Articles from February 2014

Fighting the Darkness: A little thing that made me almost tear up….

Richard once called me his “dear, sweet Nyssa,” so I called him “my dear, sweet [his old Forum handle].” Back then we were still dear, close friends, or at least, he made me think so. (Whether any of it was ever real, or just him playing me for narcissistic supply, I now seriously doubt.) But it was a special name, held dear in my heart.

I have another Forum friend, made in 2011 when I needed support after the abusive friendship ended and I found out about Richard’s criminal case. He came on the Forum during the couple of years I was away from it (2009?-2011). Just now, in a comments thread on one of his many Facebook posts, he called me his “dear, sweet Nyssa.”

It caught me off-guard. Now somebody else has called me this.

It was bittersweet: opening old wounds in one way, but healing in another…..

[Update: Unfortunately, this friend died during the first wave of COVID, in April 2020 while he was living in China and unable to get back home.]

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on February 11, 2014July 21, 2022

I’m ecstatic to be back with my friends (the ones Phil hates); I meet Charles–College Memoirs: Life at Roanoke–The Long, Dark Painful Tunnel, Part 3

On Monday, it was finally time to move my stuff into the new apartment on campus. After I got my key card, Phil and I started unloading the minivan.

The doors were supposed to stay shut even while people moved things in or out of the building, and were not to be propped open (all the residence halls had signs posted saying this). Since the doors had automatic locks, I was forced to unlock the door each time we brought something in.

So, naturally, I would go on ahead with whatever I carried, and try to unlock the door before Phil got to it.

But he actually snapped at me for not waiting for him before going to the door!

I said, “I have to go before you do so I can open the door with the key before you get to it!”

But he wouldn’t listen to reason. I seethed inside. It seemed no matter what I did or didn’t do, in his mind it was just cause to yell at me, even for being considerate and practical!

Sheesh, what a jerk.

But other than that, it was fun to see my friends again and hear their jokes as we went in and out of the apartment. Mike was there, being his usual muppet self: bouncy, goofy, weird, loud, childlike, sweet, outgoing, hilarious.

(He danced like a muppet, and “muppet” just seemed to fit him in general. Still does, 20 years later, especially since he loves posting muppet videos on Facebook.)

After we finished moving my stuff into my room and the living room (my room was too small to hold all the boxes), Phil may have left again for a little while.

Dirk lived in the same apartment building. At one point, Phil and I walked away from the apartment, possibly going to the Campus Center. Dirk yelled to us from his basement window. (These windows were on the upper part of the lower-level bedroom walls; once you found something to stand on, or if you were on an upper bunk, they easily cranked open).

Phil talked to him through the window, and Dirk was surprised that I now had a fourth-level bard in Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).

I spent some time with my roommies and Mike. We discovered the vents in the bedrooms were good sound conductors. You could hear practically everything from the upstairs apartment. Mike yelled up the vent to our upstairs neighbors, who were Phi-Delts we knew, and they yelled back.

We thought these vents could be a problem, because how much of our everyday lives and conversations would our upstairs neighbors be able to hear? I don’t know if they even noticed, but I was often paranoid about this during the year. And I think that, in my room, we did sometimes hear voices from their apartment.

It would be fun living there with my new roommies: Tara, Sharon and Pearl. (We called each other roommies no matter who shared a bedroom with whom.) I was happy to be back and with my friends again.

Phil and I had once spoken of marrying halfway through the year and then living in our own apartment on campus, since he heard they were supposed to be for married as well as regular students. When my roommies-to-be and I looked at the apartment the year before while it was being built, I thought I would live with them for only part of the year.

But now, I wanted to spend the whole year enjoying life with my friends.

My roommie-roommie was Sharon; my roommies in the other bedroom were Pearl and Tara.

The visiting custom of the apartments was the same as for the suites: Anybody, anytime. The only rules that applied were the ones your apartment-mates agreed on.

One rule we eventually made was that if someone wanted to let a friend/boyfriend stay overnight, she had to ask everyone else for an OK. The friend would sleep on the couch and not with one of us, but it made people uncomfortable to walk into the living room in a bathrobe, and discover someone sleeping there.

