sink in for me that Abby was sicker than she was letting on and I really wanted to help her. I wanted to be a good friend. I wanted to be there for her. And I believed it. It was never an act, but I also felt a bit out of my depth.

And ironically, I felt almost as though I was failing her by not being sick enough. She was talking about all these things that I could relate to with my depression and my desire to hurt myself and with my desire to escape, but I wasn't, I suppose, living up to her level of hurt.

And I almost felt like the way that I could be a better friend was by being as depressed as she was and as hurt as she was. And ironically, that's what ended up happening. I just started to fall deeper into a depression myself. And the further I fell, the more we had in common. And the more we had in common, the closer I felt to her. And the closer I felt to her, the more we became codependent in an unhealthy way.

By the time 2010 was over, I was in a really dark place mentally, and I felt the only person who could understand me was Abby. And while there were no romantic feelings, at least not from my side, it was definitely that all-encompassing, obsessive need to be with this person, because they get you, and they won't judge you, and they love you, and if you let that go, then you'll be empty again.

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At the time, I didn't see this codependency as a bad thing. I was over the moon. I felt powerful and really happy having this person in my life. But some of my friends had started noticing that I was only talking to this person and I was not hanging out with them as much. And mom definitely noticed. Mom was immediately on edge.

And Abby had always been very polite. She'd always made the effort to talk to my grandparents even though they didn't speak English. But for some reason, mum was just on edge. She didn't like Abby and she really didn't like the fact that we were so close. And for me, I started sort of getting my hackles up a bit. You don't understand. You don't want me to be friends with her because, you know, finally I know who I am and you're stopping this from evolving.

But one of the things I did realize was a bit odd even then was that Abby would call me at all hours and ask me to come over. Even if I wasn't working overnight, I would usually be sleeping during the day. And then if I finally managed to get my sleep pattern back in order, say I had three or four days off, I would get a call at two or three in the morning from Abby saying, I'm having a panic attack. I've cut my wrist so bad. I want to die. Please come and help me.

And immediately I'd get in the car at three in the morning and drive the 40 minutes. And I would go to her house. And would you believe it? Half the time, there's no blood. There's no issue. She's hyperventilating, but that's about it. And I obviously would comfort her and I'd ask her what was going on and she would tell me. But even then, I would get a bit concerned like, oh, something doesn't seem right.

And so I would end up driving to her house several times a week at ungodly hours because she was panicking or she was suicidal or she was going to die. And mom obviously knew this was a red flag and she was trying to put a stop to it. But at that point, I had opened up a lot to Abby about how I felt smothered, how I felt that I wasn't allowed to be myself. And she'd started to get it into my head that my family wasn't good for me.

And so any sort of argument that went against Abby, I immediately saw as an affront, as, oh, you're trying to stop me from being with my best friend. Well, screw you. I'll show you. In 2011, I applied to go to university. Being a digitizer doesn't quite pay the bills. And it was also really hard, mentally draining sort of work. And I didn't want to keep doing that.

So Abby didn't have a job either, and she was sitting on the equivalent of welfare in New Zealand. And in that free time, she would follow me to university and she would meet me in the city where the campus was and she'd go to my lectures with me. I found it curious because she'd never take notes. She'd just sit there next to me. And that was a bit weird to me just because she wasn't enrolled at uni.

And I made some friends at university through the lectures we were taking in some social clubs. And they would sort of ask me like, oh, your friend is in our lecture again. It's a bit weird. All right, cool. It started to be that she would be everywhere in my life. And I started to feel a little bit uncomfortable, but I didn't know how to voice that to her.

And I didn't know how to voice that to my mum because I felt that her response would be, aha, I told you so. And that was the last thing I needed to hear then. About halfway through the year, 2011, Abby decided to return back to Australia. So she went back to Australia for about four or five months. And we were in contact a lot with Skype together. I think because we were still in such constant contact, I felt that nothing had really changed.

But this was the time when Abby started sending me a lot of presents. The term for that now, I know, is love bombing. But at the time, I just felt that she was being an amazing friend. And I think it was because while she was away, she realized that she could be losing her grip on me, and she was doing everything in her power to stop that from happening.

