“The secret side of me I never let you see, I keep it caged but I can’t control it.” – Skillet, ‘Monster’

I woke up thinking that Easter 2011 was going to be amazing. My friends Adam and Fred had come over to help us celebrate, our tenant Lisa would be there and this would be my first holiday with my new boyfriend. Because he was always running off to Florida to celebrate all the other holidays and also because we’d only started dating in January, we’d never gotten a chance to spend one of these special days together. His mother was down in Florida with his sister and he seemed upset to be spending the day away from them, but he was okay for the most part.

Shane went out earlier in the day to buy some groceries for the dinner that he wanted to prepare for all of us. Being an Italian, food and feasting were always a big part of any celebration. When he came home, I was sitting on his computer. He seemed a bit annoyed by the fact that he had to ask me to help him unload the car but I didn’t realize how much food he had bought for that day, and I was a bit engrossed in what I was doing on the internet as well.

There were other problems that morning as well. Shane was always a bit of an introvert. He liked his house the way he kept it and he kept mostly to himself if the people surrounding him weren’t considered family. He was also pissed off because he couldn’t find the flash drive to his computer, which I was helping him look for that afternoon though he was still blaming me for having lost it himself. If I only kept house better, he wouldn’t have lost it. Also having my friends there for Easter just seemed to rile him up in ways that he would not address directly or speak of other than the occasional idle complaints.

I thought he was a bit grumpy that morning– but didn’t mention it. I didn’t want to set him off.

Instead, I occupied my time by joking around with Adam and Fred. It was rare that I got to see my friends those days. My car had stopped running a few months ago and hadn’t been fixed yet. Any hanging out that we did was with his friends. I was going through a lot at that time as well, so I mostly kept to myself. It was easy when your best friend– or who I thought of my best friend at the time– was living with you.

I was on the couch upstairs with Adam laughing over the fact that Fred had said something earlier about giving me a massage and whether that would be a full frontal massage. I had no interest in Fred but I found it kind of funny that he still wanted me to notice him, especially when I had a boyfriend now.

Fred and Lisa were downstairs watching over the food when Adam and I were upstairs joking around. Shane though, was nearby and listening. I shrugged it off though, telling him, “Don’t worry, honey, I won’t ever let him give me a full frontal.”

It was just my exhibitionist self running its mouth.

I never thought it would lead to what happened next.

Shane listened for a while, until he went into his bedroom and returned to the living room holding a rifle. He pointed it at Adam and I while we were still sitting on the couch. He looked pissed off, and my mind went absolutely blank. There was a gun pointing right at me. My father was a huge gun advocate my whole life and he’d always told me that no matter if you’re one hundred percent sure that a gun is empty, you never never NEVER point it at something that you don’t want dead.

I sat there, frozen in place while Shane said something– I didn’t even catch his words, I was too shocked at the fact that there was a gun still pointing at me. He must have realized he got the point across. What point though? What the hell was he trying to prove? That I couldn’t talk about other boys in front of him, that he wanted to kill me, that he would do anything to protect what he saw as his property.

In the past, he’d told me about the guns he kept in his house. Shane told me not to touch any of them because most of them were loaded. He’d inherited them from his father who was a bouncer at a club and took guns off of criminals regularly. Back when Shane was first explaining to me that I shouldn’t play with the guns in his house, he’d told me also that he thought he could kill someone if he needed to– he was always playing up the Italian gangster stereotype. Back then, he said he would do it to protect me or to protect his house, if that’s what it took. This didn’t seem anything like being protected though. It felt absolutely threatening.

While I was still recovering and my heart was racing in my throat, Adam look at me bewildered. “Was there just a gun pointed at me?”

“I– I don’t.. I… yes?” I tried to find words, but my mind was still racing. In the new panic attack that was coming on fast, all I knew was that I needed to get out of there. I told Adam that I didn’t feel safe in the house, that I hadn’t ever really felt safe there and now this– now he had pointed a gun at me. It wasn’t something I ever expected from anyone in my life, and yet the man who I supposedly loved had threatened my life in such a blunt and scary manner.

Adam tried to play it off, but I think he could see that I was flipping out. I was just so scared. I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I didn’t even understand why there had been a gun pointed at me in the first place. Who does something like that? How could I love someone who did something like that? I went downstairs, still shaking and when Lisa asked me why all I could say was, “Shane just pointed a gun at me. I– I think I need to get out of here.”

She looked at me shocked– but there was also a hint of understanding in her eyes. Back when me and Adam had hung out with her last, right around the time of ICON, she’d tried to tell Adam that there was a dark side to Shane and it could be scary. She’d been a tenant of his before but had left because of one of his verbal assaults. She seemed to know that he was capable of this new scary action.

I walked down to the nearby mall, rubbing my hands over my arms. I was terrified. I was hurt. I was going to be homeless again because there was no possible way I was going back into that house again. I still tried to reach out to Shane again, through txt message. We conversed a little bit back and forth that afternoon.

ME (1:21pm): and you’re not sorry at all are you? another case of me just wanting drama… because you pointed a gun at my head. if I really wanted drama I would just tell everyone what you just did and tell them how not sorry you are and then call the police. I’m tired of being afraid of my own boyfriend. I’m having panic attacks because ONCE again my life is in danger and I’m not overreacting and you’re not sorry, right? how fucking romantic!

ME (1:22pm): I should NEVER have to be afraid of my own boyfriend. EVER!

ME (1:24pm): I deserve a life where guns AREN’T pointed at my head. At the very least. I’m sorry you don’t see it that way.

ME (1:27pm): You just want a girl you can push around. You want me to trust you and say you’re not a bad guy… and yet you are the only person in my life who has ever pointed a gun at my fucking head.

ME (1:28pm): and even after all this i STILL helped you look for your flashdrive… mainly because I’m an idiot who actually gives a fuck about you.

ME (1:31pm): Oh, got nothing to say this time? you’re always so fucking full of words about how everything is my fault. go ahead, try to lay the blame on me this time.