A dorm newsletter stated what we Krueger residents knew last year: The cold in the dorm was not our imagination. The newsletter read, “Last year the temperature in Krueger…Remained below 55 degrees during January.”

The windows were replaced, the steam heating system was repaired, and the floors were carpeted, all adding warmth to that cold dorm at last…after I moved out, of course.

Phil and Dirk discussed playing D&D that night and ordering a pizza, but I hadn’t decided whether to join them. At first I wanted to, but they were already playing D&D, we had no directories yet, and I didn’t know where to find them.

So instead, I settled down to a fun evening with my new roommies, Astrid, and Mike. Clarissa wasn’t there, because it was a day before move-in day. Mike lived nearby in H– and the others were to be freshman orientation leaders, so we were all early.

We sat around the big, fake-wood dining table in this small but lovely apartment. We played games, such as non-alcoholic Spoons. I had never heard of it before, but was told it was a drinking game. Our punishments had nothing to do with drinking. I forget what they were; maybe you were “It” or something like that. I also don’t remember how the game was played, just that it involved spoons.

Phil had made dirty jokes all summer and, with his influence, I had joined in on some of them. Some were in-jokes triggered by certain words or phrases. I heard some of these words while with my friends that night, but said nothing.

I noticed that Mike made few or no dirty jokes that night, and I found it refreshing. I admired him for it. (Not that this state of things lasted–Mike actually does make such jokes, especially now that he’s married–but this made my heart go pitter-pat.)

Finally, Phil came along and tapped on the glass doors, and we let him in.

I realized, as I later told Phil, that I was glad to be there instead of playing D&D with him and Dirk. My friends had been my family at Roanoke, longer than Phil had been with me. After dealing with Phil’s drama all summer, it was a relief to be with my friends again.

Maybe that night or the night before, Phil told me his mom made him give his summer money to her. He’d saved up all summer to buy my engagement ring from a catalog for $300, but she used that money on Phil’s car payments! We were both furious.

Phil told me to “Stay with your friends tonight” instead of going back with him to his house. At first I wanted to go with him, figuring I would miss him. But I soon changed my mind.

Before he left, I told him I needed a ride to go to the store and get milk and orange juice, since I had a box of cereal and would now be eating breakfast in the apartment. I didn’t have to go to Bossard for a normal breakfast anymore, because we had a kitchen.

All the rooms had white plastic wire towers with drawers. One wire tower was in the toilet room of the bathroom, and each of us took a drawer for various personal items.

I call it the toilet room because the bathroom was actually three separate rooms. In the main room were two sinks; to the left of them was the bathtub with its see-through glass door; to the right was the shower room; and across from the sinks was the toilet room. This was the handicap suite because of Pearl, so we had a huge bathroom.

Some time that first week, probably right around Tuesday, I discovered Hot 102 (dance) had turned alternative, so that quickly became my favorite station.

Of course, I recognized almost immediately that Chicago’s Q101 was much better, and that Hot 102 (now New Rock 102.1) was copying it. The signal for Q101 didn’t cut out until we got close to Milwaukee, so copying it was easy.

New Rock 102.1 used the same terms and did the same shows as Q101. Example: The Retro Flashback Lunch. Another example: “We give the name and artist of every song we play.” (That was a wonderful perk, but they stopped doing it in about 1995.)

However, New Rock didn’t play the same songs as Q101: I greatly missed “Millennium” by Killing Joke and “Insanity” by Boingo. But they did have “Undone (The Sweater Song)” by Weezer and “Snail Shell” by They Might Be Giants.

Now to give you the view from my window. The apartment was on one end of the bottom level, which was partially submerged by ground on one side (hence the high windows). My bedroom was on the submerged side. From my window, you could see the new parking lot for the apartments, a sidewalk, and the edge of Muehlmeier. Venetian blinds probably covered the window.

On the opposite side of the apartment, by the living room, there were glass, sliding doors and a view of the lagoon, the geese, the adjacent apartment building, and the courtyard.

Our side of the building was next to the other building. If you faced these glass doors, to your left was the wall we shared with the next apartment.

To your right was the kitchen and the back outside door. The outside door led to a ramp-like walk which curved to the right, up the hill, to the sidewalk leading to Muehlmeier and the Campus Center. Pearl kept her scooter inside this door. From this door, we could see the woods on the outskirts of the campus.

