i should have known better— words i’ve said a thousand times lately.
they’re always met with but you couldn’t have known!
i should have anyway, i think, trying to forgive myself. not knowing how.
note: this piece includes descriptions of emotional harm, betrayal, and a deteriorating home and work environment, as well as distressing situations involving pets.
this narrative represents my personal account and analysis of workplace and relational dynamics i experienced. it is written from my perspective as participant and observer, drawing on my education in organizational behavior, ethics, and character-informed leadership.
i cannot share this piece of my life without mentioning other people and a place of business, but every effort has been made to protect their identities. if you know or recognize anyone referenced, please respect those boundaries. while i deserve to share my experience, that does not negate their rights to privacy.
in the final weeks leading up to the move, doubt, fear, and a looming gut feeling crept over me.
don’t do it.
i don’t want to move.
i’m so happy where i am.
the cats are doing so well.
it will be too much change for henry (senior cat) after adopting griffin (kitten) so recently.
i said i’d only stay here for a year. i don’t want to overstay, even if they said i can.
you’re 41 years old; you shouldn’t be living in your friends’ basement.
it was my idea to move into a place together. it will be an improvement for both of us.
it will be fun.
it will be ok.
so i cried about it. and told my two friends about it– the one i was going to move in with, and the one whose property we’d be renting. they didn’t freak out. they didn’t get mad. i felt a little better. so a few days later, heart a little heavier than it should have been, i took the whole week off, packed up, and started moving. i was in this. it would be great. of course it would.
it was so hot. to save money, i didn’t get a moving truck; i used my reliable old pickup and made trip after trip. the a/c went out in the truck last summer and i never got it fixed. i had heat exhaustion every day, but i kept a steady pace, moving room by room until just the large furniture, bathroom, bedroom, and cats were left.
her move was easy– at least compared to mine. she’d been able to pack weeks in advance, and she didn’t own much in the way of furniture and household items. everything she brought went into her room. my belongings filled and furnished the whole downstairs: dining table and chairs, side tables, couch, rugs, coffee table, shelves, then a loveseat and cabinet i picked up from marketplace a few days later. i even brought the silverware.
since her move was simple and took only one big day with a little help from our friends and coworkers, she asked when i would need help. she said she could let our mutuals know. at the beginning of the week, i wasn’t sure what day that would be; it would depend on my progress the first couple of days or so. i kept her informed, and she kept asking how it was going and did i know when i’d need help yet. i so appreciated her willingness to take the task of organizing help off my plate so i could just lock in and focus on moving what i could.
what i didn’t know until much later was that she didn’t want that role; she didn’t want to be the point of contact to coordinate help for me. i learned later that she complained about it all week, saying things like vanessa wants me to ask people for help. i don’t know why she can’t get her own help, and this is her move, not mine.
on tuesday, i knew the next day would be the final push; the day everything left had to come to the new place and i would need help doing it: i couldn’t move the bathroom stuff and sleep at the old place without my hygiene necessities. i couldn’t move the bedroom and not have anything in my new bathroom. i couldn’t move the cats without the bed to set up so they could have comfort and familiarity in the new place. i knew she and everyone else had to work the next day, and there was still some moving i could handle on my own. i said i’d keep her updated as the day progressed.
wednesday started early with a vet visit i regretted scheduling for that week. but henry was out of thyroid medication as of the night before, so i couldn’t reschedule. all the heat and exertion of the last few days caught up to me. i was struggling physically, mentally. not having a breakdown, but using every ounce i had to just. keep. going. all i could do was keep picking things up and carrying them out, picking things up and carrying them in. i told her i couldn’t really think. i said sometime after 6pm would be good. she said see you around 6. she said she’d bring one other person. then i realized it might take me a little longer driving back that time of day because of traffic, so i said it might be a little later than 6. she said ok.
time did what it does and marched on. i had to stop and buy more boxes. at some point i realized it was after 8. i hadn’t heard from her since she said ok. i knew she’d check in when she was ready to head my way, so i thought nothing of leaving with one more load to the new place. i got there around 9pm. she was in the kitchen, cooking, humming, not a care in the world. it would have been a heartwarming sight under other circumstances, but it was disorienting that night. it appeared she had no intention of going anywhere. i brushed it off without asking why; what had happened; what had changed. i figured at this point it’ll be kind of late if she comes to help me now. she has that sore finger she smashed real bad earlier in the week. i’ll go back, get just my mattress and the cats. we can sleep on the mattress on the floor for the first night. no big deal. everything from the bathroom was already moved. henry’s newly refilled medication was there. every article of clothing not on my body was there. i could do this. i told her my new plan as i went out the door. she didn’t ask if i still needed anything, or explain why she hadn’t come.