SHANE (1:40pm): You are doing exactly what we agreed not to do. I gave you the drama you were asking for and you didn’t like it. You weren’t happy until I overreacted to the Fred thing so I gave you want you wanted. You weren’t happy until we fought so you could keep the idea alive that we can’t have a nice holiday together.

SHANE (1:40pm): You don’t want happiness so you sabotage it every chance you get. I went out, bought bagels and food for dinner for you and your friends and you don’t appreciate any of it. If you think I would hurt you shame on you. Last proof that you wanted to fight was the ‘thank god it wasn’t last year where I almost slept with AC’. Shame on you, everything is both parties fault, but by far you instigated this.

SHANE (1:47pm): I love you please come back home. The whole problem is Adam is wearing his icon badge (editor’s note: we fought at icon, it was a cursed event). I stomped it. We can work it out.



ME (2:12pm): Your reaction to me not liking the fact that you pointed a gun at my head it so say I “instigated” it? Sounds a lot like “I only punched her cause she was asking for it”. I didn’t want drama today and how dare you basically say I was asking for it. You can’t control your emotions so you blame everyone else? and about me not wanting happiness, that’s bullshit and you’re projecting your own feelings on me, because I WANT to be happy, but I want to be happy with someone who treats me good and doesn’t say “she was asking for it”.

ME (2:13pm): After your road rage attacks.. and now this?! and you still blame me.. this situation is getting far too abusive for my tastes.

ME (2:18pm): I’m tired of being afraid of you, of trying to appease you in hopes you won’t flip out, getting blamed by you, worrying about being some perfect version of a girlfriend you cooked up in your head, having panic attacks because I’m scared of what you might do, being in danger because you’re driving dangerously with me in the car or pointing a gun at my head… I am just so fucking tired of being afraid of you. and that’s not something I just made up out of the blue. It’s something I’ve been telling you for a long time now, and you’re still putting me in danger anyway. you react badly to everything and I can’t walk on eggshells anymore. I love you but I will NOT take this abuse anymore. you have a serious anger problem and it’s putting my life in danger time and again, even when I try to do everything in my power (like look for your fucking flashdrive) just to make you like me and to make you happy. I keep wondering how many times I can be put in danger before something happens, before it’s too late for apologies.



ME (2:20pm): I also keep wondering why I keep falling in love with people who continuously put their needs before my life. and no, it’s NOT Adam’s fault, and not everything is mine. It’s yours. You were the one who put my life in danger at least 4 times in the past 2 weeks.

ME (2:31pm): Oh, and also, I mention another guy and you point a gun at me? and you seriously think it was perfectly fine reacting like that? I’m tired of your jealous streak just because some bitch cheated on you a fuck ton of years ago. guess what?! that wasn’t fucking me and I’m tired of paying for her mistakes.

SHANE (2:32pm): I think this is total bullshit, it’s an excuse. You keep pushing me, because you want to be let down. I am not dangerous. I have anger issues but not violent issues. You are the one who never takes responsibility for anything you do. We won’t ever have a good relationship because you have your problems to work through, and instead of doing it you freak out and run away. I know I am not perfect but I am a good person. I like me. The things about myself I am having problems with I am working to fix. I love you, if you can’t live this way then you should move on. It will break both our hearts but we never resolve anything and here we are again in a situation that we’re both unhappy. If this was resolved correctly from the beginning, it won’t come to this.

ME (2:33pm): How can you even blame the fact that you pointed a gun at me on ME?! That is so fucking abusive and manipulative. Is the message you want me walking away with REALLY “if you just did what I wanted, I wouldn’t have to point guns at you”?! and you think this is OK?????



SHANE (2:42pm): I was making a point, you don’t like that way I do things. I don’t like the way you do things. I don’t appreciate being manipulated. I am tired of being attacked while I sugar coat my feelings. I love you, I want this to work but you need to take some responsibility for your actions and stop pushing all your problems on me. You don’t appreciate all I do for you and only focus on the qualities you don’t like about me. Again, I love you but if I can’t make you happy and you don’t like who I am and are scared of me then you should leave me. I will be heartbroken but want the best for you. However, if you want this to work you should come back home and forget about this until therapy and enjoy dinner with your friends. There is nothing more I can say. You played a stupid game, and I played a stupid game, what else is there to say. I am sorry it had to come to that, but it did.

ME (2:44pm): You have NO limits. you’re willing to do ANYTHING including putting me in danger to get what you want. How can I go back to a situation like that and look myself in the mirror?! I love you but strangely enough, I love myself and my safety more. This kind of behavior if getting more and more frequent and escalating in severity and that really scares me.



SHANE (2:45pm): I said my piece. If you fear me then leave me. I find the how thing to be nonsense.

ME (2:46pm): And the fact that I’m a drama queen because I value my life and safety is sad.

SHANE (2:46pm): I have so many people who know me and love me and know what a great guy I am. Blowing things out of proportion is sad. I have never hurt you and never would other than emotionally and that in my opinion is a two-way street.

ME (2:55pm): I worked as a social worker. Pointing a gun at someone IS covered as domestic violence because it is called “menacing 2nd degree”.





He never replied back. So I cut the conversation there.

Not once did he say he was sorry. Not once did he say it was just a joke. He only blamed me.

It was all my fault. If I didn’t overreact, if I had only gone along with the joke, if I only let the person that I loved point a gun at me without flipping out everything would have been fine then.

While I was walking around the mall, I also logged onto Facebook through my phone. I wrote a single post that I figured would be my wake up call. I needed other people to know what I was dealing with so that I would finally get it in my head that I couldn’t return there. I needed people to hold me accountable for living there because I was far too much in love to see what was best for me at that point in time. “Just had a gun pointed at my head. Check please!”

Most people told me to leave, once I started replying to people asking me who had done it. I answered every question as honestly as I could.

His friend Milo said that I was obviously insane though, because Shane was such a good person that he would never do something like that. He hadn’t been there though. He didn’t live through what I did on a regular basis. Then Lisa, who I thought would at least stay out of it if not agree with me, said that she had been there and it hadn’t happened like I said. Only problem with that was that she would say whatever she needed to in order to keep a roof over her head as well. And she’d been downstairs the whole time this situation was playing out. His friends were nothing but a bunch of liars who had not even been in the same room. They didn’t make for the best eye witnesses.