We had another door, which led to the apartment mailboxes, the little laundry room, and the next apartment. We went upstairs to get outside.

As I already mentioned, the door locked automatically and had to be unlocked with a key card. We weren’t supposed to leave this door open, but during move-in days, people often propped it open anyway with a heavy-duty floor mat.

The place had that new building smell.

Pearl put her new stereo system in the living room for us all to use. It had a radio, tape player, five-disc CD changer, and remote control! Everything you could wish for–well, except for a record player, but none of us brought our records anyway. Records were too hard to transport safely.

But the antenna was weird. It was this black, plastic, boxlike thing connected to a couple cords. I don’t know why it wasn’t the usual metal pole. By second semester, there were five discs in the CD changer at all times, so we could turn it on and play whatever came up.

On Tuesday, September 6, it felt weird doing my natural family planning in the apartment. Before, I did it secretly so my parents didn’t know about it, but Phil knew I was doing it. Here, nobody I lived with knew about it. I took my temperature while still in bed when Sharon couldn’t see, and stashed other tools in the toilet room in my drawer.

I set up my work schedule: On Wednesday, I started work, from one to three p.m. Once again, I kept my weekends and evenings free from work, just as I always avoided 8:00 classes. This left weekends free for laundry, cleaning, homework, relaxing, and sleeping in.

Junior year, Sharon got five hours done on Saturdays, but I preferred to spread out my ten hours over the five weekdays. Sometimes I had to do, like, one hour one day and three hours the next, but my ideal setup was two hours a day. It all depended on class schedules and other workers’ schedules. The librarians wanted only two people working the desk at one time.

I soon gave a class and work schedule to Phil. This is important later, because in my innocence of what was to come, I let him know where to find me all semester.

I didn’t know what time Phil would show up at the apartment that day, but I knew he would. I wanted to see him, and knew he wouldn’t want to go a whole day without seeing me, his beloved wife. Not only that, but he knew I needed milk and orange juice, which I couldn’t get on campus.

This new guy named Charles came to visit us, and sat in the living room while I unpacked boxes. He was loud, tall and huge. I didn’t know why, but I felt this strange attraction to him. He wasn’t handsome and I didn’t know him very well, so that wasn’t the reason.

He said proudly that he was of Sicilian ancestry. He had a strong, aquiline nose. He was 24 but a freshman, having been in the Air Force. He had a girlfriend named Trina, another freshman. My friends probably met them in orientation. Charles and Trina had only just met, but were already dating. Trina was about 18 or 19. She had glasses and dark, shoulder-length, kind of feathered hair.

Since many of my boxes had been put in the living room for lack of other space, I unpacked them within the first few days so as not to annoy my roommates. To my surprise, everything fit neatly in the closets and wire racks. I unpacked the porcelain bird as Charles watched, and told him, with a big grin, that it was my engagement ring.

Index
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound
January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD
February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?

April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign

May 1992:

Sophomore Year

Summer 1992:

September 1992:

October 1992–Shawn’s Exasperating Ambivalence:

November 1992:

December 1992:

January 1993:

February 1993:

March 1993:

April 1993:

May 1993:

Junior Year

Summer 1993: Music, Storm and Prophetic Dreams

September 1993:

October 1993:

November 1993:

December 1993:

January 1994:

February 1994:

March 1994:

April 1994:

May 1994:

Senior Year

June 1994–Bits of Abuse Here and There:

July & August 1994:

September 1994–Divorce: The Long, Dark, Painful Tunnel:

October 1994:

November 1994:

December 1994:

January 1995:

February 1995:

March 1995:

April 1995:

May 1995:

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on February 11, 2014February 25, 2022

Gaining Confidence Through Writer’s Club

Not only is going to the writers’ club giving me social contact again, with local people and not just old friends from other counties.

But it’s giving me more confidence in my writing. I keep getting praise for the little things I bring in.

Tonight I brought in my sci-fi romance, The Last Night, the 1992 revision. People were so concerned about my characters that they threw out ideas for rewrites and expansions, which would allow them to live instead of being executed. LOL

People were surprised that I wrote it around age 19, and at how much I had written in general by the time I wrote the first draft in 1990 at age 17. They called me precocious.