at 11pm, mattress in a moving bag at the bottom of the stairs at the old place, i started to realize i was not going to be able to do this on my own. queen size latex mattresses weigh more than i thought. and they refuse to stand up, wobbling and buckling all over the place. i started to panic, but refused to give up. i struggled with it until 2am. i used a large ratchet strap from my trucker days to try to fold the mattress in half so i could push it up the stairs without it falling over. i was sweatier and smellier than i’ve ever been in my life. i didn’t have a clean pair of underwear, a fresh sock, any kind of soap, or even a hand towel in the bathroom. i couldn’t think of anyone who didn’t work in the morning, so i didn’t dare call someone. this was my problem, not theirs.
but it meant sleeping on the box springs still in my room. no blanket, no pillow. no medicine for henry. would the floor have been more comfortable? i don’t know. i don’t remember it even crossing my mind. i just knew couldn’t leave the cats alone without even anything soft to sleep on. but i couldn’t take them with me, either. it would have been too disorienting for them without the bed to get comfortable on. i could have gone back for henry’s medicine and grabbed a few items to get through the night. but one of the skills that’s drilled into you as a trucker is knowing when you’re not safe to drive. i had passed the point of being safe to drive. i had to stay where i was and there was nothing i could do about it but wait and try to get some rest.
my own smell kept me awake as much as the discomfort of the box spring slats. both cats stayed next to me through the rest of the night, but they were confused and nearly as uncomfortable as i was, their soft blankets and heating pad no longer there. my head pounded with a migraine. all i could think was why did no one come? what happened? why did she change her mind and not tell me? why did she tell the other person not to come, too?
i had no idea i would end up in such a miserable situation that night. if i’d been less exhausted from three and a half days of moving– during the hottest time of the year– i could have seen where things were headed. i could have made a better pivot plan. but it’s also true that if someone had come, anyone at all, i would have made it to the new place. i would have stayed up late washing my bedding, getting the most needed shower of my life (that’s really saying something as a former trucker. i won’t tell you how many consecutive days i’ve gone without showering). i would have been able to give henry his medicine.
by the next morning, i was angry. the kind of anger that comes from shock, confusion, disappointment, and sheer exhaustion. at 11:50pm, i had sent her a text: why did no one come help me today
i think i hoped she would still be awake, that i could let her know i was stuck at the bottom of the stairs, that i desperately needed just a little more muscle for this stupid mattress. maybe she could still come. maybe she could go to work late the next morning. but like most people at that hour, she was already asleep. i couldn’t bear to call and wake her up. she finally replied just before 9am: I know it suck’s that yesterday didn’t work out. :(
that was when i realized this was going to be weird on top of everything. why didn’t it “work out”? what did that mean? she didn’t see the gravity in her failure to be there when i needed her; when she said she’d be there. to her it was a misunderstanding. inconsequential. an unwanted divergence from my plans, at worst. my reminders all week of how critical that final moving day would be for me hadn’t sunk in like i thought. she didn’t have any idea how i had spent my night, despite telling her every day why i would need my bathroom, bedroom, and cats moved all on the same day.
i replied, i would like to know why it didn’t “work out.” i said after 6. and i said tell [other person] yes.
she said, I did tell [other person] yes. I was waiting to hear specifics from you and never heard from you. the last I heard from you was “can’t really think, Don’t know anything. Don’t know how much time anything will take”. And then you talking about the fire. After 6 is not a specific enough time frame. I was at the house waiting for you to text me or text [other person] yourself since this was your move and say what time to be there. I know yesterday was a hard day for you. I don’t need you to explain why. But you need to communicate what you need. And honestly I fucked up my finger a bunch yesterday and shouldn’t be moving anything.
i responded, i see. there is a lot to this situation and what happened that you don’t understand. not don’t know; don’t understand. i do not have the bandwidth to explain it. i did not sleep last night. perhaps i will attempt to communicate in a few days, but it’s best we leave each other alone as much as possible right now.
i got help from others and completed the move. i brought the cats. i rested. i started unpacking. i didn’t have the capacity to speak to her until the evening of the following day, friday. that afternoon, i had followed through on a promise i’d made her before we moved in: she wanted a designated place to display her knick knacks and things she said i might consider “clutter.” i found a tall oak and glass curio cabinet at a bargain on facebook marketplace. i’d picked it up and brought it home. i hoped it would show her that even though i was upset and hurt, i was still proceeding in good faith, keeping my word, and moving forward on plans we’d made.
she got home shortly thereafter. she had a bag of taco bell. i spoke to her for the first time since our texts the morning of the previous day. i still needed to tell her what i’d been through, but i wasn’t angry anymore. i was baffled and hurt. i needed her to understand how my night had gone, and i needed to understand how this dear, generous friend had failed me so badly.