When Abby came back from Australia, she was obviously looking for a job. And at the time, I was working as a manager at a bookstore. And I put in a good word. And so after a while, we were working in the same place as well. So it was full-time study, part-time work, and full-time Abby. One of the friends that I made at uni was someone named Kate. And Kate and I hit it off in a similar way to how Abby and I did.

When someone moved out of the flat that Kate was living in with her friends, she immediately invited me to move in. And I was like, you know what? I'm 21. It's about time I move out of home. You and I get along fine. Great. Let's do it. And so I moved out. I moved in with Kate and two other girls.

I think Kate was an interesting foil for my relationship with Abby because while we had a similar connection and a quick bond, there wasn't that suffocating feeling that I got from Abby. And because we were flatmates and Abby would come over, Kate and Abby became friendly.

I realized quite quickly that Abby had a way of adapting herself to the people around her. And if, for instance, they liked a certain band or a certain TV series and she hadn't seen it, she would make it her life's purpose to learn that thing inside out so that they had things in common.

I thought for a long time that that's what, you know, friends do. They get interested in what you're interested in. But this was obsessive. This was instead of just, oh, yeah, you know, I'll give it a go. And if I don't like it, then I don't like it. This is the center of my universe now. I'm going to become the biggest fan of this thing ever. And then we'll bond. And so she did that with Kate a bit. They got along fine. And Kate didn't seem to think there was anything particularly odd about Abby either. Yeah.

So in 2012, Kate, Abby and I and another girl ended up moving in together in a three bedroom place. The upstairs two bedrooms were the master and the bigger bedroom. They shared a bathroom. And so the girl from work and I had those bedrooms because we had more stuff. We brought more things into the house. And Abby and Kate would have the small downstairs bedroom and the office. And it seemed that everybody got along well.

If Kate needed space, then Abby would respect it. If the girl from work needed the space, she wouldn't bother her because they were at the same work anyway, so they'd been talking to each other all day. But if it was me, she'd just walk right into my room, sit on my bed and just be there. I remember telling her, you know, hey, I just need some space. She's like, yeah, no worries. And then she'd just lie back on the bed and scroll her phone.

So there was no such thing as personal space. And it started to really bother me. But I didn't know how to express that. I didn't know how to tell Abby that by give me space, I mean literally get out of my space and let me breathe.

And there were a couple of times where I told her, I said, hey, actually, I want to be alone right now. And she would immediately pull the, oh, God, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Have I hurt you? And would immediately turn it into this big drama that it wasn't.

And obviously I'd start feeling guilty and I'd change my mind and be like, no, you know what, no worries, you can stay in my room and just be on your phone, etc. And a lot of the time she wouldn't actually be talking to me, she wouldn't be doing anything, but she would just be in my space and she wouldn't get out of my space. And then if I went downstairs to the living room, she would follow me down. If I was in the kitchen making a toasted sandwich, she'd be in the kitchen.

And it didn't occur to me till later that she was basically stalking me around my own house. And it was only when I was at uni and she was at work that I had any time to myself.

I felt that I couldn't talk to my mum. I was still scared that her response would be, I told you so. And I didn't know how to express my confusion to the girl we worked with because at work, Abby was bouncy and fun and always interacting with people and just a joy to be around. And I didn't know how to express it to Kate because she was like, oh, but you guys are so close. And it started to really overwhelm me.

I realized that I was falling into a very deep depression where I was incredibly unhappy and I was feeling absolutely helpless. I stopped eating and stopped sleeping. I stopped going into uni. Abby decided that her bedroom was too small. She wanted more space. And the master upstairs that I lived in was an enormous room. It was frankly way too huge. I genuinely did not need that much space.

And she convinced Kate that they could share the bedroom upstairs and that I could be downstairs in the small bedroom and have my computer and all my stuff in the office and basically have two spaces of my own. And I agreed. I let them do it. And what ended up happening essentially is she quite literally alienated me from everyone. So three people were living upstairs, I was living downstairs.

This is also around the time where a lot of things started happening to our house that were completely unrelated. Some people in the area had started targeting us for some reason, so they set our rubbish bins on fire, they broke into my car and stole the car battery, and at the very worst, someone broke into the house. And again, because I was the only one downstairs, I was the only one that he stole from.