I thought this was normal for writers. In college, I was a writing major, so I knew a lot of people who were at least as good at writing as me, if not better, at my age. After all, we’d already been through a year’s worth of various writing courses.

Why do I keep writing the Richard/Tracy story despite being watched so closely by Tracy? Whenever I ask myself that, the same answer comes up: Because I have to.

Why have I written so much all my life, not just in adulthood but since before I could write? Because I have to.

It’s not so much a choice as a drive, an ever-pressing need.

It’s driving me to keep posting my Richard/Tracy story and my College Memoirs day after day after day, whether they’re read or not (except by Richard and Tracy), whether the frequency is too much for my subscribers to keep up with.

I MUST write these stories. I MUST post these stories.

Then when I’m done, I’ll be free to write the next story. But until then, my inspiration is dry for anything new, because it’s all caught up in what I’m working on now.

That’s just how my muse works. It won’t let me rest until the story is done. Unless it’s boring me; then I stop.

If I’m getting such high praise from the writing group, then I should branch out with my writing, maybe try to break into a local magazine…..

My husband Phil, Dave and Pearl call me a party pooper for getting a Grade II concussion–College Memoirs: Life at Roanoke–The Long, Dark Painful Tunnel, Part 2

Here is the inspiration for a couple of scenes in my novel Tojet.

Sunday, September 4. Phil wanted to do nothing but play with Dave’s new sci-fi football game on the Nintendo. It was a weird, funny and interesting game, but I didn’t want to sit around all day watching Phil play it.

I had nothing else to do, not with everything still packed and in the van. My projects Undine and Jerisland and probably all my books were still in the van.

As for the game, it had all these different types of alien creatures, from which you chose for your team. I believe the field was in the air, and the sides were either fire pits or nothing but air. When you called up a picture of a player, some alien announcer spoke in gibberish, saying, “Bleh-BLAHH! Bleh-bleh-BLAHH!”

Then Dave and his Pearl asked if we wanted to go to the S– County Fair.

Soon after we got to the fair, Phil and I walked by a booth with posters you could win. Phil kept saying he wanted me to win him one of the babe-posters. Fed up by this and his ogling of girls all summer, I pointed to a beefcake poster and said, “I want you to win me that.”

He, of course, said no, and shooed me away, good-naturedly. Finally! I found a way to get back at him instead of just getting mad at him.

I thought the fair would be fun, and bought enough tickets for twenty rides. The first ride was Phil’s favorite, some sort of box that spins around as the big wheel goes around.

Sometime during the ride, not only did the stuff in my pockets fly out into the box, but the side of the box hit my forehead. Or my forehead hit the side of the box. I had no way of knowing what happened or how it happened. I’m almost certain I had my hands on the bar at the time.

The box moved so fast that the G-force and the speed kept me from crying out. I hated the ride and couldn’t wait for it to stop. Endlessly, the box kept spinning and moving around. Finally, it ended. I picked up the things that fell out of my pockets, and stepped out.

Phil saw the bruise on my forehead, and said a bump was rising.

Though I felt okay at first, a few minutes later my head started aching worse and worse. I turned lightheaded and queasy. Phil got me a cup of water from a vendor, and sat me down at a picnic table under the vendor’s big awning. At first, he seemed attentive and sweet.

I said I needed to rest for a while.

“Should we go home?” Phil said.

“I want to wait a while before deciding that, to see if I feel better,” I said.

Dave and Pearl soon knew about my injury.

I kept feeling worse and worse–more painful headache, more powerful nausea. Finally, I said I wanted to go home. I had to get away from the fairgrounds and into some quiet, comfortable place where I could be tended to.

On the way out, we passed a parked ambulance. I asked to go there, but we didn’t. Phil even smiled and said,

“Are you sure you need to go to an ambulance?”

I wanted to find a first-aid station, but all I saw was the ambulance. Phil and the others thought there was no need for either.

If I’d known just how serious a concussion can be, I probably would’ve insisted they take me more seriously and get help or take me to a doctor. Of course, a person with a concussion is in no condition to be forceful. Just check out this article from the Mayo Clinic.