i asked how she was. she offered me a cheesy bean and rice burrito– one of my favorites. i ate half and gave the rest back. i pointed out the curio cabinet and asked what she thought. she seemed to like it. that made me happy.
i poured us each some bourbon as we chatted. i sat back down and started telling her how wednesday night had unfolded for me. my language was neutral, unaccusatory. i didn’t want to beat her over the head and make her feel like shit. what was done was done. i just needed her to see the sequence of events and understand why i needed help, and what happened as a result of not having help.
she was performatively sympathetic, but didn’t connect the dots. finally, i said, “[her name], it was your fault.“
instantly she was on her feet. FUCK you, she said. no. no. you don’t get to talk to me like that. no.
yes i do get to talk to you like this, i shot back. i’m not one of your staff.
that enraged her more. she moved around the house wildly, infuriated. screaming at me. she slammed the doors so hard the house rattled. i said be quiet! we’re going to get the cops called on us! she said, GOOD.
she said something about how she would do anything for her friends; she would drop everything and do anything for them. i snapped, but you didn’t. you’re not a good friend. you’re just a bitch.
the image of her standing by the kitchen door to the garage, responding to me telling her she wasn’t a good friend– that’s the part that got to her, not calling her a bitch– is seared into my brain. she had a death grip on the door knob. her face screwed up in a bright red wad as she screamed louder than i’ve ever heard anyone scream: I — AM — THEEEE BESSSST — FRIEND!!!!!!!!!!
and out the door she went, slamming it full force behind her. i hadn’t moved from my seat. a moment later, she came storming back in. i need my dogs, she announced. i said, very quietly, [her name], just sit back down. let’s just talk.
NO. nu-uh. no. absolutely not. i need my dogs. and she left with them. still, i was in my seat.
i stood up. pushed the chairs back in. put my glass in the sink. i went upstairs to my bedroom. i called my friend whose house i’d JUST moved out of. i asked if i could come back. she said yes. i said i didn’t know what i’d do but i’d let her know. i remember starting to set up an account to get internet at the house, like nothing had just happened. like if i just keep working on the normal things, everything will be fine. she’ll take a heated walk with her dogs, calm down, come back, and we’ll talk for real.
i didn’t finish setting up an internet account. it started to hit me how serious this was. how this is the kind of behavior i grew up with. dated. used to exhibit myself. learned how destructive it is because you can’t unbreak things– and people– you broke. got therapy for. and finally, learned to treat as an instant dealbreaker.
then i started getting texts from people we work with. they asked if i was alright. they said they didn’t know much, but they’d heard we were having a rough time.
she hadn’t gone on a walk or long drive. she’d gone straight to an event where many of our coworkers were. i appreciated these people reaching out to me; i truly did. but i kept my answers vague. i thanked them for asking. i didn’t tell them anything that had just happened. what the hell was she doing?
there would be several moments that shifted things irreversibly between us over the next seven weeks. this was the first.
the next morning, saturday, i had two friends ready to help me rent a moving truck and pack it all right back up in one go to take back where i’d just moved from. as you can tell, that’s not what happened.
our landlord was also in town that morning. he came by for some last minute maintenance. i sat him down and told him i had to move right back out. i looked so serious he thought i was trying to be funny. i told him a little about the night before. how she had a volatile temper i hadn’t known about. how loud she’d been. how violent with the house. he asked to sit down with us together when she got home from an event she was at for the morning. out of respect for his wishes and the fact he was losing a tenant he had been counting on, i agreed to let him mediate a conversation.
i recorded the conversation. eight minutes in, she calls me a liar when i tell her she had slammed the doors and screamed her lungs out at me. a few minutes after that, she denies having just called me a liar.
the conversation lasted two hours. by the end, he had given me the option to back out of my lease, any time, without penalty. she expressed sadness over the idea of losing our friendship. physically worn out from the move, overwhelmed at the thought of moving twice in one week, and emotionally drained, i cautiously agreed to try; to stay; to give it some time.
and i did. i unpacked everything. i hung things on the walls. i got a loveseat to add to the living room and nightstands for my bedroom. i couldn’t bounce back to normal right away, but i talked and texted with her as close to normal as i genuinely could. i’d come in and ask how her day was. we used to wait for each other after work every day and download each other on how our workday had been. one night the following week, i hung out with her as she filled the curio cabinet with her trinkets and treasures. it almost felt like bonding again. i discovered that i loved the little townhouse more than i thought i would. it was tucked away in a quiet corner. it was three blocks away from the main drag downtown– i could walk to my friend’s bar, and the farmer’s market. i loved the way the sunlight came through all the back windows in the afternoon, downstairs and up.
