Anger over ExGF is making me productive. Healthy?

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Sorry, it's a long one.

In 2009, right before the beginning of my Senior Year of High School, my folks began showing signs of mental instability. A comedy of errors prevented the situation from being rectified at all, leading to continuous outbursts at home due to parents that were much more than overprotective. By February of 2010, I was placed in a U17 psych ward for a one-month stay.

During my stay, I was "lucky" enough to meet a girl. I was seventeen, she had just turned fifteen. We hit it off instantly, did some things we shouldn't have, and quickly formed an emotional bond over our somewhat similar circumstances. The girl and I exchanged Phone/E-Mail/Facebook info when our time there was over, intent on progressing things further.

When we first began talking and seeing each other outside of the psych ward, the girl told me horrific stories of being abused at home and having few friends at school. Unlike what advice forums had told me, many of her stories about her homelife added up, and she had an attitude that was focused on getting through the predicament, rather than simply blaming every minor problem in her life on mommy & daddy. The closer we became, the more I learned about her backstory and personal life; she had been diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and each day at home was a struggle. When her infatuation with me crossed into uncomfortable territory, and her stories became more troublesome, I gave Kids Help Phone a call. They advised me to either call CPS immediately, or that I was actually dealing with someone suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder. I began archiving many of her worrisome Facebook messages in fear of her going off the deep end and me being placed at fault.

She never once pointed the finger at me, and we never fought. I am unsure how I accomplished this, although many scenarios that could have lead to a confrontation, I instead would pause the conversation and let her simply tell me how she felt and how she saw things. If she had any sort of dissociation, I calmly explained to her that everybody sees things a little differently and that everyone is still allowed to feel how they feel. This always made her feel at ease.

Despite the odds stacked against me, I made a legitimate effort to help this girl and she was very appreciative of what I'd done for her. She definitely had problems, but I stuck around because there was a tangible chemistry between us, and the circumstances that lead to us meeting in the first place were too unique to not give it a chance.

The entire time, our relationship was kept a secret from virtually everybody on both sides, including family members. No Facebook status, no pictures, not even the stereotypical vague status update hinting at something going on between us. The only evidence was in our Facebook inbox and eventually on our cell phones. I was seventeen at the time and almost every other kid I knew had some sort of fling that they kept on the D/L, so it didn't bother me. By the time winter of 2010 rolled around, she was incredibly dodgy on social media and we had ceased seeing each other, although she would occasionally sign on or call me to inform me she'd been arrested or that things generally weren't going well at home for her. We ended things shortly before Christmas, where she informed me she was a closet lesbian. That didn't add up for obvious reasons, and she cut all contact with me the next day. Not gonna lie, I was crushed. She tried to justify this saying she was messed up in the head and didn't want to be reminded of what being messed up made her lose. This didn't make sense to me.

I didn't hear from her again until the Summer of 2011, where she spent several nights sending long, wordy text messages confessing her love for me. We spent most of the summer talking things over and she seemed to have matured a bit. When I finally asked if she was interested in trying things again, she was totally caught off guard. She assured me she was a lesbian through and through, and wasn't into guys. When I pressed further, continuing to use my passive-aggressive format and allowing her to explain how she felt rather than accusing her of being hypocritical, she instead resorted to telling me more about her homelife problems, and finally cut contact after about two weeks of this, saying "I can't do this right now." Again, I was crushed.

She "recycled" me a full year later, during the Summer of 2012. She called in the middle of the night, completely sober, apologizing for all of her previous mistakes and "being stupid" as she put it. I was now nineteen and I'm sure you know how nineteen year olds think, so it wasn't long before we were alone in her room on a Saturday night, talking things over and aiming at making things work long-term. I had spent our "offseason" reading up on BPD and carefully worded questions in a way that didn't antagonize her. She had moved out, gotten a job at a popular Canadian coffee shop, and was working on a few summer school courses as she was a few credits short of graduating. While I initially was proud of her, continuing to carefully interrogate her only showed a darker side of her disorder. She cried at random, and told several stories about assaulting her dad while mentioning she enjoyed sleeping naked.