This page recommends emergency medical attention if the bump results in a worsening headache and other symptoms I experienced.

According to a doctor I consulted by e-mail in 1999, I had the symptoms of a Grade II concussion! Cugan also said it sounded like a secondary concussion.

My headache got worse and lasted at least until the next day, possibly longer; I should have been closely watched and, because of my severe headache, taken to a doctor immediately. But none of the people with me took me seriously, not even Phil, my own husband! They actually called me a party pooper:

We left the park and went to Dairy Queen for dinner.

During dinner, Phil told them about Undine, that I had been translating it, and how big it was and how difficult. Dave said, “You’re nuts!” Contrast that to a person from a German-speaking country who said to me in 1998, “I tip my hat to you.” Apparently Dave didn’t understand the value of taking on a difficult project just to challenge yourself.

They began to talk about going dancing that night, and asked if we wanted to go. I said I’d better stay home: I thought I had a concussion. Phil said he would go.

What? Here I was, injured with a Grade II concussion, needing someone to watch over me and take me to a doctor, and he wanted to go dancing? Not only did he refuse to take me to a doctor, but he showed no sign of concern for my condition!

Through my pain, I was upset. I turned very quiet. Phil tried to say something to me once, but got no response.

Back at his house, I confronted him about this, but he insisted he wanted to go out dancing.

“My parents will be here, and you can lie on my couch, watch cable on my TV, and relax.”

I don’t think anyone told his parents about my concussion, because they never came into the room to check up on me. With my nausea and overpowering headache, I was in no condition to go walking around telling people I was hurt; Phil should have told them himself.

Phil went on, “You can find things to do, as you always do.”

Yeah, like I could do anything but sleep or watch TV with my head pounding. But that wasn’t the point.

I would’ve gone dancing, if I were feeling better. It sounded like fun. I hadn’t gone to a dance in a long time. We later planned to go to the Friday dance at Roanoke so I could finally see Phil’s dancing.

It was such a major and odd part of Phil’s personality that Pearl, on the way to the fair, said she was surprised I hadn’t seen him dance yet. She said you have to see him dance to really know him. I hadn’t had the chance because the junior year dances had no good music.

Phil whined, “Other people always say, ‘Oh, you go ahead and have your fun. Don’t mind me.'”

Oh, yeah, I wanted him home with me because I was a selfish twit.

I was miserable. Phil was my husband: He wasn’t supposed to go out and enjoy himself while I lay on his couch, suffering from an untreated injury. He was supposed to take me to a doctor!

His parents had just gotten two new puppies, little black and white ones, and kept them in a cage when they were inside. I sat beside them. Their names were something-Dave and something-Phil. They loved the attention and wanted my petting. I tried to comfort myself with them, and tried to hide my tears.

After Phil left, I watched some true-life TV movie about sharks attacking servicemen whose plane went down in the ocean. In one scene, a man seemed to be asleep while floating in the water in a life preserver; it turned out his lower half had been bitten off. The whole movie horrified me, especially since it really happened. Watching this all alone sure didn’t help. I tried to rest, but couldn’t with my awful headache.

This movie was probably Mission of the Shark, about the USS Indianapolis in WWII.

Phil later told me that Dave and Pearl thought I was a party pooper for wanting to leave the fair early! They didn’t know how I could have gotten hurt. They blamed me for getting hurt!

But it was a traveling fair, getting taken down and put up all the time, and people do get hurt on amusement park rides, especially in traveling fairs. This fact was given on an episode of the Sally Jessy Raphael show in 1998.

Also, the September 13, 1999 edition of US News and World Report stated on page 59, “[G]etting banged on fingers or head by a safety bar are common.” The article Fatal Attractions described the risk of injury at amusement parks, especially at traveling carnivals, which “are constantly dismantled and reassembled” (p. 58).

A few weeks after the incident, my friend Pearl said their remarks were uncalled for. She and my other friends would have respected that I was injured.

I did ask that Phil not drink while dancing, at least. If he came back with alcohol on his breath, that would finish me. I was already upset enough. I didn’t want him getting drunk while I ached both inside and out. Besides, as I’d joked before with him and Dave, he was still underage.