she didn’t really return my attempts at normal conversation. she’d pull an earbud out and answer my questions, but didn’t seem very interested. once incredibly generous with food and knowing i struggle with a mild eating disorder, she would cook or offer to bring me food nearly every day. in the time we lived together, she cooked a lot– and never offered me anything. i cooked less than her, but i baked cookies a couple of times and let her know she should have some. when the weather started turning cool, i made a large pot of chili that turned out exceptionally good, and i reminded her on two separate days that she was welcome to it.
we used to send each other funny or interesting things on social media every day– even on days we spent a lot of time together. that pastime declined, and i felt i was the only one trying to keep it alive. one day i posted some pics on instagram that included her cat. i tagged her. she never acknowledged or liked it.
i noticed as these minute things piled up, but i couldn’t talk to her about them. i couldn’t really process them. there were new problems emerging: her animals. the dog i thought was just excitable and high energy seemed intent on attacking my cats. henry, who has never met a dog he so much as hissed at, was scared. griffin, just three months old, didn’t yet know what dogs were; i expected some fear from him until he learned they could be his friends like henry. but the dog lunged, snarled, and snapped at them at every opportunity. griffin was terrified. henry, who began showing signs of his age this year in the way he moves around– slower and less agile than before– was tormented. he turned into a recluse, no longer than the open, friendly, cuddly boy he’s always been even with strangers. borderline overweight most of his life, he lost his appetite; i could barely get him to eat even the medicated wet food he usually begs for. he’s always turned to me for comfort when he needs it or when he knows i need it. he has always slept in the bed with me all night long. at the townhouse, he lived on his cat tree. our nightly routine has always included me holding him as i fall asleep. there, he came to barely step foot on the bed day or night.
because i had seen henry around dozens of dogs in the time i’ve had him– including eight or more dogs at the same time, completely unbothered– and griffin was going to be afraid no matter what, i didn’t feel a need to introduce dogs and cats before the move. i thought with time and safe haven in my room, everybody would be ok. we did introduce my cats to her cat. she brought her cat to my place three times. each time, henry was displeased, but less each time. her cat and griffin seemed like they’d get along right off the bat. all of this was naive. in hindsight, i see the mistakes and assumptions i made. i regret them so, so much.
the aggressive dog’s behavior didn’t decrease like i thought it would. i became increasingly concerned for my cats’ physical safety. i wondered if i was overly worried. they were her dogs and she didn’t seem phased. was my fear irrational? i started googling aggressive dog behavior: how much is too much, when is it a problem, how to tell if a dog possesses the capacity to kill. nothing i learned eased my fears. this dog’s behavior crossed the bite threshold daily. both dogs would chase my cats into my room and enter my room with them. she purchased a baby gate to keep the dogs out, which i installed in front of my bedroom door. a small inconvenience for the peace of mind it provided.
but the baby gate couldn’t keep her cat out without keeping my cats out– and therein came an equally concerning problem: her cat was eating my cats’ food. most of their food, i came to realize. i would keep a close eye on the food when i was home and chase her cat away, but i couldn’t do this when i wasn’t home, or even downstairs for extended periods. my cats weren’t getting enough to eat. i could find no way to remedy this but to purchase a microchip feeder. it cost over $200– more than 8% of my monthly income at the time.
after the microchip feeder arrived, she said she’d send me $140 after our next payday: half(ish) the cost of the feeder, and half the cost of the loveseat i bought on marketplace. i appreciated that, but told her i wasn’t asking for it. i had to make sure my cats didn’t literally starve. what i didn’t say, was afraid to say– she has an unpredictable temper, after all– was that half was insulting. her animal caused the cost. she should reimburse me the full amount.
our next payday came and went. then the next. she informed me how much i owed her for utilities. i replied with screenshots of the microchip feeder cost. she said Last I brought up the feeder you said something along the lines of you hadn’t asked me for payment. I shouldn’t have assumed that meant you didn’t want it. [….] I just hadn’t heard anything since the last time I mentioned it. If you truly want me to pay for half the feeder just let me know and I can make it happen right now.
she tried to make me beg for what she had already said she’d do– which was only half of what she should have done. and just like with helping me move, she changed her mind without telling me, then turned it around on me. with moving it was because ‘after 6pm’ wasn’t a specific enough time frame. with this, it was you didn’t ask me to do what i already said i’d do.
after the email i sent (shown above), she came through with half for the feeder. she never again mentioned the loveseat and $40 for it that she had also promised.
i learned not to believe her or trust what she said.