We got sideways at some point. Certain things she did were stereotypical for her disorder. Afterwards, in the middle of the night, she woke up in a panic and had no recollection of who I was for about 15-30 seconds, and dark objects were flying at my head. This thankfully subsided. I woke up to her later that morning straddling me, rambling on and on about our future; the kind of dialogue that I'm sure others on here know all too well. The difference was, I cared about her enough and had enough resources saved to actually make her fantasy work. I also had connections and experience to get her into a reputable counseling program that would significantly help her. She usually took my advice very seriously, there's no reason she wouldn't go to counseling or therapy if I suggested it to her.

It didn't work out. We barely lasted the summer. She continued to act "dodgy" (as my buddy put it), but was still dead serious on making our relationship work. This goal slowly slipped away as her messages and calls went from I miss you to my life is ruined and I'm messed up. In an effort to simply ask what was going on in a casual setting, away from the bedroom where something counterproductive could happen, I invited her out for coffee. Instead, she cut all contact with me. Crushed, I politely introduced myself to a friend of her's who constantly commented on her Facebook posts. Long story short, Hi, my name is [REDACTED], I've been seeing [REDACTED] for X amount of time, she's been sending me some weird stuff over Facebook, is everything okay with her?

The girl I messaged happened to be my now ex's sixteen year old secret online lesbian fiancee, living 3000 miles away in Oklahoma. Me, being well, a twat, I sent the girl proof of my ex and I meeting up at odd hours. This ruffled some feathers and caused my ex to momentarily unblock me, accusing me of "being a creep", not to mention throwing every lie at me in the book, from "we never dated" to "I don't even like boys" and "you're stalking me and I'll call the police if you message me again." Within five minutes, she admitted she still had my socks in her room. That screencap got sent to her internet girlfriend, too. I don't take this sort of crap from people.

My ex was absolutely dumbfounded by all of this. It was as if she'd totally forgotten who I was and what role I played in her life at the flick of a switch. Again, I draw the comparison to 50 First Dates. She was totally convinced I was some stalker who talked to her once on Facebook and fabricated an entire web of lies about us. It was bizarre to scroll up about a weeks worth of messages and see the same girl expressing a desire to book a day off work so she could come to a concert with me.

This didn't sit well with me. Sure, I could laugh about the whole thing with my buddies (which I did), but at the end of the day, I didn't feel any better, and that tipped me off that this might have affected me in a way I wasn't prepared for. But I noticed that immediately after the sudden break up, I felt a surge of energy. I was much more outgoing, much more assertive, much more social, much more willing to do things.

The girl and I continued to harass each other for almost a month after being "painted black" as you guys call it. And I'll be honest, what she said got to me. Regardless of what her mindset was, whether this was another episode of temporarily getting rid of me so she wasn't reminded of what being messed up made her lose or a complete split, I wasn't cool with how I was treated. Now, thanks to 4chan and other anonymous message boards, I knew there was an audience for crazy ex stories and mine was pretty unique. After several cool-down months, I combined many of her archived messages into one desktop-sized picture, disregarded censoring her name, and simply let the picture spread over the internet. Along with this, I submitted an article about her to TheDirty, which was posted rather quickly and to my dismay, several others also had similar run-in's with my ex. I did this because it would give her an incentive to seek help. Nobody, even a person with a complex disorder such as BPD, would want to live up to their negative reputation, and most likely do everything in their power to discredit what the internet says about them.

Unfortunately, some of the comments explained certain confidential health issues that arose in the past. Frustrated and working out of town, I contacted her younger sister to see if there was any truth to the rumors. My ex's sister was initially cold and refused to cooperate until I described several household events my ex had told me about that were obviously not meant for my ears. This seemed to register with my ex's sister, and she sent me a lengthy apology for my ex's actions, and commented that I "seemed like a really good guy." This didn't make me feel any better.

At some point after this, my ex contacted my parents in an effort to make small talk and find out where I was and what I was up to. I'm not gonna lie, she had a legitimate reason to call, as the internet garbage about her was spreading quite quickly but my mom saw things differently. In her words: "She sounds real messed up, like, don't talk to her, delete her off of everything."

A few months later, in the summer of 2013, a buddy and I were messing around on a well-known dating site with fake accounts, just to see if we could find anybody we knew on there without actually listing, you know, ourselves. By some act of Satan, my fake account was matched up with my ex, who immediately expressed a desire to meet up with the fake account. My buddy and I decided to roll with this because, let's be honest, catfishing is actually really funny and I'm a bit of a twat to begin with. Upon realizing what had transpired, my ex stormed out of the coffee shop, only to call me five minutes later and arrange for us to meet up and "talk."