He recently told me that he drank or smoked whatever people passed around at parties (never mind his health or if it was illegal). I would never do that. He called me a pooper. I lost more respect for him.

After Phil came back from dancing, I told him I needed to talk. But instead of staying with me in his room, he left again and disappeared for a long time. I finally went looking for him, and found him talking alone with Pearl in the computer room. I asked if he’d come back soon so I could finish talking with him. Then I turned and left.

He soon came back, a smile on his face, and said, “Jealous? She’s a nice person, but Dave’s fiancée.”

I knew he liked her back before he dated me, but I thought this was over now. Still, seeing him there with her made me uneasy. Besides, how is it “jealousy” to want to finish a discussion about how he’d been treating me?

That night or maybe the next day, Phil said, “I would love to be allowed to have three wives instead of just one. You’d be one, Dave’s Pearl would be another, and that high schooler who likes me and keeps calling me at the wrong time–she’d be the third.”

Did he think I’d find this funny? It only made me feel worse. So he did still want Dave’s Pearl! And I wasn’t enough for him!

Just like all summer long, he’d tell me he lusted after this or that girl, and when I got upset, say that other people’s girlfriends just laugh when their men do this. He’d see a young woman and say he wouldn’t mind taking her in the back of his minivan. A big-breasted and blonde high-school girl would hand him Dairy Queen sundaes through the drive-up window, and he’d tell me how much he loved the sight. I’d say my breasts were big enough, and he’d say he saw bigger on previous girlfriends.

How dare I object? As some drunken guys later told him, I was so “possessive”!

Phil also told me, “Dave and Pearl think you’re a party pooper for not wanting to go dancing tonight. They think you’re a pooper because you never want to go dancing with me. They remembered a time last semester when they asked us to go dancing, and you didn’t want to go!”

HUH? What time was that? I didn’t even remember it. If it even happened, I probably just wanted to spend a quiet evening alone with Phil. Or maybe I wasn’t feeling well or had a lot of homework.

Phil went on, “I used to go dancing every weekend, but I gave that up for you.”

This was news to me! He never mentioned going dancing every weekend. He never asked me more than once or twice–if at all–to go dancing on the weekend. We went to Roanoke dances whenever possible, but they never had good music.

But then, abusers will make up things you’ve done or said that you never actually did or said, to make you the bad guy. The gaslighting from this guy was unbelievable! Did he really think I would fall for it when I knew it was a lie?

When I wrote the first draft of this account of the S– County Fair in 1995 or 1996, I showed it to my future husband Cugan and asked if I was being unreasonable. He said,

“No. Yes, people do often say, ‘Go ahead and have your fun,’ but they’re rarely taken at their word. Usually they don’t really mean it. Tell me something: What did you really see in this guy? He didn’t seem to take this marriage seriously.”

Not only that, but I had a Grade II concussion and they were calling me a party pooper because I needed to go to a doctor, not dancing!

All during our relationship, Dave, obviously influenced by what Peter had told him about me, said nasty things about me to Phil. When Phil said he wanted to date me, Dave said, “Don’t date her. We don’t get along.”

Don’t get along? But I didn’t even know the guy! We’d never met before Pearl’s party, and got along quite well, flirting all evening!

Dave also kept telling tales about me to his parents. This started way back in the spring. His Pearl did it sometimes, too.

They accused me of all sorts of things: calling Indiana on the O’Hara dime (I always used a phone card), telling Phil not to take a one-day job (Phil decided not to and I supported his decision because of a major history test the next day), and probably other things I’ve forgotten now.

Dave’s parents seemed to listen to them far too much, because I began to get the feeling that they didn’t like me as much anymore. For example, one day during the spring, as Pearl and I both sat in the living room, Maura called Pearl her favorite future daughter-in-law. Was Maura trying to make me feel like dirt?

Phil thought Pearl was nice, but I considered her just as mean as Dave. Not only did she go along with Dave’s smear campaign, but she did something else nasty as well:

I don’t remember when this was, May or September, but probably May. It was a Saturday, no classes, nobody with work. It was the middle of the afternoon, and long after I heard Dave take his shower. I found a deserted bathroom, so I took a shower. Because it was the middle of the afternoon and everyone else had already showered (including Dave), and because there were two bathrooms, I saw no reason to hurry.