about a month into this increasingly stressful living situation, she reminded me of some days she would be out of town in october. she asked me to dogsit. i couldn’t believe she would ask me for that: 1) because of the ongoing, unaddressed behavior from her dogs, especially the dangerous one. 2) leaving the dogs in my care would mean them being gated in the kitchen 24/7 (minus outside potty breaks). i didn’t react with outrage. again, i was scared of angering her. the fact that her animals were problematic was a sensitive topic for her. and under better circumstances, asking your housemate to watch your pets isn’t unreasonable. so i tread carefully, responding with hesitation. she then asked if i would be more comfortable if she got someone to stay at the house for the dogs while she was gone. i liked that idea, and it took the weight off of trying to figure out how to let her know how unreasonable it was for me to watch them. i felt much better. we even had a small conversation right after that about normal things– work, and our current frustrations at work. she said something about the silence that had grown between us. i said i liked talking better than not talking; it felt less awkward. the next day, i felt lighter for the first time in weeks. almost happy, even.
until i got a text and screenshot from someone showing me how she was relaying our conversation about the dogs to others. she said i “asked” her to find someone to stay at the house– and that it meant cutting her trip short. my walls went up instantly. i knew from that moment on, talking to her meant risking every word being twisted against me. she had twisted the narrative around me moving so i sounded helpless, demanding, needy, or entitled. now she was twisting her own solution to her own problem– needing a dogsitter– against me to make it sound like i was making a burdensome request and didn’t care about her trip.
i didn’t even want to explain my sudden revert back to silence. everything i said could and would be used against me. silence wasn’t much better, but at least she couldn’t put words in my mouth without fully lying.
around this time, coworkers really began telling me what was happening at work behind my back: there was the day someone had a question i needed to direct to her. i tried to call her; she didn’t pick up. i tried the person below her. that person didn’t pick up either. the third person i tried answered. i explained what i needed, and that person went to get her. she assumed i hadn’t even tried to reach her and offhandedly remarked that i probably hadn’t called her because, well, you know— implying i was letting our personal issues interfere with doing my job properly.
she would get to work every morning and vent/complain about me to the first people she saw. she had conversations about me in the hallway; in people’s offices with the door open where others, including her subordinates, could and did overhear. six people told me about it, and two more confirmed, without sharing details, that she had been talking negatively about me. in such a small business, that’s a huge number.
as if all of this wasn’t enough to keep up with while trying to survive one day to the next (plus school started a week and a half after we moved in– i had two very intensive classes to keep up with), the problems with her animals got even worse. her cat was going outside of its litter box– A LOT. i discovered it had been peeing in my second room (she had the large bedroom; i had the two smaller ones). after catching it in the act, twice, i knew the only way to stop it from ruining that room’s carpet and my belongings was to keep the door closed. i hated that. i wanted so badly to get another cat tree to place in front of the west-facing window that overlooked a large tree. i knew my cats would love the afternoon sun and might get to see some birds up close. i had been shopping for a good deal on a new cat tree, and now i couldn’t even let my cats go in there at all.
the cat peed and defecated on the new bathroom rug i had purchased after moving in. i caught him in the act the second time. i broke the silence and told her he had just soiled the rug. she said “you sure it was him?”
it was, in fact, very easy to be mad– about the uncontrolled havoc this cat was wreaking on my life.
after that second time, i knew i could no longer keep the rug on the floor. it had been washed and saturated with enzyme spray, and that hadn’t stopped him.
he was also peeing on the mat i kept under one of my litter boxes. he’d pee right in front of the entrance to the box, where my cats had to either step in it or jump over it to go inside. after this happened twice in less than 24 hours, i tossed the mat into the tub without cleaning it. what was the point?
the same night, i discovered her cat had also peed downstairs in the living room. on a large dog bed that has belonged to henry for over seven years. and that the pee had seeped through to my 10′ area rug underneath. i put the bed on the laundry machines. as i was dousing the rug with the enzyme spray, i heard a rip. one of her dogs had pulled it down and was starting to tear it up.
another day that week, while in my bedroom, i heard a suspicious sound coming from my bathroom. her less problematic dog was getting into my litter box. not for the first time. i hated when the dogs ate the litter– not even because it’s gross. i don’t care. they’re not my dogs; i’m not kissing them or letting them lick me. i hated it because they made such an impossible mess inside the box, smearing feces everywhere and dropping pieces outside the box. YES, i keep my litter boxes scooped. but with three cats in the house, even with 3-4 boxes between them, there’s going to be something in them more often than not.
i told the dog to go downstairs. it obeyed. i went to the back door to let it outside. i opened the door and she was there. she said “was he misbehaving?” and for the first and only time, i finally yelled at her. “i caught him eating MY litter.” and *i* slammed the door. she came in as i was going back up the stairs. she said something about only leaving him unattended for a minute. i didn’t care. i said “your animals are RUINING my quality of life and you. don’t. give. a shit.”
