At this point in time I am confused, angry, terrified, hurt, and I’m starting to realize that things are getting out of control. I was a drug addict, yes, but this was too much. I didn’t realize that people would come into your life and even when you showed them kindness that they would take advantage of that and not feel any shame. I didn’t realize that they would feel a sense of pride in not feeling any shame for their actions. It seems silly to write it now, but then I was just stunned.
I tried to keep the guy from getting too crazy angry. I said that he could be my roommate and that we would figure something out. He seemed to be ok with this arrangement, and why wouldn’t he? He had a free place to live and a van to drive. He drove me absolutely crazy all the time and did the craziest things. I had been a meth addict before and I thought I had seen everything; not even close. I once expressed to him that I didn’t want him to wear my clothes. I had just bought new clothes and he was ruining them. He proceeded to take everything out of my closet one by one, threw them on the floor, stood on them, and told me to make him stop wearing them. He used to shower with his clothes and shoes on and I would find big piles of them in my bath tub. He would invite all kinds of people over all hours of the day and night. He would tell me if I said anything that he would make me disappear and he carried around a hatchet all the time. This life was a nightmare and I didn’t know how to get out of it. He had turned my home into a crack house and took my security and my dignity away.
Things continued like this for a while. He never left the house without taking my van so that I was sure to let him back in. I did come home one time and he was gone. I thought, “now is my chance.” I began packing up all the crap he had all over the house. I got all his trash bags and his wet clothes and everything that even reminded me of him and piled it up by the living room door. I was finally going to be rid of him. I went into my bedroom to chill for a minute, smoke some meth, and then I was going to take all his stuff, put it outside, and lock the door. I had just finished, got myself together, walked into the living room and there he stood. I hadn’t heard him come in. He asked me what I was doing and I said the first thing that came to mind, “What do you think I’m doing? I’m cleaning up this pigsty.” He thankfully seemed to accept this answer and proceeded to tell me that 10 or 15 of his friends would be coming by for a few days.
From here again things escalated from bad to worse. At some point in the evening, unbeknownst to me at the time, he allegedly stole something from someone. I was posted up in my room alone. The person later that week called him and asked him about it. I’m not sure what was said except that he denied it. This back and forth continued for a day or two. At some point, I think that the uninvited guy started to realize that he was doing a bit too much and things were getting serious. The person wanted whatever the guy had allegedly stolen back. At some point in that time the uninvited guy had wrapped himself in bandages and was pretending to be hurt. I had no clue why, nor did I care, he did weird things all the time so it was really nothing out of the ordinary. I realized later that he did this because things had gone too far and he realized it.
At some point, in that time period, after he had wrapped up, he began to pretend again to be asleep on the sofa. Again, no clue why and didn’t care. Then the door bell rang. I answered the door and they wasted no time asking me for the item. I told them I had no idea what they were talking about and that the dude was on the sofa asleep, to take it up with him. I then went to my room. The person at the door went and got another person and I could hear them yelling at the uninvited guy to wake up. I didn’t hear what they were saying beyond that. At some point the talking stopped and one of the persons entered my room, followed by the other person, the uninvited guy was still in the living room.
The first person came in and motioned to the other one to shut my bedroom door. The first person proceeded to sit down on my bed while the other person stood between us and the door. The first person got some drugs and saying how nice I was INSISTED that I do the drugs that he laid out, saying what a great host I had been or something like that. At that point, while doing the drugs he laid out, I noticed that he took out a gun. I had no idea if it was loaded or unloaded. He then pointed the gun at me and said something along the lines of since I was sooo nice and honest all the time, I wouldn’t have a problem telling them what happened to whatever it was that the uninvited guy had allegedly stolen. I remember thinking, “Justin, now is the time to be the best you, act happy, act positive, be confident, and be as honest as you can.” I said, “that there was nothing I wanted more than to say that the guy stole it, nothing I wanted more than them to beat the crap out of the guy and take him away, but I reminded them that I was in my room that night and that I couldn’t swear to anything.” They then went back into the living room, said some more words to the other guy and they were gone. This nightmare had to end.
I tried several times to tell him that he wasn’t going to take my vehicle only to be met with brute force. I tried tricking him into leaving the house. I tried taking him to work with me (he never went), I was going to leave him at a gas station or something. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want my landlord to find out. I didn’t really want any of my friends to know and I had tried to confide in someone only to have them turn around and tell him everything I had said right in front of me. I was stuck and lost. I decided I was going to be firm and honest as I could.
One evening when I got home from work he told me that he would be using my vehicle. To this, I said no. I told him that I was going to be using it that evening and that I had several things to do. He called my bluff and told me he would be riding with me. I said whatever, if you want to ride around town while I run my errands, have at it. We rode around and I started doing my errands, he fell asleep. About an hour later, he woke up and informed me that he was going to use my vehicle later that evening. I proceeded to remind him that I had already told him that I was using the vehicle that evening and he would have to find some other way to get around. He then screamed at me calling me a liar. He said that I had never said that and to stop fucking lying. I said that he was sadly mistaken that I HAD said that and it was too bad. He then did something that I couldn’t believe. We were going down the interstate at this point, I was doing 70. In an instant, he stood up, unbuckled my seatbelt, stomped his foot down on mine, pressing the gas pedal to the floor, and grabbed the steering wheel. I remember the speedometer needle trembling at 95. He screamed and said I was fucking lying, he said, “say you were fucking lying or I’ll flip this shit and kill us both.” I looked out the windshield and with every bit of hope and autonomy drained out of my body, I sighed and said, “I fucking lied, you can use the vehicle, let’s go home.” He sat down and at the next exit I turned into a gas station so I could get a pack of cigarettes and turn around. I went back to the house, he took the vehicle and left, I didn’t see him again for 3 or 4 days.
He returned and I guess he didn’t have much luck getting drugs, but he did acquire a new boyfriend. That didn’t mean much to me except I had another person staying at the house full time. It also meant that a lot of new people started coming by the house and a ton of my things were stolen, apart from the things that came up missing while I was at work. They hadn’t found my hidden stash. I moved it so often I wasn’t ever really sure where it was. The few days he was gone I had looked around my room and found the drugs that I had stashed away in case he was gone for a long time, couldn’t come up with his own and took mine, or just for a rainy day. This just happened to work out in my favor. One of his friends came by looking for drugs and his boyfriend and that friend went off to find some. I’m not sure exactly what happened but they got stuck waiting and another one of his friends came by. I then sprung some of the drugs I had hidden on the uninvited guy and said for him to go with his friend and go have fun and hang out with his new boyfriend. It was just the opportunity I needed. He took the drugs and left the house and I sprung into action immediately. I gathered all his stuff and started to pile it up on the front porch. It took about an hour to get everything out. I put shower curtain rods in the windows to hold them closed and I moved some furniture in front of the back and front doors. I then texted him and told him he was no longer welcome in my house, his stuff was outside and I hit the block button.
For the next few weeks, I didn’t leave the house. I was scared that I would run into him. He came back to the house the day I texted him and got his stuff. He then returned that night around midnight and began knocking on my back door. I hid under my bed and cried. Tap Tap Tap “I know you are in there.” Tap Tap Tap “I know you can hear me.” Tap Tap Tap “You’re not just going to let me sit out in the cold.” Tap Tap Tap “What did I do?” Tap Tap Tap “You’re too good of a person to let me sit out here.” It went on that way for the next week, every night from Midnight to 4 am. I was finally free.