And I woke up with him standing over my bed trying to get something from the bedside cabinet. And I didn't know what was happening. And obviously my waking up freaked him out. So he just ran off.

But for a long time, I couldn't move. I had no idea what had happened. And then when I finally had the courage to run upstairs, Kate was awake and shaking like a leaf and saying, oh my God, I heard someone downstairs, but I thought it was just you in the kitchen and I was overreacting. And I woke up Abby and the other girl, obviously, and we called the police. Obviously, that left me really traumatized and I couldn't sleep at all. I was terrified that someone would break into the house again.

So I wasn't sleeping. I was working. I was studying full time. And I looked like I was a drug addict. I had bags under my eyes for days. I was sallow. I was unkind to a lot of people at that time.

It got to the point where one night we had a flat meeting and Abby said, "Hey, we've noticed that you're not talking to us, you're being really antisocial, so we're going to take away your laptop." I sort of looked at her like she was completely out of her mind and looked at Kate and the other girl and I was like, "What? What do you mean?"

And Abby goes on to say, "I spoke to a psychiatrist and she said that we have to encourage you to be social and the way that we can do that is to get you away from the thing that stops you being social. So we're going to confiscate your laptop and if you need to use it for study, etc., you can do that when you're supervised." And for some reason,

The girls went along with it and I was helpless to stop them because obviously if I said no, that wasn't a word, that wasn't Abby's vocabulary. And so that's what ended up happening. They did that. And then when they realized that my phone had internet capabilities, they changed the internet password and I was stuck. I became incredibly suicidal. I became very isolated and alienated.

At the time, I was absolutely terrified because I didn't know what to do. I was numb. I was exhausted. I would be lying flat on my back, staring at the ceiling and not realize that five hours had gone past and I hadn't eaten anything and I hadn't moved.

I was very sick and in truth I needed help. And it got to the point where I would sleep in my car because I needed the space. I needed to get out. And I was too ashamed to go home. I was too ashamed to reach out to my mum who had been my rock and my best friend for so many years. I was too ashamed to reach out and say, "Look, I'm confused. I don't understand what's happening. I think I'm going crazy.

I want to kill myself. I don't know how to get my life on track. Please help me. And so I didn't. I'd drive my car to where my family house was because it was a safer area than where we were living. And I'd park it on the street a couple of blocks down so that if mom walked out to the bus stop in the morning to go to work, she wouldn't see me. And I'd sleep in the car because I didn't feel safe anywhere else.

So because of all the stuff that ended up happening in the house, we decided to break lease early and all sort of go our separate ways. I moved in back home for about two or three months because I genuinely had nowhere else to go. And in that time, I did not speak to any of them. And that's when I started bouncing from place to place, trying to find somewhere to live because I don't want to live at home. I still felt really ashamed.

And then in 2013, Kate reached out and she said, hey, I don't want to talk with you right now, but Abby's really hurting and you need to talk to her. And I sort of brushed it off. I was like, look, I really don't care. And she sort of sighed deeply and she's like, look, I don't care either, but she won't stop bugging me. So can you at least make a fucking effort? So she leaves me alone.

And I figured, well, if all it takes is for me to give her a call and tell her to fuck off so she leaves Kate alone, I can do that. And so I called her and Abby was in tears and telling me that she desperately needed to talk with me and to apologize. And so I told her, fine, but we're meeting in a public place. We're meeting in a cafe. And we did.

She told me how she was incredibly sorry, how she thought she was doing the right thing, how she didn't want to see me hurting anymore, and how because she had been so depressed and she had been so hurt before, she didn't want that for me. And I fell for it. I forgave her. I told her that I appreciate the apology and that we can slowly start rebuilding our friendship, but it would take time. She was like, right, yes, you know, thank you very much. I'll call you.

And for a while, it wasn't that stifling friendship that we had. She wouldn't incessantly call me or message me. And that made me feel better. It made me feel like she'd listened to me when I told her that I felt overwhelmed. It made me feel that she was taking something in. And while we were still on slightly shaky ground, I did feel that maybe I had rescued that friendship, even though I'd lost Kate.