the next day, she installed a doorbuddy device on my bathroom door. it kept the door propped open enough for the cats to get in and out, but not wide enough for the dogs. i was grateful. but now i was living where i had a gate to my bedroom, my second room was closed off, my bathroom was guarded, i couldn’t have my new rug on the floor, and there was no way to protect the living room. every space that was supposed to be for me and my cats was restricted or prohibited. the aggressive dog was still aggressive. the cat was still peeing. i was so afraid of her that i stayed in my room with the door cracked just enough for the cats. when i heard the garage door open, i’d run up the stairs. i stopped sitting in the living room at all. if she was home in the evenings, i often waited until she went to bed (around 10pm) to go downstairs for something to eat for dinner. i was limited and hiding in my own home.
it wasn’t just fear of what she might do. though she had assured me her blowup was a “one-time thing,” i never recovered from the shock and magnitude of it. the house might be quiet, but it wasn’t peaceful. everything felt loaded. i never knew what i’d get, or if saying something as small as “hi” would be met with mild warmth or icy chill. many of my hellos and goodbyes went unanswered. i felt i was trying in good faith to be pleasant, normal, friendly. it wasn’t reciprocated. when someone makes you feel like your existence is an annoyance, you start shrinking yourself to take up less space. that’s what happened. even without screaming at me, it was in the way she moved around me, wouldn’t look at me, didn’t greet me or ask how i was, the tone in her voice when she said “excuse me” in the kitchen. it was in the way she let the air go cold around me.
this exchange illustrates what our limited interactions had become. even when i was genuine and sweet (heart emoji), she was neutral, clipped. she could have said “thank you” or “you too” or “we will!” but she completely ignored what i said about her plans for the night. she responded only to what i said about the doorbuddy, and it read like a memo. (why not “you’re welcome! i hope it works” or even, “you’re welcome. i hope it’s successful.”?) even when she wasn’t overtly angry, she wasn’t kind, just barely polite.
i documented everything i could. i emailed our landlord anything that involved the condition of their house or my concerns about the dog’s aggression toward my cats. the emails became more and more frequent. in the final few days i lived there, after discovering the pee in the living room, i put it in an email that she must keep her cat in her own room. she actually did. my cats relaxed so much. henry started spending some time in the bed with me again. griffin calmed down a little. and the pee and poo stopped.
i emptied out my closed second room and she rented an industrial carpet cleaner. i still kept the door closed. it still reeks of cat piss.
i knew i was failing my boys, my cats, and i was beyond miserable. i felt trapped. school was taking up all of my time outside of work. my friends whose house i’d moved out of had a new renter lined up. and my income severely limited my options.
the final nail in the coffin came in the form of a text not meant for me. i woke up that sunday morning with a migraine rivaling any i’ve had before. i stayed in bed except to give henry his medicine and feed myself once. i called out of work the next day and stayed in bed all of that day too. that afternoon after she got home from work, she texted me.
Also Vanessa has been sick. And I don’t want to be glad for that. But it also means she’s been silent. And absent. I hate that I’m relieved by that.
as if i wasn’t already silent, always. as if i wasn’t a quiet housemate– even if i wasn’t afraid of her and didn’t want to cross paths. with everyone i’ve lived with, including her, i’ve been mindful of the noise i make walking around, doing laundry, cooking, washing dishes, closing doors, putting ice in my water bottle. i leave a light on for them if they’re out after dark. i make every effort to be conscientious and considerate.
as if i wasn’t absent through all of my hiding and waiting and timing my exits from my room until after she left or when she was in her room. that wasn’t enough for her. somehow my very presence in the house, even ill in my bed where she didn’t have to see me for two full days, bothered her. she knew i didn’t feel good and not once did she ask how i was or if i needed anything. she didn’t want me to exist in the same space as her. i had felt it the whole time. now i knew, in black and white, in her own words.
i didn’t respond to the text. or to the ones that came later, when she realized she’d sent it to me instead of someone else. i let them come. i read them. i saved them. i emailed our landlord and told him i was leaving. i didn’t include her on the email.
i went to work the rest of the week. i heard she knew i was going to move out. i heard she was kind of mad about it and maligning me, as usual. c’est la vie.
the workplace was small and lacked any HR infrastructure or protocol for reporting harassment, conflict, or even inappropriate comments. still, i wrote a report and sent it to the person above her. that person already knew a little from a brief, cautious conversation i’d had the week before, in which i expressed concern about the comments i was hearing about myself, my reputation, and therefore my job security.
