My story's a little different. I went through a relatively amicable divorce, but the fallout from people's expectations on 'how I was doing' was kind of interesting. One aspect was that I befriended a woman I met, who'd also gone through a breakup. She was a lesbian, fwiw. She's also highly, highly respected in the community, which, for lack of a better term, might be known as SJW's. Here, on the west coast of Canada, she's highly visible and well known for her efforts at organizing and attending rallies. She holds a very important and respected position at a local university. Fast forward a few years and she and I have become very good friends, but I notice - though gradually - that she's invariably angry about everything. Everything. Nothing is ever taken at face value. People are always scheming or stupid. The standard schtick with her is that "she works so hard for all these people" and nobody "respects her". Even the young women she works with and guides are 'useless' and 'incompetent'. It's constant and unceasing bitching about the world. I should add that she's incredibly charming and well spoken when interacting with people. Since she's highly regarded in the community, she's often called upon to organize or speak large grousp of people and, to the best of my knowledge, she does it very, very well. She is charming and seems - on the surface - to be remarkably personable. Up close though, she's deeply, deeply troubled. I found this out first hand. At the time of my divorce I'd gone back to university and was about 2 years into it when my wife dropped the bombshell that she was leaving me. Of course, it was with my wife's blessing that I'd left my career to start down the road to a second one, so yes, that was bitter. Though I decided to continue university, I finally dropped my courses when I found a good job doing what I used to do and moved to the other side of town. But though I'd gradually overcome the emotional toll of the divorce, I wasn't entirely satisfied with returning to a line of work I no longer wanted to do. Plus I was much further away from my friends. And that's when this woman offered to let me come and live with her, if I agreed to finish my last two semesters of university. Considering how well I knew this person and how private they were, I was very, very grateful - if a little hesitant. I asked her several times if she was sure this was something she wanted to do. From my perspective, this was an opportunity to finish school and - and this was not an insignificant part of my reasoning - I honestly thought that I could "help" her get over the deep and long-standing bitterness she had felt when her relationship with another woman had soured. I want to make clear that this was always platonic. She's gay, I'm not. But I had come to realize that dwelling on the heartbreak would simply leave me bitter and angry and cynical. And I managed to pull myself out of it. And I thought that my presence around her would help her 'snap out' of her cynicism and jadedness. I was so very wrong. Keep in mind I had to surrender my new, good job and get student loans to complete my degree. I'd be poorer - no doubt - but I would have finished the goal I'd started out to accomplish - and all with my good friends help. The every first day I was supposed to move in, she called my phone and laughingly said "there'd been a change in plans". It was, ultimately, a joke, but it wasn't funny. And my things had to stay outside her apartment for the next 8 hours - til 2 am - because she hadn't 'made the room ready'. When I finally did get into her place, I realized immediately I'd made a huge mistake. She was a hoarder. There was stuff all over the place. Cockroaches throughout her kitchen. But it was when I opened her kitchen cupboards and saw the months old dirty dishes that I knew her issues went much, much deeper. Black, green, yellow, and gray molds were all over the dishes. And it took about 3 days before the abuse really started. Every single day, this woman would assert I was stupid, disrespectful or just flat out incompetent. From "you're stinking up my house with your fish", to "you didn't fix my laptop like I asked you"... to "you need to clean the bathroom", to "you didn't clean the bathroom properly", it never stopped. She was the type of abuser who would, for example, ask you to do something, then when you asked for clarification, she's blow up and say something like, "I don't have time to go through it all, just do it." The technique here is about giving you just enough to fail. If you ask for more help, or information, you get the deep sigh and an ignorant remark about how you're not listening. It's intended to break you down, make you feel stupid, or inept, or grateful that this person is putting up with you. I know all this because from the age of 12 through 18 my mom lived with a man who'd do these exact same things to her, though he'd also abuse her physically. Here's an example from dozens I could mention.... I was so poor that I used a pay-as-you-go phone. She borrowed it to attend a rally and used up all the minutes. A few days later, she came home and had lost her keys, so she asked me to get new ones cut for her. She said she'd give me the money when she returned my keys to me the next morning - because I didn't have a cent to my name. (I would buy all my food 3 months worth at a time - like I paid my rent - and had to figure out how to stretch the rest of my money for that length of time). But I was flat broke. The next day, she left my keys on the counter. Well guess what? I cant get keys cut because I dont have any money and I can't call her at work to tell her this because - yep - she'd used up my phone minutes. When she got home that night, I knew what was coming. Sure enough, she blows up - openly wonders how stupid I possibly could be, "why didn't you tell me?" this and that (I had told her, but of course, you can't make this person believe they're in the wrong).. then she doesn't speak to me for 3 days. She and I - in the same apartment - and she literally doesn't say one word to me for 3 days.
After 4 months of this daily haranguing and abuse, my hair started to fall out. It turned white. That meant my hope of finding another job was pretty much gone; you cant be wearing hats to interviews and I sure as hell didn't want to try and explain why I had bald, patchy spots on my head. I remember another occasion when she asked me if I'd had any of the rice she'd left in the fridge after cooking it the night before. I literally froze. It's the kind of question that anyone who's ever been abused knows you can't answer properly. To anyone else, it's a harmless little question. But to me, it was as if a bomb had been strapped to my chest. If I say yes, am I going to get screamed at for eating her food? If I say no, and I going get harangued and badgered about how stupid and inept I am because I was offered some the night before and was such an ungrateful asshole that I didn't take any? I realized at that moment that I really had to get out of there. Any other 'normal' person would never understand the circumstances that make you terrified of answering what appears to be such a 'kind and caring/innocuous question', but abused people know. We know well. And when everything blows up it's your fault of course - you made them do those things, because you're so incompetent and stupid. I'm not sure that many people will ever really grasp how horrific the psychology of abuse and domination are in these contexts, but I know I do.
To finish up, I finally said enough's enough one day and told her straight up that the shit she was peddling was exactly the same stuff my moms abusive boyfriend did. She was having none of what I said and told me I had 3 days to get out. I didn't care at that point. Being homeless was more of an option than what that woman put me through. It did come to light during my stay with her that her coworkers had expressed some concern over her mental health. When she mentioned it, it was the typical "can you believe what these people are doing?" attitude she'd taken with me so many times before. By then, I'd seen all the proof I needed to know they were on to her. I told her straight up that there "wasn't much downside" to seeing someone and that she might want to see those comments as being helpful and considered rather than hurtful or full of spite. Didn't matter.
And I don't care. I haven't spoken to her since. I never will speak to her again. As far as I can tell, she's still regarded as a beautiful person and worthy mentor to hundreds of young women at our local university. Maybe the persona she's portraying to them does make her worthy of emulation, but I know that who she is as a person is pretty monstrous. I used to wonder why the relationships she'd get into with other women always went badly and were always caused by some 'awful, hideous' thing the other person had done, or her getting close to them somehow revealed a side of them that made them unworthy of her. I don't care. She needs long term, psychological counseling because she's a deeply damaged person. What's most troubling is that whatever trust the young women that surround her might have in who she is as a person is not matched by her actions as a private individual. She isn't the first person whose professed values don't match their personal lives, but she does claim a great deal of influence over young women and I'm not sure it's deserved.
How did I get over it? Time. And realizing that ultimately that period of my life is nothing but a story. It really has nothing to do with who I am as a person. Yes - I was in the story and I experienced the things that happened in it. But it might have been a hundred, or a thousand other people who did instead. Troubles with people shouldn't make me a person who's troubled by people; it can, sure, but why would I allow that?