So later in 2013, I get a call from Abby saying that she and her mum had been evicted from a place they were renting because the guy was going to sell the house and they were desperate looking for somewhere to live. And they'd found a house that was just down the road from the bookstore that we'd both worked at.

They really need this place. They can afford it, but they need a third person. And could I just, you know, sign on for six months? And then by that point, they'll find someone. And heck, if we end up living well together, then you can just stay. Ha ha ha. And I agreed. And it's one of the things that I still look back on and want to kick myself about.

But at the same time, that's the moment that I think I understood the concept of beaten wife syndrome and why people return to their abusers. Because I was returning to my abuser. I was signing a lease to live in her house for six months after the shit that had happened. I was doing that on my own accord.

And at the time, I remember when I signed the tenancy agreement, I felt this feeling of doom overcome me and just this weight on my shoulders of, oh, God, what have you done?

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So Abby's mom and I actually got along quite well. We never had a reason to not get along well. And later on, when Abby started opening up, she told me how her mom was really abusive and she was really mean, but they were slowly working on repairing their relationship. So moving in was interesting for me because I was prepared for it to go awfully. And it didn't. At least initially, it didn't.

So because I was working an overnight job, I was obviously, again, sleeping during the day. So I'd get home at around 7.30, 8 in the morning. Anytime that Abby's mum was home, she would wake me up and tell me that I should be doing something around the house rather than just sleeping, even though she knew that I worked overnights.

And other times it would be Abby waking me up to quote unquote, just show me something on her phone or on her computer when I had just managed to get to sleep and I had work that evening again. She was putting me in a headspace where I was exhausted and where I felt like they were stepping in on my personal space when I really didn't appreciate it.

And it got to the point where I would close my door and drag a bookcase in front of it to keep it closed. And any time they tried to get in, obviously the bookcase would stop them. And they would get affronted and be like, oh, what are you doing? How dare you? And I would use the excuse of, oh, I'm sorry. It's from the moment that guy broke into our house. I feel really unsafe. They would sort of back off for a few days and then it would start again.

And then it would be things like I would be taking a bath and just listening to some music. And Abby would knock on the door and tell me that I needed to get out of the tub and drive her somewhere. And I'd tell her, no, I am quite literally in the bathtub. I'm not getting out. Why doesn't your mother drive you? Or why don't you catch the bus? And she would keep like banging down the door, screaming that, no, you have to drive me right now.

And it got to the point where I fell into the headspace of it's easier not to argue. So I'd just do things. I wouldn't be happy about it. I wouldn't even complain about it. I'd just be silent. I was a bit like a zombie at that point. But I'd do it. I'd get out of the bath. I'd dry myself off and get dressed and drive her somewhere that was completely insignificant.

And on the way there, she would be so kind and she'd tell me, oh, go through the McDonald's drive-thru, I'll buy you some food. And it was very clear that she didn't have to get somewhere in a hurry at all. Unfortunately, in the middle of 2013, I got really sick. Turned out I had whooping cough. Even when I was sick and unable to move, you know, further than the bathroom and back without having a fit of coughing and trying to breathe.

Abby's mum would come home and ask me why the dishes weren't done, or why I hadn't mowed the lawn. And I would sort of look at her like, "I can't breathe. I'd love to do the dishes, but I physically can't." But no, she would see that as an excuse, and then supervise me while I did these things.

I wasn't eating well. I wasn't sleeping well. I was still dragging my bookcase in front of the door. And by this point, it had been over six months that I was living here. And when I suggested, hey, we had an agreement for six months, they would ask me, oh, but don't you love living here? We get along so well. But eventually it came to a head and we had another flat meeting. And it turned out to be two hours later.

of Abby's mum basically screaming at me about how I wasn't pulling my weight in the flat. Two hours of Abby's mum screaming until spit flew from her mouth and Abby looking very disappointed in me. And eventually, Abby's mum suggested, and I quote, if you don't change for us, you can move out. And I saw my lifeline and I grabbed it. I said, all right.

I'm handing in my two-week notice as of right now, and in two weeks I am moving out. And I think that took them aback a little bit because they didn't expect me to push back. I think they expected me to cower and to apologize and to claim that I'd do anything in my power to change for them, but I didn't. Abby's mum was completely just stricken. She had no idea what to do. I don't think she spoke for about two minutes because I had shocked her so much.