in a place where the line between colleague and friend is blurred and gossip travels faster than official communication, what people hear shapes their perception. when the person making offhand remarks about your professionalism has seniority and longer tenureship than almost anyone else in the organization, their words weigh more. they make an impression, even on people not participating in the conversation. what i’ve learned from my own observations and organizational behavioral training is that what people say about a coworker carries more weight than anything on their resume or documented work performance. and in a small organization without structure, rules, and accountability, informal reputation amongst the rest of the staff becomes the reason you either have your job– or don’t.
my complaint was mishandled immediately, in breach of even the most lenient or ambiguous HR practices. rather than speak with me to acknowledge its receipt, ask any questions, and lay out next steps, the recipient spoke to her first. betraying my confidentiality, trust, and literally my safety. rather than move out slowly and manageably over the weekend and upcoming week, i had to go home, gather some overnight essentials, pack the cats, and and leave that night. there was no way i could stay one more night with the person who has blown up at me, slams doors and bangs cabinets when she’s in a bad mood, and shows contempt for my very presence on a regular day.
four days later, and six days ahead of schedule, i completed the rest of my move. i had a little more help than last time– help i got all by myself, believe it or not. the solution i found is temporary and i’ll have to do it again in a few months. i put a lot of things in storage to make my life easier when that time comes.
henry was instantly relieved. he spent seven straight hours in my arms that night. his body told me what words couldn’t: the second night we spent away from that house, i was again lying in bed, henry snuggled into my chest. i started to play a video i’d recorded that afternoon while i was moving my things out. she’d come home. the air she brought with her was hostile to both me and the person helping me load things out: no words, scowling, heavy footsteps and doors closing harder than necessary.
the moment henry heard her voice on the video (speaking to her dogs), he stiffened all over, stopped purring, ears up in alert. i stopped the video. it took several minutes to calm him again. it broke my heart, because it confirmed what i already knew: it wasn’t just me who had been on edge in that house. he’s still not back to his fully normal self; the un-traumatizing will take more time. but seeing how safe he now feels really underscores how unsafe he felt for nearly two straight months. it makes me hate myself. i should have trusted my gut that said don’t do it. and if i needed more proof, it should have been when i felt pressured to break my own no-second-chances rule.
contrary to what some have implied, that rule isn’t an overreaction or an unresolved trauma response. it came from years of therapy, from learning that protecting my peace and safety isn’t cruelty to people who didn’t mean to lose control. it’s the hard-won wisdom of recognizing that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, and that someone’s unaddressed problems of their own aren’t worth the cost of my psychological or physical safety.
some of the cruelest things of my life have been said to me about this situation as i lived through it day after day, by people i thought loved me and would believe me. i’ve been told it’s a misunderstanding, as though it was just crossed wires about whose turn it is to buy toilet paper or who’s taking a shower first. that we are both just being stubborn because we both want to be “right.” that we’re just roommates having a spat, like it’s as simple as being inconsiderate, leaving dirty dishes piled up, stealing the other’s food. that i shouldn’t talk to my friends who “agree” with me; they don’t have my best interests at heart. that i’m paranoid. that i manifested it.
while i moved, i thought about the betrayal of confidentiality, trust, safety, and lack of professionalism at work. on monday morning, i sent an email abandoning my job effective immediately. this decision or the reasons for it were not received appropriately. my senior leader replied with an email that combined denial, defensiveness, and condescension in equal measure. she dismissed and infantilized my concerns as immaturity, stated that i should have handled things like an adult, claimed to have followed procedure in handling my report, refused any responsibility for my need to get out of the house the same day i submitted the report, and asserted that i do not have sufficient workplace experience to know how things work– speaking patronizingly to me as though i was half my age and this part time job was among my very first.
however, i have vast work experience and am in the final months of completing a masters degree in business administration (MBA). i am qualified to identify problematic and unethical leadership behaviors. in this instance: breaching confidentiality (disclosing my complaint to the subject before acknowledging it with me, directly violating standard HR protocol and exposing me to retaliation from the subject), retaliation from her (reframing and delegitimizing my complaint as a personal failing on my part instead of a procedural issue), abuse of authority (stating my concern for my safety and job security as a “disagreement,” thereby erasing the clear power imbalance between myself and a senior employee), and failure of duty of care (neglecting the responsibility to safeguard both the organization and its people).
these behaviors collectively align with what organizational psychology defines as organizational abuse and institutional betrayal. these occur when institutions lack policies that ensure safety, and leaders entrusted with employee protection instead enable or perpetuate harm. they prioritize the organization’s image at the cost of ethics and integrity, and weaponize “professionalism” to silence valid concerns.
the narrative being circulated is “vanessa was everyone’s friend until she wasn’t. she screwed us,” revealing that loyalty to certain people matters more than ethical conduct, respect, or the wellbeing of others– including the organization itself.
