I had a really odd dream last night about my ex.
This morning,my neighbor Anne stopped by to see how I was doing (have been sick with a lung inflammation). She could tell that I was a bit meh, so she asked what was going on and we talked about the dream for a while. Now her sister has just left an abusive man (physical AND emotional abuse, he's a diagnosed psykopath), so she's got some knowledge about it. At some point she asked if I had a picture of him, she was curious to see what he looked like. I didn't, but I knew that his mother has a picture of herself and him as her coverpicture on Facebook.
So I got on FB to show Anne. But I did not find the picture I expected. She had uploaded a new one right before Christmas. And honestly, I was shocked.
The handsome man I dated is gone. In his place is a guy with 3 chins, cleanshaven, an almost military style haircut (his hair was half long and unruly and awesome when we dated and he had a beard), paste colored skin and a very tiiiiired look on his face. The old picture was still visible, so I showed Anne THAT too and even though she'd never seen him before, she was shocked at the difference.
So yeah, that triggered a few things and for the first time since I walked away from him a year ago, I stumbled in my healingprocess and took a tiny step sideways (can't say back, cause it didn't make me miss him or long for days gone by or anything). What I did was go to his FA page, I got curious. Not even sure why, I think the drastic change in his looks just really hit hard.
You see, on
August 28th, I started to play WoW again, bringing two friends to the game with me, so we could play and have fun together. I had missed my friends on WoW, missed playing with my guildies and hanging out on voicechat and such. On my first night back my friend S and I hopped on the voicechat, so I could introduce him to my friends and guildies and do a bit of catching up with them all. And 3 minutes after, BOOM, there was my ex on voicechat, something he never uses outside raids.
He kept commenting on everything I said, did, etc., really just zoomed in and had 100% focus on me and ONLY me that evening. I replied to his direct questions in a polite, yet chilly manner. His random commenting on everything I said or did etc. I ignored and didn't respond to. He could as well have been a piece of furniture, that is how much I interacted with him.
It got late and he had work the next day, so he had to go to bed. Before he did, he said goodnight to everyone and then added "(my name), it was REALLY good to see you again." All he got in response to that was a chilly "Thanks" from me. No "likewise" or anything else.
Over the next 1½ months he kept that up, along with making almost desperate attempts to figure out which role my friend S (who I had brught into the guild and the game when I came back) played in my life. Someone directly said to me that they were just waiting for my ex to scream out in desperation and demanding S to "Whip it out, lay it on the table so they could measure them!". That really made me chuckle, I thought it was just me bring overly 'sensitive' about my ex's curiousity, but nopes, it wasn't.
S had to move from the US with his job around the middle of October, so he's now 2 hours ahead of my time instead of 7 hours behind as before. But because of his job, he hasn't been online a lot, sadly. So I started to get a bit bored with WoW, missing running around questing and having fun with S. And I also felt that my ex was being a biiiit too 'attentive' towards me. Knowing about BPD what I know now and didn't know when I walked away, it was so easy to see through the mindgames and all his other little tricks to get my attention. I didn't reward him with much, I kept a safe barrier up between his curious questions/attempts to be 'friendly' (yes, he again pulled the 'Oh look, she and I have had a thing, I know intimate details about her body' stunts in front of ALL our mutual friends AND S several times!) that he had been throwing my way since I got back. One night it finally became too much.
It was when he got on voicechat, knowing I was there and started talking about my cats like if he had just seen them and seen me and my love for them the day before - uuuurrrrghhh!
So I politely steered the conversation towards WoW and far away from my personal life/RL life as possible. Then I proceeded to tell him that I was gonna take another break from WoW, because I was really boored without S there, the game wasn't fun when I couldn't run around with him. My ex did try his best to not say anything, but his voice said it all, he was NOT happy with me not 'settling' for HIS company ingame and wanting another man's company instead - funny, considering that S is a friend and ONLY a friend (my ex STILL doesn't know which role S fills in my life Heh!).
I haven't been online since and that is 3 weeks ago.
But because of the slip-up today, I did check the ex's FA page. And what do I find, posted in his journal on the
30th of August (TWO days after I returned to WoW!)?
THIS song, with a few words about how he basically dared people to listen to it without crying:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ3VbZz4iAsYou can look up the lyrics or listen to it, they repeats themselves and boil down to these few lines:
"But the memories always linger on oh sweet lorraine I don't wanna move on
But the memories always linger on oh sweet lorraine that's why I wrote you this song
Oh sweet Lorraine, I wish we could do all the good times over again"
THIS song, which is SO far from the kind of music HE likes and listens to (video game music, his favorite being the theme music from the Zelda games and such), but it is right up MY alley as far as 'romantic cutesy' songs go... .
Yeah, considering the date it's posted, I have no doubt that he posted it in hopes that I would see it, since I didn't tell him to go FUDGE himself or die in a fire that first night I was back on WoW.
I also found that the post he wrote when we got together, about how he had met this amazing woman and how he was 'walking on sunshine' had been deleted. Like, gone from his journal. And since S read it only a bit over 3 weeks ago, I know that my "I am bored ingame without S" likely triggered him into 'abandoning' that he had felt and written that, because he'd have understood my words as me having moved on and being with someone else. So yes, he deleted it, as if it never happened, because seeing me abandon that we HAD been together, ignoring his offers to carry my levelling char to max level, ignoring his attempts to ask personal questions and keeping him at arms length in a polite way... .I guess that was painful enough to make HIM want to forget, finally.
So yeps, I slipped up, but I do not regret it at all. FINALLY it looks like he's moving on. FINALLY I can possibly be free of the unwanted attention from him when I return to WoW. FINALLY! :D.
These things, his pictures, him posting that song when he thinks I'm back within his reach and his deletion of the 'met the love of my life' post when he realized I was even further from his graps than I was when I told him to burn in Hell, they ALL show me the very nature, the very core of how sick he really is.
I don't feel sorry for him. I feel relieved that I have been able to see through it AND counteract it this time. That it didn't get to me, other than make me raise a brow and think to myself "Really? Shouldn't you just move on, eh dude? Tisk."
And I know that this day and these AHA moments will make me take a HUGE step or two forward in my healing from now on. THAT makes me grateful that I slipped and got curious enough to check on him.
I am relieved

.