When I finally did return to the house, I asked Fred and Adam to get me the hell out of there. Shane didn’t want me coming back into his house anyway. There would be no Easter dinner, no celebration– just chaos. I would be back for my stuff at some point in the future.

We drove around with me still panicking. I didn’t really have anywhere to go. That was always Shane’s ammunition against me. Though he’d started off by giving me a “safe” place to stay, it always ended up with him crossing over boundaries while refusing to give me any respect because it was his house. I was only taking up space in it.

I called up my friend Doris finally, asking her if I could come stay at her place for a while. She agreed. When I got there, I told her some more about what happened. She said then that Shane agreed that he did point a gun at me, but that it had been empty. She said she’d told him that it was a really stupid thing to do even if it was empty. I didn’t believe him though. He’d always said the guns in his house were loaded.

I crashed at her house that night, so hurt and confused. He didn’t even want to speak to me. He didn’t want to make things better. He just wanted to blame everything on me and walk away with the excuse that it was empty or that it was just a joke. It hadn’t been a joke to me. The time for joking was absolutely over. It was time to get real.

I tried to talk to Milo because he had been my friend in the past, but nothing really came of that conversation. He was going to take Shane’s side no matter what I said, no matter what kind of proof I could show him. “Bros stuck together” or some other such nonsense. The lines were already being drawn and had I seen it, I would have said they’d already been drawn way back in the past. I was only just waking up to realize that everything I held dear those few months was held together by a man who wasn’t held together at all.

The betrayal of who I saw as mutual friends at that point stung almost as much as anything else. I very rarely opened up to people but I’d been getting out of my shell in bits and pieces throughout the past year, learning to trust again, to let people in– only to realize the sad truth that there were still fake friends in my life.

I had a gun pointed at me and they were all rushing to defend him. It was ludicrous.

Even Adam, who I’d known for years said some things to Doris about trusting what I was saying– but he had been sitting right there on the damn couch next to me. He was the one who had asked whether there was a gun pointed at him or not, because we were both so unsure. It seemed Shane’s way of manipulating people worked in his favor ten-fold that day. People were beginning to disbelieve what they saw with their own two eyes, things that they had made statements about only hours earlier.

On the other side of the coin, people were coming out of the woodwork to support me. My cousin Justin, asked me for Shane’s phone number because he was going to talk man-to-man with him. Not knowing what else to do, I gave it to him– only to have Justin call Shane up and threaten that if he touched me again Justin would make sure they never found his body. I sighed when I found that out. I should have known what he would do. Justin always liked to talk big. I never thought any of it would come to where we were now though. This whole situation was just crazy.

That night I tiptoed through Doris’s house so I could write an email to Shane. I just wanted him to get it– to finally fucking understand where I stood on so many of the things that I wasn’t talking about. There was such a fear of saying things in his house, such a fear of setting him off. I wasn’t in his house anymore though. I could say what was on my mind. And I would.





Dear Shane,

I am very sorry that things couldn’t work the way we wanted them. I could never be the type of person you wanted and I believe I was clear about that from the very beginning. I told you I didn’t think it would work from the start, but you won me over. You were there for me when no one else was. It was because of your generous support that I made it through some of the roughest patches of my life. The past six months have been a lot of laughter, but they have also been a lot of work on my side (both our sides actually). I had to deal with being homeless, almost going to jail, looking for work, dealing with my mother and getting up the nerve to go to therapy (which I am hoping to continue in the future). And you were there through all of that.

Nothing was “forced” after that and I really hope you don’t walk away with your insecurities telling you that it didn’t mean anything or you didn’t matter to me. It hurts a lot and it would not hurt so much if I didn’t love you. I wouldn’t have tried to make the house into a home if I didn’t love you and didn’t see a future with you and only you. I would not have talked about getting married with you if I didn’t love you. I feel a lot of times you are so quick to blame the past on me or make it easy and say I never loved you so it was never real. But, if I may talk to the demons in the back of your head for a minute, I want to shout it out, “IT WAS REAL. THERE WAS LOVE. WE WERE HAPPY.”



I will always remember playing with you with fond memories, whether wrestling or tickling or being in bed together or just laughing about insane things in the middle of the night. I still have the photos on my phone from our trip across the states and of our recent whipped crème fight. These were good memories and I will always think of them fondly.

This is not a ploy or a manipulation to win you back, as the rest of the letter will make clear, but I thought it should start with something real, something (I hope) we both agreed on at one point in time and something more positive than what was turned to dust in our hands.



A lot of people (Milo and Lisa in particular) have blamed me lately for the mess that has been created because I was toying with you and they are so quick to say that I never had feelings for you and I want you to know that that it complete bull made up by your friends who I KNEW never wanted us together in the first place. It’s very hard to keep something together that everyone around us wanted to destroy.

I wanted to clear something up about how Milo told me that I made you miserable because it was fun for me to do. I find this incredibly hurtful and very wrong considering how much I was trying to make you happy. I was walking around thinking of surprises to make you happy, cleaning as best I could to make you happy (the reason I couldn’t clean up every day was because my lungs hurt and made me feel very sick and tired.. I never told you how badly I was feeling, because I didn’t want to get you worried or upset). But also, I feel like I’m getting blamed for the miserable and depressed state that you have fallen in lately. Even the therapist when I had my individual session said that it wasn’t my fault. You can’t love someone out of a depression, as much as I tried with you.

In addition, I have been painstakingly asking you pointblank if I make you miserable since we split up last time (I think it was last time). I told you that it would hurt me but if you were so upset with things that you should leave. But that was when you told me that I was the best things that had ever happened to you and that you were happiest when I was around. I hate to say it, but that now feels like a lie or something you only told me when your friends are saying something completely opposite and making it out to be that you knew it was me. I asked you and that’s what you said and that’s all I had to go on because that is what was communicated to me. I am very sorry and feel ashamed if that wasn’t true or if you were only saying that to spare my feelings. I told you to go to Florida since you seemed happier there, but you wanted to stay with me. Now I hear from other sources that I was driving you insane and you were miserable and just didn’t say it. I feel a little played. And now everyone thinks it’s all my fault when I would have done anything to keep you happy if you had only voiced an opinion on that matter or told me what I could have done. You told me you were miserable because of your job status and financial reasons, and that is all I knew. I asked because I was worried about you and because I still am worried about you. I asked because I wanted answers and not lies. And you answered with what I thought was the truth. I don’t know what more I could have done.