I offered my ex one last chance to apologize, trying all of my old tricks to defuse her anger, and even noting that I was doing well financially and I'd be open to seriously trying to reconcile if she desperately needed a place to stay. In-between outrageous lies and claiming I ruined her life, she was incredibly docile and appeared to have nothing to say; instead simply listening to what I had to tell her and trying to comprehend it. It was painful to see her like this, as I'd spent several hours teaching her exactly how to get through these "back-against-the-wall" confrontations. I called her out on her lies and pointed out when she'd contradict herself. I switched my approach to reverse psychology and challenged my ex to hit me if she truly was that frustrated with me; this reduced her to a giggling mess and she once again fell silent when I asked why she wouldn't take me up on the offer. It's like she wanted to apologize, but was too emotionally damaged to figure out how.

Upon ending the talk with a few choice words, she missed my face and got behind my ear before running off. Instead of cutting contact with me immediately, we casually talked for about a week while I was working out of town. It was bizarre that this girl who had such an intense hatred for me was suddenly keeping me company during dull nights after work. Judging by what I've read so far on BPDF, this isn't abnormal.

Again, the anger over the entire ordeal with this girl seemed to give me a bit of a positive boost in all these other aspects. I couldn't deny that I was much more talkative, assertive, out-going, attentitive... .everything seemed like it got an increase from just being angry and frustrated over the girl. I returned home and made an active effort to reconnect with a few old friends. I stopped being thrifty with cash and treated myself to a few nice toys. I found a nice job within the city and made a good impression with my coworkers. And even when drama threatened to seriously damage the inner workings of my family, I used the anger over my ex to take the moral high ground and make a few very mature decisions that I otherwise wouldn't have made. Even simple things like playing guitar and soccer, I was just that much better at if I simply channeled how upset I was over the way my ex treated me during our demise.

And then it happened. A few months ago, my ex's dad caught wind of the internet posts about his daughter, connected the dots, and threatened to press charges against me if they weren't removed within a 24 hour period. Of course, this wasn't going to happen, and instead of cowering in fear over what appeared to be an empty threat, I put together a well constructed response, once again channeling how angry I was over the demise of the relationship and making damn sure that the only conclusion this guy could draw from what I had to say is that his daughter needs his guidance, as well as professional help more than ever, and that all I've really wanted out of this is for her to apologize to me.

And he left me alone.

But the anger is still there. And along with it comes productivity and a bunch of other benefits that I quite like. So, a few questions for BPDF, if any of you have gotten this far:

Is it healthy to channel this anger on a daily basis for long periods of time?

Is it wrong to still be concerned for my ex's well-being, and want to help get her into programs that will work?

Is there any chance this girl will apologize to me?

Why do I still sort of miss her company?

[.cup.car]

Sorry, it's a long one.

In 2009, right before the beginning of my Senior Year of High School, my folks began showing signs of mental instability. A comedy of errors prevented the situation from being rectified at all, leading to continuous outbursts at home due to parents that were much more than overprotective. By February of 2010, I was placed in a U17 psych ward for a one-month stay.

During my stay, I was "lucky" enough to meet a girl. I was seventeen, she had just turned fifteen. We hit it off instantly, did some things we shouldn't have, and quickly formed an emotional bond over our somewhat similar circumstances. The girl and I exchanged Phone/E-Mail/Facebook info when our time there was over, intent on progressing things further.

When we first began talking and seeing each other outside of the psych ward, the girl told me horrific stories of being abused at home and having few friends at school. Unlike what advice forums had told me, many of her stories about her homelife added up, and she had an attitude that was focused on getting through the predicament, rather than simply blaming every minor problem in her life on mommy & daddy. The closer we became, the more I learned about her backstory and personal life; she had been diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and each day at home was a struggle. When her infatuation with me crossed into uncomfortable territory, and her stories became more troublesome, I gave Kids Help Phone a call. They advised me to either call CPS immediately, or that I was actually dealing with someone suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder. I began archiving many of her worrisome Facebook messages in fear of her going off the deep end and me being placed at fault.

She never once pointed the finger at me, and we never fought. I am unsure how I accomplished this, although many scenarios that could have lead to a confrontation, I instead would pause the conversation and let her simply tell me how she felt and how she saw things. If she had any sort of dissociation, I calmly explained to her that everybody sees things a little differently and that everyone is still allowed to feel how they feel. This always made her feel at ease.