Abby was looking at me like a fish out of water. And then she stood up and started crying and telling me how she loves me so much. And why won't I change for her? Don't I love her enough to change for her? And I basically just looked her straight in the face and said, no, I don't. I'm moving out in two weeks.

I could see the tension in her. I could see that she was fisting her hands at her sides and she was about to pull back. And I really wanted her to hit me at that point because that meant that I could call the police and get her done for assault. And obviously her mum realised the same thing and so she told her to back off. They backed off. I took my stuff, went to my room, locked the door, pulled the bookcase over, etc.

That was a moment where I felt clear for the first time in months, where I felt this sort of manic power of getting some sort of control of my life again. And seeing their reactions made me so happy, just in a really sort of vile, unpleasant way. But it made me so happy to have shut them up for a change.

I'd had someone at work who had dealt with tenancy disagreements before, and so she helped me draft up a written contract that I was leaving the house so that it was on paper, and they needed to sign them. And I remember I left the contracts on the kitchen island just with a little post-it note saying, hi, please sign this so we can get the proceedings going, thanks.

And I remember I was in my room and I heard Abby's mum come home and then I hear her scoff and then I hear paper tearing and I realised that she's ripped up the contract and tossed it in the bin.

A lot of the things that were mine were in the shared areas. So my television and DVD player, for instance, were in the living room for everyone to use. So I ended up packing some clothes that I would need for work, my laptop, my more prized possessions, and I basically slept at mom's most of the time. And one day I come home and my key doesn't work in the lock because they've changed the locks on me.

And so I knock on the door and ask what the fuck is going on. And they tell me with a completely straight face that they're worried that I am a petty and vindictive girl and that they don't trust me to pack my things without supervision because I will vandalize their property. You know, my jaw was on the floor. I was a bit like, what? Are you serious? I'm petty and vindictive?

Technically, legally, they weren't allowed to change the locks on me because I was still legally a tenant for another two weeks. And mum kept telling me, just leave it. Don't even pack stuff. Just forget it. We can buy a new TV. We can buy new clothes. We can buy more books. Just leave. Get out and get safe. You don't have to pack this stuff. And part of me wanted to do that. But another part felt that I almost owed it to myself to prove to them that they weren't scaring me.

For a couple more days, I came by, and then I realized that it was just impossible, because they would find any excuse not to let me come in and pack things. And so I said, well, look, what do you expect me to do if you're not here? And they said, we can pack it for you. To which I snarkily replied, and what if I don't trust you not to vandalize my property?

But we sort of came to an agreement, quote-unquote, that they would pack my things and I would just pick them up on the day that the moving truck was coming. And so mum and a family friend show up at nine and the gate is locked to the house. 9:30, no one. 10:00, no one. At this point I've called several times, both Abby and her mother. They're not picking up, of course. 10:15, they slowly roll up the road towards the driveway.

And so I basically said, well, this isn't really nine, is it? And I opened the door and everything's been dumped on my bed. So my flat screen TV on top of which is half my bookcase, all my clothes, everything's in disarray. Everything's been just shoved there. So at this point, the three of us just grab rubbish bags and just put things into it.

Truck comes, everything gets picked up, I finally leave, and I hand over my keys, which are useless anyway, and sign the little piece of paper that says I've handed the keys over. And then Abby's mum hands me a bill, and instead of me getting my bond back for the place that I shared with them for more than six months, I have a bill because apparently I didn't contribute to them buying firewood, which was part of our weekly shop, so I absolutely did.

and how I had damaged my bedroom, which I hadn't. And so I basically took it away. I gave it to mum. Mum ripped it up in front of them, threw it on the floor, and basically gave them the finger as we walked out. After that, I was free. I remember actually sitting in mum's car, just shaking from adrenaline. And then I started giggling. And then it turned into just hysterical crying because I was out of there.

And I felt like I could breathe for the first time in years. I cried and cried and cried because I did not know what else to do. And as I'm crying, I'm thinking, you beat them. They didn't beat you. You're still alive. There was just this relief, just this absolute maddening relief that they couldn't touch me anymore.

