My First Love

The Threat of Death

Now, why don't I start with his first attempt in scaring me and controlling me. If there was one thing I knew about Richard, it's that he was afraid of losing me. He wanted to make sure early on that I would be too terrified to leave him no matter what. So, to make that happen he came up with a plan that would not only scare me into being with him forever, but one that would also give him all of my attention.

I went through a lot in high school, so the topic of suicide and self-harm was very personal for me. My way of dealing with it positively was to start a sort of suicide awareness group in my school. I would offer my shoulder to my fellow classmates, participate in activities like the day of silence, and create presentations about suicide prevention/awareness. Richard learned this very quickly and confided in me that he was depressed and addicted to self-harm. I was quick to comfort him and I think that helped him figure out my weak point.

Richard wanted to Skype me after school every single day and sometimes we would even fall asleep while talking to each other. I thought this was sweet at the time, but looking back I'm pretty sure he just wanted to see and be apart of every second of my life.

One night he called me on Skype and I answered immediately. I greeted him cheerfully, but he didn't respond. His face was incredibly close to the camera, but I could tell he was unhappy. I asked him if he was okay, but he didn't reply. I felt slightly uncomfortable. I kept trying to figure out what was wrong, but he just wouldn't talk to me.

Eventually, I gave up and figured maybe he wanted my company and would tell me what was wrong when he worked up the courage. I've always been like that, so I understood and waited patiently. It wasn't long before he set his phone down somewhere at the foot of his bed with the camera pointed where he wanted to sit. He sat down, reached for a binder that was on his floor and leaned back on the wall. He was writing something down, using the binder as a clipboard. The silence continued for about 5 to 10 minutes before he put down his things and reached for his phone. He flipped the camera so that I could see what he had written. The quality of his phone's camera was poor and he had it way too close to the sheet of paper, but I managed to catch a few keywords that told me he had written a suicide note.

"Richard, no..." I said in a disappointed tone. I had dealt with a lot of past friends and boyfriends doing stuff like this for attention, so to be honest, I didn't take him seriously at first.

That is until he placed the camera back in its place and walked out of his room in silence. When he came back, he sat down on his bed and closed his eyes tightly. He took a few deep breaths before holding a gun up to his temple. I began seriously freaking out and begged him not to do it. He wouldn't listen to my pleas though. It was as if he forgot I was even there. I screamed, I cried, and started having a panic attack. I was finally able to say something that I really regret.

"If you kill yourself, I'll do it too!" I know that is something you should never say to a suicidal person, but that's not why I regret it. I regret saying it because it's exactly what he wanted to hear.

After I said that, he stopped. He lowered the gun and leaned forward to end the call. I was shaking, until he texted me, telling me he was sorry. He never told me why he did any of that. I'm convinced that it was his way of scaring me. He wanted to be able to use suicide as a threat so that I would never leave him, and he wanted to make sure his first threat would be the scariest.

So, this stuff quickly became normal to me. If he thought I didn't like him anymore, he'd cry and scream and threaten to carve stuff into his arms. If I did something that he didn't approve of he'd demand I stop or he'd kill himself. Sometimes, he'd even threaten his life when he was feeling bored. He enjoyed seeing me so scared, it pleased him.

I'm not the biggest fan of holiday's anymore because he would threaten me even on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I remember one year my parents got a Playstation 4 for our whole family to use, and they got me a game that I had been dying to play. That night I was so happy as I played on my living room floor. I felt like such a kid again. I texted Richard to tell him how happy I was. He just responded by telling me how horrible he was feeling, and that he wanted to kill himself. I slowly lost interest in my game and became depressed. I stopped playing and went into my room for the night and continued texting him. After a while, he stopped responding. I spammed him with messages and began to panic again. At the time I would cut myself as a coping mechanism for my anxiety attacks. So, that's what I did. I sat on the floor in front of my bedroom door, crying in both emotional and physical pain. After I was finished "coping", Richard finally texted me back.

"Sorry, I fell asleep," I didn't know how to feel anymore. I just felt numb. However, I remember that he had driven a very bad habit into me that night. It had only been the start, but he would always do this. He would make threats, cause drama, make me panic, and when I would finish coping over it he would stop. It made me believe that if I hurt myself it would solve my problems. Although because he was starting drama almost everyday, I was hurting myself everyday. It became an addiction that, to this day, I still struggle to fight against.

You may be wondering how I knew this was all fake. Some of it may have been somewhat real, but most of it was all a lie. I know this because he never actually made any attempts. He had several opportunities to at least attempt something, but he never did. I'm not saying I wanted him to, but it never made any sense. And he would only threaten his life when I wasn't paying attention to him or did something that he didn't like. Maybe he was emotional disturbed in someway, but I don't think he ever had any real intentions to kill himself. He just enjoyed scaring me with the idea.