Despite the odds stacked against me, I made a legitimate effort to help this girl and she was very appreciative of what I'd done for her. She definitely had problems, but I stuck around because there was a tangible chemistry between us, and the circumstances that lead to us meeting in the first place were too unique to not give it a chance.

The entire time, our relationship was kept a secret from virtually everybody on both sides, including family members. No Facebook status, no pictures, not even the stereotypical vague status update hinting at something going on between us. The only evidence was in our Facebook inbox and eventually on our cell phones. I was seventeen at the time and almost every other kid I knew had some sort of fling that they kept on the D/L, so it didn't bother me. By the time winter of 2010 rolled around, she was incredibly dodgy on social media and we had ceased seeing each other, although she would occasionally sign on or call me to inform me she'd been arrested or that things generally weren't going well at home for her. We ended things shortly before Christmas, where she informed me she was a closet lesbian. That didn't add up for obvious reasons, and she cut all contact with me the next day. Not gonna lie, I was crushed. She tried to justify this saying she was messed up in the head and didn't want to be reminded of what being messed up made her lose. This didn't make sense to me.

I didn't hear from her again until the Summer of 2011, where she spent several nights sending long, wordy text messages confessing her love for me. We spent most of the summer talking things over and she seemed to have matured a bit. When I finally asked if she was interested in trying things again, she was totally caught off guard. She assured me she was a lesbian through and through, and wasn't into guys. When I pressed further, continuing to use my passive-aggressive format and allowing her to explain how she felt rather than accusing her of being hypocritical, she instead resorted to telling me more about her homelife problems, and finally cut contact after about two weeks of this, saying "I can't do this right now." Again, I was crushed.

She "recycled" me a full year later, during the Summer of 2012. She called in the middle of the night, completely sober, apologizing for all of her previous mistakes and "being stupid" as she put it. I was now nineteen and I'm sure you know how nineteen year olds think, so it wasn't long before we were alone in her room on a Saturday night, talking things over and aiming at making things work long-term. I had spent our "offseason" reading up on BPD and carefully worded questions in a way that didn't antagonize her. She had moved out, gotten a job at a popular Canadian coffee shop, and was working on a few summer school courses as she was a few credits short of graduating. While I initially was proud of her, continuing to carefully interrogate her only showed a darker side of her disorder. She cried at random, and told several stories about assaulting her dad while mentioning she enjoyed sleeping naked.

We got sideways at some point. Certain things she did were stereotypical for her disorder. Afterwards, in the middle of the night, she woke up in a panic and had no recollection of who I was for about 15-30 seconds, and dark objects were flying at my head. This thankfully subsided. I woke up to her later that morning straddling me, rambling on and on about our future; the kind of dialogue that I'm sure others on here know all too well. The difference was, I cared about her enough and had enough resources saved to actually make her fantasy work. I also had connections and experience to get her into a reputable counseling program that would significantly help her. She usually took my advice very seriously, there's no reason she wouldn't go to counseling or therapy if I suggested it to her.

It didn't work out. We barely lasted the summer. She continued to act "dodgy" (as my buddy put it), but was still dead serious on making our relationship work. This goal slowly slipped away as her messages and calls went from I miss you to my life is ruined and I'm messed up. In an effort to simply ask what was going on in a casual setting, away from the bedroom where something counterproductive could happen, I invited her out for coffee. Instead, she cut all contact with me. Crushed, I politely introduced myself to a friend of her's who constantly commented on her Facebook posts. Long story short, Hi, my name is [REDACTED], I've been seeing [REDACTED] for X amount of time, she's been sending me some weird stuff over Facebook, is everything okay with her?

The girl I messaged happened to be my now ex's sixteen year old secret online lesbian fiancee, living 3000 miles away in Oklahoma. Me, being well, a twat, I sent the girl proof of my ex and I meeting up at odd hours. This ruffled some feathers and caused my ex to momentarily unblock me, accusing me of "being a creep", not to mention throwing every lie at me in the book, from "we never dated" to "I don't even like boys" and "you're stalking me and I'll call the police if you message me again." Within five minutes, she admitted she still had my socks in her room. That screencap got sent to her internet girlfriend, too. I don't take this sort of crap from people.

