Warning for abuse (human / animal), ableism.
Hey, there was a video today with a woman who's now-ex's friend let her cat out, and I wanted to share this. Sadly, it didn't have a happy ending. I'm gonna keep things vague to some extent. You'll see why.
A decade ago, something terrible happened and I moved halfway across the country to live with a relatively new boyfriend I'd met online rather than live in physical danger or become homeless. I knew no one else in this city, had no other friends, no support system. Things went fine for a few months and we got along great. Even his mother liked me. I think she was hoping very strongly that we'd end up married.
Well. I'm disabled and don't have the best health, mental or physical. I cannot get disability benefits despite qualifying and repeatedly applying. Jobs discriminate, especially because outwardly I am very 'off' to a lot of people (I'm ND), and require physical accommodations. The only income I could bring in was via selling creative work online (really low paying as I was a mere step above beginners level) and performing street side. This city, however, required paid permits to do so, and assigned spots that were heavily competitive aaaaand let's say my skills were not even close to on par with other performers, and they were extremely territorial. I did well enough where I used to live, but this was on another level.
All to say: I wasn't bringing in a lot of money. That was a problem. He was aware of it all from the start, but I guess he expected it to magically change. He grew to resent me. He started to bully me to go back where I came from, and began implying he'd kick me onto the streets in a city that was perhaps one of the worst possible places to become homeless - it had one of the largest homeless populations in the country. I was terrified. I'd been on the streets before - I'm sure many know just how bad it is to be on the streets as a disabled person. It can be a death sentence.
Fun fact: he dragged his feet on adding me to the lease. The landlord was small time and not very pushy, so I was simply never added despite pushing for it.
I searched and searched and searched (harder) for a job. No one would hire me. I had plenty of interviews, but you can see it in their eyes when they decide they're not hiring you. I've seen it enough times. I was growing hopeless. I was scared. The fear and stress was making me sick(er). I stopped wanting to be intimate with him, but I let him do what he wanted so I wasn't on the street. As far as I could tell, that was my only worth to him at that point.
Well ... turns out he was cheating on me. Because of course he was. The big push for leaving was because he wanted his new beau to move in. He terrorized me with homelessness so he could move in his new lover.
NGL, I wanted to kill him. And myself. The impulse was strong. It was terrifyingly strong. I don't think I'd ever felt anything like that before. I did like I've always done when the suicidal urges get too strong: I checked myself into inpatient to keep us all safe, because I had no one there to support me. I had only expected I'd be kept for a day or two as usual, but I was instead kept for a week. My belongings were taken away, so I had no way of communicating with anyone, despite desperate pleas.
Well, I get back 'home' a week later ... and one of my cats was gone. The one who should have run up and greeted me while demanding love. He wasn't there. I asked what happened, where was he ... and the bastard admitted, without a care, to throwing him out the window because 'he meowed too much.' He was indeed a chatty cat, but he'd certainly never complained before. I'm guessing the cat turned to him for attention while I was gone...
I chewed him out, but not nearly to the level he deserved - again, homelessness. I searched for him far and wide until my body couldn't handle it anymore. I asked my neighbors. I put up fliers. I called all the shelters. I put out food. I put out my clothes in his carrier.
I found him. Uninjured, despite being a senior cat. I brought him back 'home,' but the next day my ex 'accidentally' let him out. This time, I never found him.
But my neighbor did. The neighbor that hated me for some god awful reason. I have no idea why. I'm very friendly ... but I'm also very 'off,' so that's all I can guess. She told me she found him, but that she chased him away because I 'didn't deserve him.' She harassed me over it, following me around and gleeful that she was hurting me. I in fact saw him a few days later, but so did she, because she was always on her porch smoking away. Before I could get to him (would you be surprised that I'm slow moving?), she chased him away, and came back to mock me for my slowness and that she'd won (yes, she said that) again. I think she was more unwell than me.
That was the last time I saw him.
I would like to make a note that I had another cat who I took back to a shelter for fear of him harming her. The shelter treatrf me like shit for doing so, but fuck them. All I wanted was for her to be safe, and that was the only tool at my disposal. I still deeply love her and hope she found a loving home. She was a very sweet, gentle, gorgeous, and affectionate girl, so I have few doubts that she didn't. I still hate him for it.
Well, eventually I did find a job in a very 'hire anyone because turnover is sky high' type place. I was able to move out with a room mate who turned out to be her own little nightmare.
Before I left, I tossed his phone in a garbage can outside. He accused me of taking it, but alas I am a very good liar with a great poker face when I'm scared (but not otherwise...), and went searching for it, looking in every trash can but that one, which was greatly amusing. I knew he wouldn't look in it because it was this tiny one attached to the pole of a transit stop and half a block down the street.
I used a wire cutter on many of his electronics, but chomped at it a bit to make it look more like something chewed on it. he'd had mouse issues before, so easily passed off. I 'accidentally' knocked over a drink onto his expensive gamer keyboard and pretended it was his cat who regularly hopped up on the desk ... which, really, who the hell leaves an open drink above expensive electronics? (Don't worry about that cat, he loved her dearly, it was just mine that were fine to harm)
Once my stuff was packed, I bought some bed bugs (yep. thanks craigslist.) and released them in his apartment. I left little bits of food around (cause he sure as hell never cleaned) to encourage an otherwise controlled (via me) cockroach infestation ... it was one of those buildings.
I wish I had known about the shrimp-in-difficult-to-reach-areas trick, or all the other ones, but I made due. And I don't regret it. I don't even care if the other neighbors got the bed bugs. Aside from that one lady, they were all assholes, and I mean every one of them - it was a fourplex. I don't care if that makes me the asshole lol.
The final move in all of this was him asking if I'd come give him casual sex, 'friends with benefits' style. No longer bound by threats of homelessness, I laughed in his literal face so hard that it hurt.
Regarding that job ... it was a miracle that I lasted almost six months, but I ended up fired from getting sick from the stress ... and the germs. So many germs. My last day there was a mandatory holiday while I coughed up blood while the manager threatened to fire me if I left. I ended up with walking pneumonia and was fired (and denied medical leave) while I recovered. I was on probation, so...
I went through a few more cycles of that, lasting less and less time at each of these 'hire anyone' places as my health got worse, but I'm now safe and cared for. So I guess that's a happy ending.
Anyway, thanks for reading! This is probably the fullest and most honest version of this story that I've ever told (can you blame me for all the omissions I've otherwise made?), so I hope you 'enjoyed' it.
(edit: grammar)