I got away and this time I've got mum on my side who didn't say I told you so. I've got my friends. I've got people who love me who are going to be there to keep me away from her and her away from me. I'm thinking I'm so tired. I'm so tired, physically and mentally exhausted.

When the moving truck finally dropped all my stuff at mum's because that's where I was staying for a little bit before I moved house, I think I dropped my head to the pillow and slept for about 24 hours straight. I was exhausted. Looking back on it now with the lens of retrospect and several years of therapy, I can see that a lot of the things she was doing was basically textbook gaslighting. She was isolating me from people who loved me and people who I loved.

She was also being incredibly kind and understanding and generous to people around me so that anytime I reached out for help, I'd feel like I was crazy. And Kate and I would reconcile years later and we're still very good friends now, which I'm incredibly grateful for. But at the time, Kate and I didn't speak for a few years after this incident and it took time for both of us to heal enough to reach out. Now, I am incredibly sensitive to these sorts of relationships.

I've dropped relationships because of it. I'm incredibly cynical and jaded. I find it very hard to make friends because I'm just on edge expecting that any and every person is going to be like Abby and that if I trust them too much, they'll use it against me and that if I open up even a little, I'm not safe.

It took me years and years to realize that I've got PTSD from how Abby has treated me and that a lot of my responses are visceral.

I feel sick when someone uses certain terms of phrase. I feel sick when I smell the kind of perfume she used to wear on someone else and my immediate thought is, "Oh god, she's here. She can't see me." I find it hard to be in places where I used to feel safe because she was always into the same things I was into, so that fear stops me from doing a lot of things.

And at the time, I could feel the beginnings of that fear. And I didn't realize that they were a trauma response, that they were part of my hindbrain telling me to get out and to get safe because I didn't know what I had to get out of. I didn't know what I had to feel safe from.

I still felt bad for having these emotions, for thinking that she was a bad person because I had so many good memories to fall back on. I had all the road trips we took together and how much fun we had. I had times when I was really down and before the manipulation happened, she was the only one who'd listen and she was the only one who'd give me advice.

But the more I look back on it, the more I realize that she was trying to keep me as sick as possible so that she could be the hero in my story.

It's so frightening because she seemed so normal on the outside and so normal to everyone. And I felt at the time that I can't see her that way. I can't see her as someone who's wrong because that would invalidate the last four years of my life. That would make me a weak and pathetic person for falling for it.

Now I know that it's got nothing to do with weakness, that abusers and manipulators, they seek out people who are empathetic, they seek out people who are vulnerable, and they take advantage of that vulnerability because we're looking for some comfort, we're looking for some kind of stone to grab onto with life rushing around us.

And we'll hold on to that stone until our fingers are bloody because the alternative is being swept away by your own head. And that's so frightening. And so I know that I was vulnerable at the time, but I was not weak. And I was not pathetic. And I wasn't stupid for falling for her manipulations because they were artful. They were so artful that other people were falling for it too.

And I think that's my biggest takeaway from all of this in the end is that you can be taken advantage of by the people closest to you. You can be taken advantage of by someone you're in a relationship with or a family member. But it's so rare that people talk about abuse within friendships. She wasn't hitting me. She wasn't beating me. We weren't in a sexual relationship, so she wasn't raping me.

It never occurred to me that the level of emotional abuse that she was exuding and the control she had me under was just as debilitating and just as frightening as a physical assault because it completely cages you.

I wouldn't say she's ruined my life, but she's definitely had an impact on it that I wish she didn't. I do still really wish that I could loosen that vice grip that she still has on parts of my mind and even my sanity. But at the same time, I'm also incredibly grateful that I have this experience to go with, that I have...

this lived experience to be able to immediately spot red flags and to have the courage to reach out to my friends and say, hey, the way your partner's treating you is not okay. Having a voice is such a powerful thing. And when I didn't have one, it was just so terrifying. Having one now and giving one to others, I feel is one of the best things I can possibly do.

There's still this sort of voice that wants to come up that says, oh my God, how could you be so stupid? You should have known better. But the truth is, how do you know better until you've learned better? How do you know better until you've lived better? Today's episode featured Vel Ryder. You can find out more about Vel on Twitter and Instagram at Whiskey and Spite.

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