My ex was absolutely dumbfounded by all of this. It was as if she'd totally forgotten who I was and what role I played in her life at the flick of a switch. Again, I draw the comparison to 50 First Dates. She was totally convinced I was some stalker who talked to her once on Facebook and fabricated an entire web of lies about us. It was bizarre to scroll up about a weeks worth of messages and see the same girl expressing a desire to book a day off work so she could come to a concert with me.

This didn't sit well with me. Sure, I could laugh about the whole thing with my buddies (which I did), but at the end of the day, I didn't feel any better, and that tipped me off that this might have affected me in a way I wasn't prepared for. But I noticed that immediately after the sudden break up, I felt a surge of energy. I was much more outgoing, much more assertive, much more social, much more willing to do things.

The girl and I continued to harass each other for almost a month after being "painted black" as you guys call it. And I'll be honest, what she said got to me. Regardless of what her mindset was, whether this was another episode of temporarily getting rid of me so she wasn't reminded of what being messed up made her lose or a complete split, I wasn't cool with how I was treated. Now, thanks to 4chan and other anonymous message boards, I knew there was an audience for crazy ex stories and mine was pretty unique. After several cool-down months, I combined many of her archived messages into one desktop-sized picture, disregarded censoring her name, and simply let the picture spread over the internet. Along with this, I submitted an article about her to TheDirty, which was posted rather quickly and to my dismay, several others also had similar run-in's with my ex. I did this because it would give her an incentive to seek help. Nobody, even a person with a complex disorder such as BPD, would want to live up to their negative reputation, and most likely do everything in their power to discredit what the internet says about them.

Unfortunately, some of the comments explained certain confidential health issues that arose in the past. Frustrated and working out of town, I contacted her younger sister to see if there was any truth to the rumors. My ex's sister was initially cold and refused to cooperate until I described several household events my ex had told me about that were obviously not meant for my ears. This seemed to register with my ex's sister, and she sent me a lengthy apology for my ex's actions, and commented that I "seemed like a really good guy." This didn't make me feel any better.

At some point after this, my ex contacted my parents in an effort to make small talk and find out where I was and what I was up to. I'm not gonna lie, she had a legitimate reason to call, as the internet garbage about her was spreading quite quickly but my mom saw things differently. In her words: "She sounds real messed up, like, don't talk to her, delete her off of everything."

A few months later, in the summer of 2013, a buddy and I were messing around on a well-known dating site with fake accounts, just to see if we could find anybody we knew on there without actually listing, you know, ourselves. By some act of Satan, my fake account was matched up with my ex, who immediately expressed a desire to meet up with the fake account. My buddy and I decided to roll with this because, let's be honest, catfishing is actually really funny and I'm a bit of a twat to begin with. Upon realizing what had transpired, my ex stormed out of the coffee shop, only to call me five minutes later and arrange for us to meet up and "talk."

I offered my ex one last chance to apologize, trying all of my old tricks to defuse her anger, and even noting that I was doing well financially and I'd be open to seriously trying to reconcile if she desperately needed a place to stay. In-between outrageous lies and claiming I ruined her life, she was incredibly docile and appeared to have nothing to say; instead simply listening to what I had to tell her and trying to comprehend it. It was painful to see her like this, as I'd spent several hours teaching her exactly how to get through these "back-against-the-wall" confrontations. I called her out on her lies and pointed out when she'd contradict herself. I switched my approach to reverse psychology and challenged my ex to hit me if she truly was that frustrated with me; this reduced her to a giggling mess and she once again fell silent when I asked why she wouldn't take me up on the offer. It's like she wanted to apologize, but was too emotionally damaged to figure out how.

Upon ending the talk with a few choice words, she missed my face and got behind my ear before running off. Instead of cutting contact with me immediately, we casually talked for about a week while I was working out of town. It was bizarre that this girl who had such an intense hatred for me was suddenly keeping me company during dull nights after work. Judging by what I've read so far on BPDF, this isn't abnormal.

Again, the anger over the entire ordeal with this girl seemed to give me a bit of a positive boost in all these other aspects. I couldn't deny that I was much more talkative, assertive, out-going, attentitive... .everything seemed like it got an increase from just being angry and frustrated over the girl. I returned home and made an active effort to reconnect with a few old friends. I stopped being thrifty with cash and treated myself to a few nice toys. I found a nice job within the city and made a good impression with my coworkers. And even when drama threatened to seriously damage the inner workings of my family, I used the anger over my ex to take the moral high ground and make a few very mature decisions that I otherwise wouldn't have made. Even simple things like playing guitar and soccer, I was just that much better at if I simply channeled how upset I was over the way my ex treated me during our demise.