I did the various things I always needed to do after a shower, such as shaving, moisturizing, putting cover-up on my face, combing my hair. I didn’t dilly-dally around in the bathroom: I only took as long as I needed to do what I needed to do, and then I got out. I was just about done.

All of a sudden, Pearl banged on the door and yelled meanly, “Hurry up and get out of there! Dave needs to take a shower!” No, she did not politely knock and ask if I could please hurry up. She screamed as if I were deliberately holding up Dave.

How could I possibly have known that he needed to take another shower for soccer practice or whatever it was, in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, when nobody else was around when I started my shower?

I’m so glad to be out of that family: too many nasty people with absolutely no respect or consideration for others. And I was being bullied by everybody together, a mob bullying!

Index
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound

January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD

February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?

April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign

May 1992:

Sophomore Year

Summer 1992:

September 1992:

October 1992–Shawn’s Exasperating Ambivalence:

November 1992:

December 1992:

January 1993:

February 1993:

March 1993:

April 1993:

May 1993:

Junior Year

Summer 1993: Music, Storm and Prophetic Dreams

September 1993:

October 1993:

November 1993:

December 1993:

January 1994:

February 1994:

March 1994:

April 1994:

May 1994:

Senior Year

June 1994–Bits of Abuse Here and There:

July & August 1994:

September 1994–Divorce: The Long, Dark, Painful Tunnel:

October 1994:

November 1994:

December 1994:

January 1995:

February 1995:

March 1995:

April 1995:

May 1995:

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on February 9, 2014May 5, 2021

Phil picks fights and avoids responsibilities to make me feel like a shrew–College Memoirs: Life at Roanoke–The Long, Dark Painful Tunnel, Part 1

The following quote from Psychopath Free explains everything that happened during this month and the following months, changing “online” to “on a college campus,” where I saw Phil and Perspehone constantly–especially when they both sat right there with my friends and me at lunch–getting all cuddly and cute with each other.

It explains Phil’s behavior, refusing to accept any of my complaints as valid or anything but a shrew who has to cut him down.

While I was supposed to accept everything he wanted or complained about as gospel truth or my wifely duty, no matter how cutting, no matter how painful, no matter how it slandered my character.

The friend he talked to, was Dirk, whom he manipulated into thinking I was an abusive shrew, and who then became Phil’s tool of controlling me by proxy.

Now for the quote:

The final triangulation happens when they make the decision to abandon you. This is when they’ll begin freely talking about how much this relationship is hurting them, and how they don’t know if they can deal with your behavior anymore.
They will usually mention talking to a close friend about your relationship, going into details about how they both agreed that your relationship wasn’t healthy.
In the meantime, they’ve been blatantly ignoring frantic messages from you. You’ll be sitting there wondering why they aren’t chatting with you about these concerns, considering it’s your relationship.
Well, the reason is that they’ve already made the decision to dump you—now they’re just torturing you. They only seek advice from people they know will agree with them. That “friend” they’re talking to is probably their next target.
After the breakup, they will openly brag about how happy they are with their new partner [Persephone, whom he dated immediately after the breakup], where most normal people would feel very embarrassed and secretive about entering a new relationship so quickly.
And even more surprising, they fully expect you to be happy for them. Otherwise you are bitter and jealous.
During this period, they make a post-dump assessment. If you grovel or beg, they are likely to find some value in your energy. They will be both disgusted and delighted by your behavior.
If you lash out and begin uncovering their lies, they will do everything in their power to drive you to suicide.
Even if you come back to them later with an apology, they will permanently despise any target who once dared talk back to them. You’ve seen too much—the predator behind the mask.
This is why they constantly wave their new partner in your face, posting pictures and declaring their happiness online. Proving how happy and perfect they are.
It’s a final attempt to drive you insane with triangulation. To make you blame the new target, instead of the true abuser. —Torture by Triangulation

****

Probably on a Thursday night while my parents were at the store, and probably on September 1, 1994, I saw the first episode of My So-Called Life. Since no one else was home, I was free to watch it in privacy in the living room and have my own opinions about it.

I loved it. Angela, Claire Dane’s character, reminded me so much of myself at 15: insecure, feeling out of place at a party, all that stuff. They sure dressed weird, though–and Ray-Ann’s hair! Where did she get those ideas?