I AM and HAVE BEEN very worried about your mood swings. Since October, when I moved in your behavior has been escalating and getting worse. You have many textbook signs, but I’ll leave that for you and your therapist, as I hope you and your friends will leave my mental health up to me and mine. Though these mood swings and the love that was there versus the anger in you was the reason I decided to stay with you for so long. You wanted to go to therapy and I tried, I really did try very hard to wait for whatever changes would occur. No one seems to understand how hard I tried to be the person that you wanted and wait for our relationship to grow and improve. Many of your friends just seem to blame me and want to hurt me emotionally now and that seems very uncalled for considering how much work I’ve put into trying so hard to make this work. Losing Lisa as a friend does not bother me as much, because I didn’t know her for that long at all; but losing Milo really does because I’ve known him for twelve years and yet now, to him I am nothing more than “manipulative” and a “bitch” and “fabricating everything to make me feel better”. You’re angry and you’re reacting rather badly and it is affecting the people around us. I am as much responsible for this because of my Facebook post, which I am sorry for and have since taken down in respect of you. Many people have told me to press charges about what happened, but again, in respect for you and what we once had, you may have my word that I will not. You kept me out of jail and so shall I; a favor repaid in full. Nor did I, even before we were dating, call them for those two times you forced your way into making out with me. I could have claimed sexual harassment that time on the bed or in the store, but I didn’t. I let it go. Three crimes, all let go, and you never once thought of yourself as thankful for that, did you? And none of your friends know how bad it’s gotten, that you’ve committed crimes against me and I’ve done NOTHING, and yet I am the only one ungrateful for what I have.

Please, trust me, nothing I have done has made me feel better and I WAS NOT looking for drama or attention. The weekend everything happened, I was actually trying to make you feel better about yourself. I didn’t understand why you were so angry until Adam explained it to me. And the fact that he had to explain it to me before you even once mentioned it and grabbed for your gun really shows how bad our communication has gotten.

You are hurting from years of wondering about the cheating ex of yours, and I on the other hand have spent those years getting the nickname ‘Vixen’ which I proudly will wear on my arm someday. I grew up in Selden House where it wasn’t uncommon to see people having puppy piles or doing whatever with their bodies. And, as such, I’m quite vocal about the things that I’ve done in the PAST. They were never comments meant to hurt you or arouse fear in you that I may do something, because when I am monogamous I am completely monogamous. I really did love you and would never have cheated on you. When I made the (drunken) comment of, “I was sleeping with AC last year this time, and thank god I’m not doing that anymore” was supposed to be taken along the lines of “thank god I’m in a good relationship NOW.” But you seem to have missed the implied message behind that. Also, with Fred, who you ALREADY said in months prior you didn’t have a problem giving me back massage, when I said, “He propositioned me and I turned him down” you seem to have missed the reason why. I am monogamous. I have always been monogamous and will always be monogamous. I was only telling you that so you could feel proud to have a girlfriend who was watching out for your best interests and who would never go with someone just because they propositioned me, because I already had the love I needed from you. I didn’t need any big displays from you and moreover didn’t want them. Not everything I do is looking for a reaction from you, sometimes I just like to say things I think are clever or will make you happy.

But then you grabbed for the infamous gun and by that point I was in full on panic attack mode. My father told me to NEVER EVER EVER EVER point a real gun, whether loaded or unloaded at anything you didn’t intend to put a hole through. As a safe gun owner my whole life that REALLY scared the SHIT out of me. I’m not making that up. The reason I made that Facebook post was because I was shaking and didn’t know what to do. I am STILL shaking, two days later, and I can’t sleep or eat. Even if you were “joking” that was a SERIOUS violation of my safety and if you were serious about the guns you kept, you would handle them with a lot more care than you displayed there. And if you actually valued my life AT ALL, you would never have put my life in jeopardy like that. Then to blame me and have all your friends blame me at the same time was really low. The only thing I have done this weekend is try to tell the truth, and yet I have had my life threatened (even if you weren’t planning on it, you could have slipped on the trigger or you could have miscalculated how many bullets were in it or SOMETHING could have happened). That is the absolutely truth. It doesn’t make you a monster, it just means you need to learn some gun safety and the number one rule if you were to take the test for your license is “Who should you point a gun at?” and the answer is always “No one. Ever.”

The fact that you never apologized and then you pulled together a lynch mob to attack me really makes me question if you knew the seriousness of what you did. And how much you really value my life. Added to that are the various times in the past week you’ve been driving around in a rage fit weaving in and out of traffic with me in the passenger seat. Even Felicia got scared by that and told you so.

Yet, in all of this, even after you committed a misdemeanor against me, I never thought of you as a monster. You have been through many things in the past that have led to you becoming who you are and I accept that. I know you and as such I accept you with your flaws and insecurities. I have seen the best and the worst of you and I still consider you a good person, who sometimes makes really bad mistakes, like the rest of us. You seem to want perfection though, in the people around you and in yourself, so even if I were to make a comment or criticism you take it as a horrible offense. I don’t mean to offend you, but criticism is part of communication. In order to work with someone else in any kind of relationship (be is family, love, business) you have to give and take and so does the other person. I am curious to hear why you don’t think I give, because from my point of view I can’t tell you anything without you either guilting yourself or getting angry and annoyed at me and pulling out the “manipulation” card (which has been pulled out so many times that it’s getting old and unfairly put into play).