And then it happened. A few months ago, my ex's dad caught wind of the internet posts about his daughter, connected the dots, and threatened to press charges against me if they weren't removed within a 24 hour period. Of course, this wasn't going to happen, and instead of cowering in fear over what appeared to be an empty threat, I put together a well constructed response, once again channeling how angry I was over the demise of the relationship and making damn sure that the only conclusion this guy could draw from what I had to say is that his daughter needs his guidance, as well as professional help more than ever, and that all I've really wanted out of this is for her to apologize to me.

And he left me alone.

But the anger is still there. And along with it comes productivity and a bunch of other benefits that I quite like. So, a few questions for BPDF, if any of you have gotten this far:

Is it healthy to channel this anger on a daily basis for long periods of time?

Is it wrong to still be concerned for my ex's well-being, and want to help get her into programs that will work?

Is there any chance this girl will apologize to me?

Why do I still sort of miss her company?

[Karmachameleon]

You win the message boards tonight!    I think it's a good thing that you are able to use the experience to make positive moves in your life.  Sounds like you have a much clearer sense of self and more self confidence than a lot of people who get involved with pwBPD.  My guess is because you are young and still have a lot of life ahead of you.  I say good for you.  You'll be fine.  It's confusing and it sucks, but if you learn from it and make better choices in the future then be thankful for the education.  Oh how I wish I had the guts to put my ex's dirty laundry on one of those websites.  But being the female in the situation and him being vindictive and violent I think it would be a mistake.  But your attitude seems way better to me than sitting around feeling sorry for yourself.  I mean, I'm no expert, but I think you are ahead of the game with your attitude.  But seriously, stop talking to her now.  You won.  Most people won't get the validation that you did.

[.cup.car]

I think it's a good thing that you are able to use the experience to make positive moves in your life.  Sounds like you have a much clearer sense of self and more self confidence than a lot of people who get involved with pwBPD.

The issue is, I've made so many positive changes, but I'm more miserable than I've ever been, and it only seems to get worse. I'm curious as to how healthy it is to continue to tap into something that makes you angry and frustrated on a daily basis - even if it's benefiting you.

Oh how I wish I had the guts to put my ex's dirty laundry on one of those websites.  But being the female in the situation and him being vindictive and violent I think it would be a mistake. 

It's always a calculated risk with that sort of thing. In my case, all it resulted in was a creepy phone call she made to my parents place, as well as an empty threat from her dad that he quickly backed down from. I think the reason nothing serious ever came of it was because the only conclusion you could draw from the facebook/text message screencaps was "this girl has problems"; even if you tried defending her merely as an exercise in playing devil's advocate, at some point you could not deny the evidence being presented you. This is most likely what made her Dad back down.

On the flip side, doing this didn't actually make me feel any better. I was assured by others that it wasn't wrong of me to leak this girl's personal struggles (with full name and pictures attached) to several high-traffic websites after how she'd treated me, but I don't feel like I gained from it either.

But your attitude seems way better to me than sitting around feeling sorry for yourself.  I mean, I'm no expert, but I think you are ahead of the game with your attitude.  But seriously, stop talking to her now.  You won.  Most people won't get the validation that you did.

I haven't talked to her since last summer; I haven't felt a need to, though like many on these forums I often wonder how she's doing - but this is pretty standard for any failed relationship I suppose. I also wonder if we were able to get back on good terms, would she seek help if I suggested it? She always took my advice very seriously and there were times it appeared to greatly help her get through her daily struggles. Maybe she's a lost cause, but there's things I've seen that weren't very borderline-like of her, and I wonder if I hold some of the missing pieces to the puzzle? In all honesty I was hoping her Dad would think outside the box and reach out to me for help after I responded to his threat with a well-constructed piece, but that's probably wishful thinking.

This whole ordeal wasn't something I wanted to win. It's nice to come out ahead of the game and get validation and all that, but it's bummy that this is how it all ended. I'm aware that how we met is very similar to the plot of It's Kind of a Funny Story - that movie becomes significantly less heartwarming if someone tells you what happens after the guy and girl get discharged, and I got to find that out firsthand. It's pretty brutal.