****

Phil’s brakes needed to be fixed. Back in May, he had them inspected, and they needed new pads. We went to Firestone together to have them checked. The service man gave him a paper with everything listed that was wrong with the brakes. It wasn’t just the pads, but that would help at present.

It was understood that Phil needed to have the brakes fully fixed before we went back to Roanoke. That was a 4 ½ hour drive, including Chicago and Milwaukee interstate traffic, and we sure didn’t need the brakes going out somewhere along the way.

Phil installed the brake pads himself with the help of Dad and my brother Jake. Jake said proudly, “I knew he could do it!”

But in September, he still hadn’t gotten the brakes fully fixed, yet I had such trouble with him! I believe that on Friday, September 2, he still hadn’t told his employer he was quitting, no two weeks’ notice, and he had to go in to work that day and tell them. We were to return to S– that weekend.

So on Friday he would have only a few hours, if he got up early enough, to get the brakes fixed. Doing it on Saturday was probably out of the question: Shops tended to close on Saturdays.

Phil wouldn’t take me anywhere without me begging. He wouldn’t take responsibility for himself and get up in time to take a shower before work, even though he set my old clock radio for 1 p.m. each night.

So even though he had plenty of time to get the brakes fixed, he slept through every chance to do it.

Then on what was most likely Friday, September 2, was his last chance to take care of the brakes before we went back to school.

Yet what did he do? He insisted on sleeping late, despite my trying to get him up, and snapped at me for trying to wake him!

But if he didn’t take care of the brakes that day, the brakes could give out while we were on the road, and we both could die! I didn’t know about him, but I wanted to live a while longer.

But finally I got him to get up, and he FINALLY got his brakes fixed. I could not believe him sometimes!

On probably September 3, we left in the afternoon. Finally, I got to sleep in, rather than waking up in the wee hours of the morning to go back to Roanoke, like usual when my parents took me.

On the way, Phil said, “This has been the best summer of my life because I spent it with you.”

Though I didn’t say so, for me it had been one of the worst. For quite some time, I cried every day because of Phil’s words or actions.

For the past week or so, we had been in another honeymoon period, which I hoped would continue.

But as September wore on, Phil kept doing and saying things which showed he no longer cared for me or my well-being, even though he kept saying he loved me. Even his family seemed to turn against me.

I also found myself having feelings for other guys, one I knew (Mike) and one I met during the first week of the school year (Charles). I couldn’t imagine breaking up with Phil, but these guys seemed sweet and decent, especially Mike.

Considering the summer I just endured, it’s no mystery that my heart latched onto a nice guy so quickly after we returned to school and out of the bubble of home. Mike gained my respect, which Phil had lost.

But back to September 3. When we got to Chicago, we had an argument. I don’t remember now what it was about. All I know is it had something to do with Phil having me look at the map to figure out where we were.

(Keep in mind that I have NVLD, which makes map-reading more difficult, especially when rushed. We didn’t have Google Maps to make it easy with specific routes, street views, and text directions.)

We must have gotten off track somehow. He got mad at me for something, maybe for not finding things fast enough or for not finding a certain street. I got upset with him for getting upset with me over something like that, which I couldn’t help. We may have made up later on during the drive, if we ever really did.

When we got back and unpacked what we needed for overnight, his mom threw some sheets at the bed.

He never used sheets before while I was with him, just blankets, while we slept directly on the bare mattress.

Sesame seeds (from fast food) and dirt got on it all the time. Since he never put sheets on, it never got cleaned off except with a swipe of the hand.

Before, I was so much in love that I barely noticed. But now, after spending the summer on sheets I washed weekly, I couldn’t stand getting on that icky mattress again without sheets.

Yet he even made that into an argument. He looked at me like I was ridiculous and a shrew for wanting sheets on the bed. He said if I wanted them, I could put them on.

Why on earth was he so petulant over putting sheets on his bed? He obviously wanted to pick fights on purpose, somehow finding a way to make me the one to blame, even though I did nothing wrong.

Index
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound
January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD
February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?
April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign

May 1992:

Sophomore Year

Summer 1992:

September 1992: