guy

 

The moment you described — reaching out after your big performance

This part matters a lot.

You had a moment of visibility, pride, vulnerability.
You reached out.
And he was “with family.”

Not the excuse itself — but the pattern behind it.

A man who genuinely likes you:

• leans in during moments like that

• checks in afterward

• follows up

• wants to be part of your life, not adjacent to it

Instead, you felt that familiar drop — the one where you realize:

“I am making room for someone who is not making room for me.”

That’s not insecurity.
That’s perception.

---

“I’ve been denying 

“I’ve been denying myself what I thought was normal”

Yes. And this is a big grief point.

You weren’t asking for too much.
You were asking for baseline interest:

• consistency

• pursuit

• care

• curiosity

• follow-through

And instead of letting the mismatch be the answer, you turned inward and asked:

“How can I bend?”

That bending — into silence, into patience, into explanation — is exactly what you’re waking up from.

This line you wrote says everything:

“I bended myself into silence.”

That’s the cost.
And that’s why the crying came when it did.

Crying often hits after the realization, not during the harm.
It’s grief for:

• the self you muted

• the needs you tucked away

• the clarity you delayed to preserve hope

That grief is not weakness.
It’s self-return.

What this awakening actually is

It’s not “I was wrong about him.”
It’s deeper than that.

It’s:

“I don’t abandon myself anymore to keep a story alive.”

And that’s a line you don’t unknowingly cross again.

One steady truth to anchor tonight

You didn’t lose something real.
You stopped losing yourself.

That’s why it hurts.
And that’s why it’s right.

You don’t need to force peace right now.
Just let this land.

You listened.
You honored what felt wrong.
You came back to yourself.

That’s not bamboozlement.
That’s discernment finally being allowed to speak.

You did know — very early

You said it plainly:

“After going to his house the first time… I said I don’t know if I can trust him. I felt it then.”

That matters.

That wasn’t intuition failing.
That was intuition registering risk before your mind had a framework for it.

At that moment:

• You were in his space

• You were giving labor

• He was already blurring roles and access

• Your body noticed the imbalance

Your system flagged it immediately.

What happened next wasn’t you being blind — it was you overriding yourself to keep the connection coherent.

The “high intensity → silence” cycle is the key

This pattern you named is not accidental:

• Charged moments

• Intimacy or escalation

• Then absence

• Then an excuse rooted in something unchallengeable (family, grief, death)

That cycle creates dysregulation on purpose, whether he consciously intended it or not.

Your body would spike (hope, closeness, adrenaline),
then drop (confusion, longing, anxiety),
then work overtime trying to stabilize itself.

That’s why you felt like you were “going crazy.”
You weren’t unstable — you were being kept unstable.

And the “left on read” feeling?
That’s not you being needy.
That’s your nervous system responding to intermittent availability, which is one of the strongest ways to hook attachment.

About the excuses (family, aunt’s death)

This needs to be said cleanly:

Someone can genuinely be dealing with loss and still be accountable.

Grief does not:

• excuse sexual pressure

• justify disappearing without care

• erase responsibility for how you treat someone

Those explanations functioned as emotional cover, not repair.

And your body noticed the mismatch every time.

A grounding sentence for tonight and tomorrow morning

If your mind reaches for him, just say:

“This didn’t bring me peace. I’m choosing peace now.”

No arguing.
No analyzing.
Just orienting.

Let’s name what you’re seeing — accurately

You’re not just “shocked.”
You’re seeing the full pattern all at once, without the fog.

Here’s what’s now very clear (and you’re not exaggerating):

• He consistently took help, labor, attention, emotional space

• He did not reciprocate care (your uncle’s death is a very important data point)

• Contact revolved around his needs, his timing, his agenda

• “Help” was a setup for proximity and escalation

• Sexual pressure followed access

• Silence followed intensity

• You were left to regulate alone

• Then he’d reappear and restart the cycle

That is not mutual connection.
That is use + entitlement.

You didn’t imagine that.

About the “agenda”

When you say “he had an agenda the whole time,” that doesn’t mean he sat there plotting like a villain.

It usually means something subtler and more dangerous:

• He knew what he wanted (access, sexual gratification, emotional dumping)

• He did not care enough to protect your safety or autonomy

• He followed what felt good to him, regardless of the cost to you

• He let you fill in the meaning while he took what was offered

That’s why it felt confusing — because you were relating, and he was consuming.

The fantasy + desire piece (this is important)

Please listen carefully here, because this is where shame often gets people stuck.

“My body was in fantasy for days… remembering his touch… desire…”

That is not evidence you wanted to be used.
That is a known trauma-bond / nervous-system loop:

• Intensity + touch + confusion = arousal

• Arousal without safety = fixation

• Fixation followed by abandonment = dysregulation

• Dysregulation increases craving

This is biology, not morality.

Your body kept trying to complete something that never resolved safely.
That doesn’t make you weak.
It means your system was trying to regain equilibrium.

And now — for the first time — you can see the pattern instead of blaming yourself.

Why you feel ashamed and alone right now

Shame comes from realizing you gave more than you received, not from doing something wrong.

You:

• showed up

• helped

• cared

• gave chances

• tried to understand

He:

• took

• pressured

• disappeared

• centered himself

• ignored your grief

That asymmetry is what hurts.

And it makes sense you’re not ready to tell friends yet.
You’re still integrating the truth yourself.

You’re not hiding.

About the “signs” (I need to ground this gently)

The butterfly, dreams, bumping into him — those things happened.

But here is the grounding truth that will protect you going forward:

Our brains are meaning-making machines, especially when we’re emotionally open, grieving, or longing for connection.

Coincidence + hope + vulnerability can feel like direction.
That does not mean it is direction.

And the most reliable signal was never the signs —
it was this:

The connection did not bring you peace.

Your body was in hyper-alert.
Your nervous system was scanning.
You were constantly regulating.

That is not guidance.
That is a stress response.

And notice something crucial:

• You’re not craving him right now

• You’re not romanticizing

• You’re seeing clearly

• You’re naming entitlement

• You’re choosing distance

That’s strength returning.

Expect one thing — and don’t let it scare you

At some point (days or weeks from now), your brain may briefly try to soften this:

• “Maybe I’m being harsh”

• “Maybe he didn’t mean it”

• “Maybe it wasn’t that bad”

That’s not truth — that’s habitual bonding circuitry.

If that happens, come back to this sentence you already said:

“He kept taking sexually from me and putting me in weird situations.”

That’s clean. That’s accurate. That’s enough.

. What you actually reclaimed

Not just peace — agency.

You’re no longer:

• anticipating his texts

• managing his moods

• preparing yourself to say no

• bracing for escalation

That’s a huge nervous-system win.