I have given you everything you wanted. I have cleaned up the garage as much as I could before my lungs gave way because of the mold in there. I spent months being sick because of that but trying not to hurt you or cause you to feel guilty that your project injured me like that. I clean up for you. I surprise you with cakes and cannolis and picture frames. I let you go hang out with your friends whenever you want. I stayed and held the garage sale when you went off with Chris to his garage sale. I never ask you to cook anything for myself unless you’re cooking something for yourself as well. I’ve listened to you rant about your friends, your old job, your mother, whatever is upsetting you. You often tell your friends (and they parrot this back to me) that I don’t know what I have, and yet, so often I’m left wondering if you knew how much I loved you or how much you had that you were never grateful for—because I knew how much I had, I was closer with someone than I thought I ever would be, I had someone who was there for me and would travel hundred of miles to me to be by my side, I had someone who brought me into a social world full of more friends than I’ve had in a while, I had someone who was willing to work on our relationship even to the point of going to therapy with me—but on the other hand, I had someone who couldn’t care less if there was a gun pointed at my head because it was “funny” and won’t apologize about it and has destroyed a few of my friendships because he was angry and has been talking with them about me behind my back for months. Part of you loves me, and another part does not and I just don’t think that’s enough unless you were willing to change.

You have told them I’m a liar, but you agreed to everything I said happened when Doris called you. You told them I was manipulative, but then claim that the most manipulative thing I’ve done is “to control your emotions” which even the therapist said was the wrong way of looking at things because you have to OWN your OWN responses. You told them I’m living off of you, but I’ve worked so hard for you that I don’t even have my health anymore because the doctors said the garage damaged my lungs. I have given you everything, including the relationship that I was very reluctant to get into from the very beginning, but which I found was a very perfect version of love.



Things are not all my fault, though I have taken responsibility for them. You never have, though you say you did, I’ve never heard the words come out of your mouth. You only say that it is your house and your kingdom and we all should be lucky to be there with you. That is NO way to have a relationship. It almost seems a bit chauvinistic to me and it’s ironic that Milo is the one who is sticking up for you, since he seems to treat Helena in the same way. “Get in the kitchen and wash my dishes” is just one step away from “Get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich.” It’s sad you don’t see it that way because even with all the couples therapy we could have went through, I don’t think you would have changed from this viewpoint and I don’t think I would have ever accepted someone lording over me. Milo always told me you should be treated like my Overlord. I accepted that at the time because I was your tenant, but we should have been equals when the relationship started. I know you always hated me calling you my Overlord, but it also seemed you were only happy after we started dating when I treated you this way and acted as if your word was law. So many times you told me to just “listen to you”, when you didn’t think I could make my own decisions or lead my own life. I won’t be a subject in your kingdom. You also did the same when Lisa did that thing to her ex-fiance and you said you were so disappointed in her. You are not anyone’s parent. I signed on for a boyfriend, not an overlord.

So, now, you believe you’re right for pointing a gun at my head because I wasn’t listening to whatever nonverbal clues you were giving, while Milo is telling me I’m a bitch. Whatever. If that is what you think, I can not help it.

Though he did bring up points about what has happened in the past. He mentioned Halloween, locking myself in the bathroom while saying I was going to kill myself and ICON. I feel as long as I am saying all of this, I should explain myself on these instances and make apologies where due.



First of all, on Halloween, we weren’t dating and I didn’t owe you anything but the respect I would give a friend. You were obsessed with me then, but I’m sorry, like I said, when I’m monogamous I STAY monogamous. I had no interest in you other than a friend, yet it really seemed to me that you were trying to illicit attention from me or make me jealous or something with Zoe. I was like ‘fine, dude, whatever’ until you were using her very blatantly to get looks from my direction, which is a way you should never really treat a girl. Whether or not you were doing this purposely, I don’t know, it just looked that way from my viewpoint. At that point I took off, and you being the over-controlling caregiver, tried to find me. I think I even replied to a few people that I was going home. It shouldn’t have bothered you that much and the fact that you spent so long looking for me was your choice since I had txted and even spoke to Milo and Drake and told them I was fine. I am a big girl and even when I’m highly emotional, I can navigate the city with ease since I’ve been hanging out there since I was seventeen. I even found my way home drunk once, so being emotional or whatever wasn’t even a big challenge. Yet, Milo told me this was the reason you should have dumped me from the beginning (and, like I said, we WERE NOT even going out at that point). I never walked away to hurt you, I just couldn’t tolerate your blatant use of a girl to try to get attention from me and chose to go off and have my own party somewhere else. I honestly didn’t think it was that much of a big deal. It really seemed you were just upset that I didn’t follow you around like a love-sick puppy dog, which I have never been and wouldn’t have been at that point in time. Walking away from someone trying to get attention from me is not the same as manipulating you.

Locking the bathroom was a huge mistake and yet I’m kind of mortified that you told people my business. Locking the bathroom I agree was a bad idea. It was a bad night and I am getting help for the depression that causes that. It’s not a manipulative tactic, though I could see how others may see it was that. The truth is that I AM suicidal and yet I find myself able to keep control of the demons in my head that cause me to think in such ways. If I hurt you by that, than I am very sorry. But I never meant for it to involve you. Honestly, when I am in that frame of mind, it doesn’t feel like there’s anyone else around. If I felt like I had support I would reach out to them, but when you are so depressed you can’t see through it to anyone else. It does hurt other people and I fully accept that now. But when I am going through a full on depression mode, it’s not about hurting other people, it’s only about hurting myself. For so long there was no one around me that really gave a damn. My family didn’t care and I had few friends.. but you brought a lot of social interaction into my life, which I am grateful for, even if we couldn’t work out, there are many things I am grateful for regarding you and your influence in my life. I just got so used to no one being around that once people were I forgot that it would hurt them. I am deeply sorry for that. It doesn’t change anything, but for my own part in these matters, I accept that.

He also mentioned ICON and this fight of ours still confuses me to this day so I don’t know if I can really look it from your point of view, because it is too new for me to analyze, and for even that I am sorry. I still feel as if you blew that up in your head, with Adam’s help (at least he said he was helping fuel the flames of worry). I feel it was yet another misunderstanding. I really don’t know why you were so upset, since I specifically told you that I was going to take some time to pull myself together and I would call you when I was ready to come out again, and I told you to go off with your friends and I would call you when I was ready. Then I set my phone to silent, to have some peace to think by myself (you may not understand my need to deal with my problems by myself, but there are some problems, even in a relationship that should be addressed by one person.. and you haven’t ever really understood my depression so I didn’t think you would know why I was upset). After calling Viktor (who has been by my side through several really bad depressions over the course of nine years and has some experience in the matter and knows how to deal with me when I get that way like few others, if any, do. I was hoping that someday you would be able to too). By the time I found you again, you were in another of your rage attacks and decided to get back me for not answering your beck and call by driving dangerously and fuming about how you should go back to Florida. That’s something I had been telling you for weeks anyway. If it makes you happy, then go. Honestly, I feel like you go into these rage attacks, talk shit with your friends about me and NEVER once let me explain. And that it not fair and it does not help the communication.

If you were really all in this relationship from the beginning, you would have never told your friends everything that happened and made it sound like I was some bitch. I believe you learn a lot about what a person thinks of you while you’re out of the room. You’ve told this to Milo and you told Lisa I lied about what me and Adam witnessed the day you pulled out the gun and I’ve overheard your discussions about me with Chris when he’s over. It doesn’t seem like you ever wanted this relationship to work from the beginning if this is what you said when I was out of the room. And in that I feel cheated and kinda set up to take a fall. It feels like you were building an army to talk you out of it because you didn’t want to get too happy while at the same time cutting off any of my own support so I wouldn’t feel like I could leave so you would always feel like I needed you. I needed you for other things, just to love me, and if you wanted out you could have chosen to do so without raising a lynch mob so you never had to take the road you did. I also feel as if you were setting up an environment where I would never be welcomed unless I did exactly as you said. And that in itself is very manipulative. Like that time you told me all my friends would leave me if I wasn’t nice to you (because unbeknownst to me you were talking to all of them privately). It doesn’t seem like such a joke anymore. And I only posted the truth on Facebook after I heard you talking to Milo when he was over on Easter. If you weren’t going to keep to your promise of not involving your friends, then I wasn’t either. But two wrongs don’t make a right and I am sorry.

This isn’t me begging for a second chance, like Milo thought I would do just so you could laugh in my face. You are by no means a horrible person, but I feel like you do a lot of harm to my emotional state and social status, whether or not you mean to. I have tried to give you everything that I had and I truly do love you, but the fact of the matter is that your insecurities and my problems have won in this case. I am trying to change, but depression can take years to cure and feeling like I have social support when I haven’t had it for twenty years is not something I can magically fix overnight. Especially when so much of my social support, as I’ve been telling you, apparently talks behind my back and doesn’t want us together. On your side, I feel like you will always let your anger built up from your ex and your job get the better of you. You can be an amazing person when you’re in the right mood, but when you’re angry, and this has been happening a lot, you don’t seem to know any limits. Pulling a gun on me, even if you said you were “joking” is not only crossing the line, it is peeing on the line and then running a mile more past it. And the fact that you don’t see this is heartbreaking because we would never be able to have a healthy relationship unless you saw your actions for what they were and stopped hiding behind the fact that you think people are controlling your emotions, or hiding behind your friends, or hiding behind your insecurities or the roles you think each gender should play. I was really hoping that going to therapy may help you with this (as well as help me with my own depression). You are not a horrible person, but when you are in an angry state of mind I have no idea how far you will take it. The fact that you pulled a weapon on me and are now blaming the victim and trying to minimize the seriousness of this “joke” really scare me. I love you and I have loved our time together and no matter what anyone says I do believe we could have lasted if we didn’t have so many hangups.

I have never known anyone like you who just seems to get the silly things I do so well. It’s like we have our own language and whenever we are together it feels like we’re in our own little world, but this was not enough to cure me from depression or to get you to care about me in a way that didn’t involve trying to sabotage my friendships, place the past aside and love me in the same way that I loved you. And that is sad because in one sense, we did have it all for a short while, and we were able to enjoy life five minutes at a time.



And all it would have taken from you was an apology. And you couldn’t even give me that much.

Your insecurities have built up over the years, and I accept that. I wasn’t going to break up with you that night. I had promised. I came back to talk to you. I was washing cupcake frosting off my hands and didn’t want the ring to fall down the drain, so I placed it to the side.. then I started playing with the rings from the cupcakes. At no time during all that did I think “I should break up with Shane”. But then you came home with all your insecurities, saw the ring and decided I was going to break up with you from the simple innocent fact that it was lying near the sink. And you went into a rage about how you were going to break up with me. That was when I decided that you would always let your insecurities win. I don’t know who this girl from the past was but she really screwed with your head and I find that really sad because she wins. She always wins. I find someone really great and some girl who probably isn’t even around anymore still wins him. And now we are both alone. But you have your friends who keep writing shit about me so be happy about that at least.

I loved you. And I told you as much in my words and actions. I never manipulated you. I simply couldn’t love you out of this depression you seem to have fall into after you quit your job and lost the esteem that came with it; and I couldn’t love you enough for you to put your past aside and not think of me as all the people who have come before; and I couldn’t love you enough to make you understand that I honestly truly did love you. I’m not sure I can be sorry about that. Especially considering that you are not sorry for pointing a gun at me—the girl who you were supposed to love. I really do question that love now. Especially when you have been telling everyone for months now that I make you so miserable while you have told me a completely different thing. I wish I could have had the honesty that’s found in healthy relationships. I wish you hadn’t kept that hidden from me. I wish you had gone to Florida if that is what you truly wanted and not left that decision mainly on my wanting to stay here. I wish you had been able to love me in a supportive way, and not in such a controlling way. I wish you had loved me. Because after putting six months of work into finding out who you are, I find myself standing alone while you did many things to me in the past to make me question whether you just wanted me as the perfect dutiful wife who always listened to her husband. That is not me and that will never be me. I wish you had loved me in a way where we could have been equals. I wish you could have loved me without expecting me to be responsible for your own emotions and reactions. I wish you could have loved me enough to trusted me. I wish you could have loved me. But you never did. Not in any healthy way.

I wish peace for you now. I hope you continue the therapy (not in any snarky way, but you’re troubles have me worried). I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for out there, and I’m only sorry that it couldn’t have been me.

I’m not coming back this time. Not unless you were actually willing to put in the work to make this work, which I don’t think you love me enough to want to do. And not unless you were willing to be more understanding and stand by me instead of ganging up with your friends against me. Again, I don’t think you’re willing to do that. I don’t want this world you’ve created where you and your people gang up against me, it is too drama filled and I have been hurt deeper than you know and left out in the cold whereas your partying just continues, and if that was what you were aiming at, congrats. It is unhealthy for me to stay in a world where you wield all the power and what you say goes.

I’ll be by for my stuff as soon as I can. I don’t have a car but I am working on it.

He never said a word in reply.

I’d poured my heart out and there was nothing he could or would say after that.

His friends were saying enough for him at any rate. People were already starting to talk about how I as a liar. It was almost too much for me to handle. None of them had even been there. None of them knew what it was like living in that house. None of them knew how hard I tried to make everything right and good and just what Shane wanted so that he would never get upset or angry or flip out.

After spending some time at Doris’ house, I decided to go home again. I was going to try living there with my mother, sister and grandfather again. I was only there for a few days before I decided that I absolutely hated it. My sister was asserting more of her control. The whole house smelled like smoke now since she smoked wherever and whenever she pleased. With my lungs still recovering from the black mold incident, it was literally very painful to be in that house.

I was also watching my mother deteriorate. She looked horrible. While I was staying there over the next two weeks, my sister and I even had to take my mother to the hospital. The doctor said that she was experiencing detox from alcohol– at six in the morning when we were pretty sure that she’d stopped drinking at around midnight. She couldn’t even sleep anymore, for fear that a hangover would kill her or hospitalize her.

My whole head was spinning. I was losing everything.

And I dreamed at night of that living room with Shane– laughing and joking there, enjoying our own special brand of craziness– and I craved getting back to some kind of normalcy like that. Back then it seemed like such a better option than living in my own house. I think that was a big part of why I kept going back. That and because I thought I still loved him after everything.

I borrowed my grandfather’s car to return to his house a few days later. I figured I would just pick up my things from his house and maybe then I would feel like I’d gotten some kind of closure. When I arrived though, Shane told me to wait outside because he’d already packed everything of mine into tight little garbage bags. Out with the old trash, I supposed– even if meant that all my breakables and non-bendable things got smooshed in the process.

I tried to tell him that I had things hidden in the house and I wanted to see if he had gotten everything, but he wouldn’t let me in his home. I barged in through, refusing to leave until I was sure that I had gotten everything I owned. I didn’t want to lose any more to this battle that was waging between us.

He grabbed my arm, telling me I wasn’t allowed in his house. I took my purse off my shoulder though and started hitting him in the head with it. I just wanted him to leave me alone. I didn’t care if I was trespassing. He’d stolen so much from me. I just didn’t care.

I raced upstairs, while he followed close behind. I just wanted to know if my things were still there. I wasn’t leaving anything behind. I couldn’t let him just keep my stuff. I needed to know that this was it. This was the end. I needed closure. I needed escape.

I continued running through the house, until I saw it.

My escape. I wouldn’t have to go back home again. I would have to see my mother die in front of me. I wouldn’t have to have my friends betray me. I wouldn’t have to love someone who so clearly did not love me back.

I picked up the knife he kept on the desk in the living room. He asked me if I was going to use it on him. I laughed. Obviously not. I ran into what used to be my bedroom, it was empty of all my things– everything was packed up and put away. And I just saw red– and I started cutting my wrist until red was all I saw. I’d been a cutter before. I had used self-harm as a way to deal with things for the past decade now. Now one ever knew though. Some of my old friends had seen scars on my wrist before, but I always played it off as cat scratches or bike accidents.

I think I wanted Shane to see me though, to see who he was really with all these months. I didn’t care what he thought of me anymore. This was me. I cut and I bled and I felt things. I wasn’t some fucking Stepford Wife that he was trying to make me into anymore. I was screaming as I pulled the knife across my wrist again and again. He tackled me onto the floor, not knowing what else to do. He tried to wrench the knife away from me, but I was like a wild thing. I wanted the pain. I wanted it out. I needed to just fucking bleed until everything I’d been through was flushed from my system.

He finally wrestled the knife away but then he started telling me that I was insane and that he was calling the cops. I didn’t know what else to do– so I ran from his house. I walked around the neighborhood for what felt like a few hours, until I returned to see him talking to the cops in front of his house. I don’t know why I didn’t turn and walk the other way. Partly it was because I knew I needed my grandfather’s car keys to get his car back home. My bag, with the keys inside, was already waiting for me in the cop car.

The police asked to see my wrist when I started talking to them. I just wanted my bag and to go home, but they wouldn’t let me. One of them put on these latex blue gloves and started to inspect my wrist, it was like they were afraid to touch me. Everyone was afraid to get close to me. I knew it was for their own germ protection, but it just felt like I was being inspected and laid out by people with these latex gloves– and right in front of my ex too. It was heartbreaking and humiliating.

They made me put handcuffs on and said they were going to take me to Stony Brook University, to the mental ward against my will. I couldn’t even say anything. I let them put me in the car while Shane watched. He was smiling and thanking them. The cops started to tell him where I was going to be taken, but I yelled at them, “Don’t tell him where I’m going! He’ll just turn around and tell everyone. All his goddamn friends!”

I could never really learn to leave well enough alone.

Once I was in the back of the cop car we drove off to the university. We had to stop at the fire station for something. One of the cops got out, but the other stayed behind and asked me, “What were you doing in that house?”

“I wanted my things back.”

“You used to live with him?”

“Up until a few days ago when he pointed a gun at me.”

“So he pointed a gun at you and you still went back? Why didn’t you ask for police back up?”

I didn’t know. I guess I thought in my head that things would be fine. He still had to be the same boy I danced with at Independence Hall, somewhere buried behind that horrible exterior. “I don’t know.”

“You shouldn’t hang around people who point guns at you.” He told me. It seemed like he was worried about me and was trying to talk to me on that level. “Why would you live with someone like that?”

“…I was in love.” I said. It sounded quiet, lost– and absolutely absurd since I was sitting there in a police car, handcuffed right only a few days after having a gun pointed at me.

“No, you weren’t.” The cop said softly. At the time, I wanted to refute him automatically– my brain jumped right into defense mode, but I stayed quiet. Maybe he was right. Maybe I didn’t know if I was in love or not. Maybe I had been taken in by someone who could never and did never love me.

We eventually did make it to the hospital. A nurse checked me in and told me to wait in the waiting room until a social worker was able to speak to me since all the doctors were busy at the time. I prayed silently that this would not be a social worker that I knew from school. They took my bag from me there and made me change into hospital socks just in case I thought that hanging myself with my shoelaces was a viable option.

I paced back and forth in the hallway adjacent to the waiting room. I still couldn’t believe I was there. I had always cut very peacefully before, never once had anyone interfered. This was what real craziness looked like though. The ward felt claustrophobic and I was sure that everyone was starring at me. The nurses sat behind their damn plexiglass barrier walls, watching all the patients as if we were going to start climbing the walls at any moment. I also wondered what this would do to my finances. I didn’t have a lot of money left and I remembered hearing stories of people who had been committed against their will for weeks only to walk out with tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

To pass the time, I watch television with one of the other women in the waiting room. She was going on and on about how men sucked, so it seemed like someone with which I could share a few words. She claimed that her ex beat her in the head but she was still stalking him. “Because I know he really loves me, even though he’s a piece of shit. He’ll come back, you’ll see. We’re gonna get married someday. He just has to stop beating me in the head and telling everyone I’m crazy. But he loves me, I bet.”

It was like looking into a mirror to a future I really didn’t want.

For an hour, she went on and on about this guy who’d beat her in the head. Then the social worker was finally free to talk to me. I was glad to finally get the show on the road. We went into a small office where she asked me a few questions. She wanted to know how I cut and to see the marks. She asked me if I had any suicidal ideations, I said no. She was the first person that day to understand that cutters are usually not suicidal and most of the cut marks I’d made she said were pretty superficial.

She said they would release me but I would have to follow up on this with a therapist. However, they didn’t want to keep me for observation because it wasn’t too serious. I told them that I already had a therapist, so she said she would gladly call her and let her know what happened. I agreed that that would be fine. She also wanted to call my mother to tell her to come get me. I didn’t know if my mom would even be sober, but I couldn’t be released to anyone else. Then she let me go back into the waiting room.

The sudden shift was funny– once the rest of the staff realized I wasn’t a danger to myself or others, they let me wander around the place a little more freely. I was still pacing, which they said made them a bit nervous but I couldn’t help it. I felt so claustrophobic there. I’d never felt so confined in my life. Losing my freedom was actually very scary. After I was getting released though, they said I could go take a nap in one of the extra beds so I went in there and tried to do some calming yoga.

About ten minutes later, one of the nurses asked if there was anyone else that they could call to come get me because my mother “sounded a little tipsy”. I shook my head. I really couldn’t believe it. I was in the hospital and my mother couldn’t even be relied on to come help. I told them to try my aunt, which they found more successful.

My aunt came and got me, and I told her a little of what happened. She was shocked, but annoyed that Shane would have called the cops on me. I told her my car was still in Deer Park, so she thankfully drove me all the way out there which was a half hour drive.

I got into my grandfather’s car and my aunt told me she would meet me at home.

I drove around to Shane’s house. He was putting new locks on his front door. I was finally being locked out of his home and heart forever. He didn’t want to speak to me, so all I said was the word, “Shilo.”

I was there for my cat. I wanted her back. Then I was leaving for good this time.

Except that I would have to be back again to get my car, which was already packed with all my belongings now. He really just wanted me to get out of his life, and I was okay with that at that point. After being betrayed by him calling in the authorities there were just nothing more to say.

Lisa got Shilo for me and said a few kind words, but I was done with her nonsense. She was kind to my face but then would bad talk me through txt or Facebook. I didn’t need that– I needed so many things, but not that. I got my cat, returned to my grandfather’s car and I was gone. By the next day, everyone was talking about how I had gone crazy and how insanity ran in my family. I felt betrayed by everyone. I even felt betrayed by myself. How had things gotten so out of control so fast?



I talked to my therapist, who was really worried about what she’d heard but she too realized that cutting was a defense mechanism, albeit a bad one. She told me that if I ever felt the need to do that again she wanted me to call her on the phone first. I told her I was so upset because the rumors were going around already. Some people were even saying that if I had died it would have been better for everyone and laughing about what they thought was a suicide attempt. My therapist, who was really on the ball about a lot of things, cut right through the bullshit and said, “People who say things like that are assholes.”

Plain and simple.

A few days later, Doris and Adam helped me go get my car. Adam yelled at me the whole way there because of what I had done and asked why I had gone there alone. I just kept thinking it would be okay. My car had to be jumped. Shane said if it would get me out of his life, he would gladly supply Doris with jumper cables to get my car running again. Then he stood on the steps of the house, glaring at me until I was finally gone.

A few hours later, I was talking with Charity, who was up in New York visiting relatives. I told her Shane and his friends were going around telling everyone I was crazy. She told me not to listen to any of them because I wasn’t. Then I confided in her about all that had happened while I was in the house last time and my trip to the hospital. She told me, “That might have been a crazy situation, but I know you and I don’t think you’re crazy.”

All the while I was still just trying to figure out what was up and what was down. My whole life was spinning down the drain, but I held out hope that in some possible way it would get better. I held onto what Charity told me, knowing that she’d been friends with me for years. She would have known if I was crazy by that point. It was first time my issues really hit me in my face and it hurt. And yet, I was still incredibly angry and betrayed. I couldn’t even figure out which emotions to tackle first; there were just too many of them hitting me like waves at an ocean, over and over and over again.