Surrealism, personified.

As 2016 draws to a close, I can officially say it’s been the most surreal year of my 44 years thus far.  Dictionary.com definition of surreal: having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream; unreal;fantastic:

That’s pretty damn accurate.

I started 2016 with admitting myself to rehab for alcoholism.  It was the best decision of my life.  Some recent events would insinuate that I am both ashamed by and/or have hidden this fact from the public, but neither is the case.  I don’t advertise this because it’s not who I am.  It’s a part of me, and will always be, but it doesn’t define me as a person.  I am Shannon Lea Egan, Jim and Marie’s only daughter.  I’m known for lots of things.  I readily engage in conversations regarding all of me, all that I am, all that I was, and all that I hope to become.  For better or worse, history is both factual and neutral.  It’s what we make of the situation that colors it one way or the other.

One thing that 2016 has forced me to acknowledge is that I haven’t  been a good friend.  Because I’ve been caught up in my own issues, I haven’t been there or even made myself available for those around me who are important to me, who have faced situations in their own lives which warrant an “I got your back”.  Character flaw?  Yep.  I’m hoping that self-awareness of this helps lead me to a much better awareness of those around me.  Although the situations which have prompted me to take much more notice of this aren’t great, it’s still true and for that I’m grateful.

This year I ended a 5 year relationship with a man who is a really great guy.  I’ve never known a man who truly deserves the best that life has to offer.  There’s a certain amount of guilt associated with this.  I shouldn’t feel guilty for admitting I can’t be that for him, but I also feel a certain amount of guilt admitting that I can’t, and feeling like he wasted his time with me.  I’m not in love with him, but I miss him in my life.  I care about him and what happens to him.

Most recently, to try to keep it brief and not give too much voice to the recent ugliness in my life, I had a brief relationship this fall with a man I thought was the love of my life.  I was most definitely wrong.  You can read back to the past few blog posts for the details, but it’s not necessary for this purpose.  We were madly in love with each other.  Last month we were out of town at a convention, and because he thought I drove drunk to gas up the car for the next morning’s trip home (I didn’t), he physically and violently threw me out of our hotel room.

As of today, there have been many things that have come up that leave me even more paranoid than I have been since the incident last month.  Since everything went down, I’ve gone back and forth between whether or not I should speak up about what happened because there have been several allegations of this not being the 1st time this has happened with him, or if I should simply shut my damn mouth because of how much trouble it could cause for me and everyone else associated with me in any way if I speak up.  I’ve kept quiet, but recently I texted him asking about us exchanging personal belongings and he brought up a few very partial personal details of things that occurred since that incident which I have literally no clue how he could possibly have knowledge of.  He posted a NINE PAGE Facebook rant last month (I copied and pasted it into MS word just to read it, it’s literally nine pages) which lead to multiple threats against me.  The rant had outright lies, partial truths, and a huge number of falsehoods that have just enough truth to them to be believable to anyone who doesn’t ask me for any information.

Since then his commentary to me has become more off base and more unstable.  His text response to my request (when I tried to discuss exchanging personal effects) was quite long, and he tried to drag me into a conversation and an argument against yet more allegations, and also guilt trip me into some other stuff.  I wouldn’t rise to it, would only comment on the personal effects, but he wouldn’t leave it alone.  This is when more unexpectedly truly nasty and quite frankly freaky shit came out.  Again, mostly inaccurate, but with enough of a hint of accuracy to seriously lead me to question my own security both virtual and literal.  Is he savvy enough to hack into my phone, my computer, my email?  When we were together I had no secrets from him and he knew my passwords.  Yes I’ve changed them, but I’m still concerned.

I literally feel like poison.  I don’t know what to do.  I don’t know where to turn.  He has all the power and I have none.  I don’t ever remember feeling this helpless in my life.  I need help.  I don’t know where to turn.  I feel so out of control that I have no footing.  I’m sure he will see this, and I’m sure he will celebrate yet another victory over me.  If anyone has any words of wisdom, any advice, any suggestions, I definitely welcome it.  I don’t feel like a person anymore.  I feel like a target.