“Such institutional cultures are not just problematic for the employees who suffer but also for the institution itself. Employees who experience institutional betrayal, who are often the most ethical and hardworking employees, begin to disengage from the organization as an act of self-preservation (Smith & Freyd, 2015). Institutional betrayal also causes employees to leave the organization at higher rates, resulting in talent gaps and the diversion of funds to rehiring and retraining.” Dorothy Suskind, Ph.D.
if this high-ranking leader had handled things correctly, it would have looked something like this: protect — investigate — communicate — document — repair. she would have maintained neutrality and professionalism. she would have taken this as a needed opportunity to review organizational weaknesses and create conflict resolution policies, define HR procedures, and/or offer anti-bullying and trauma-informed training. she would have initiated a non punitive fact-finding process through a neutral third party such as an outside consultant or a board member.
instead, her actions were expose — minimize — personalize — deflect — retaliate. she short-circuited basic HR best practices by inserting herself directly, contaminating the situation with personal bias and hierarchy.
a strong executive sees complaints not as personal attacks, but as data: a sign that the system needs repair.
despite coming to the painful conclusion that the only way to protect my mental health and professional future was to leave this place i loved so much, i still deeply believe in its mission and purpose. every day that i walked into work or came to volunteer on one of my days off, i was consciously grateful to be part of something so beautiful and important. part of me always felt like it was too good to be true that i had been given such a privilege. that awareness gave my work energy and direction. leaving wasn’t a rejection of what the organization stands for or the work it does.
despite wanting a silent, absent vanessa, the colleague-turned-friend-turned-housemate has not accepted my move-out well either. she is withholding money she owes me for gas and electric. my screenshots of the charges have done nothing to persuade her of the amounts. i believe i’ll never receive that money, or her portion of the charges incurring on the current billing cycle.
because that’s the pattern of character she showed me. the gap between what she said about friendship and what she did– missing promises, reshaping stories, minimizing impact– left me unsafe in my own home and gaslit by my own support system. in my experience, she didn’t take accountability or responsibility for herself or her pets, didn’t honor her obligations or even her own word, spoke without followthrough but always had a polished excuse, and refused to see that her words had real impact; that she was capable of causing harm even through words alone– and even when she didn’t mean to.
taking responsibility for herself would have looked like acknowledgment without defensiveness. owning her specific behaviors. repairing through changed behavior. releasing control over the narrative. accepting natural consequences– not as “punishment,” but as part of rebuilding the trust she had broken. she would have stopped trying to manage how others saw me or herself, because that’s how adults honor privacy and integrity. real responsibility doesn’t demand, deflect, or deny. it doesn’t skip straight to “moving on.”
responsibility for her pets would have meant recognizing the harm, stress, and fear her animals caused and being proactive about it, not reactive or inactive. it would have meant following through on her promise to get the aggressive dog evaluated by a professional trainer, not minimizing its behavior or the danger it posed. apologizing every time her animals damaged my things instead of deflecting or suggesting one of my animals was the real culprit. taking full financial ownership for what her animals did. recognizing her animals’ needs without me having to point them out or beg her to do something. the measures she took were temporary, cosmetic: stopgaps meant to seem responsible rather than be responsible. she never showed genuine concern for how her animals affected other living beings: not my cats, who were smaller and vulnerable, and not me, one of her closest friends.
she didn’t show me “THE BEST friend.” and still she wouldn’t face the truth, even when it came out of her.
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FAQ (because people always ask)
“can’t you just forgive her? you know she loves you.”
forgiveness isn’t a synonym for repair. she broke trust, safety, and friendship. those things were hers to protect, not mine to fix after she chose to break them. it is not unreasonable or wrong to rely on your friends when they say they’ll do something, and i should have been able to safely tell her how it affected my life when she let me down.
i’m doing the work to recover, but it isn’t on the person who was harmed to also do the rebuilding. rebuilding would have required the accountability she refused to offer. it would have required good-faith actions from her, like not ignoring me on social media, not having someone over and acting like i didn’t exist (not mentioned in the blog), occasionally offering me something to eat because that’s what she always– always— used to do, and checking on me when she knew i was too sick to go to work. frankly, my attempts at forgiveness have been abundant and evident from the beginning. i stayed. i gave it time. i followed through on promises i’d made. i kept trying to extend friendliness.
“why couldn’t you just be friends again?”
friendship requires safety, mutual respect, and accountability. none of those things survived what happened. i can’t build a friendship on top of denial, revisionism, and lies that occur through broken promise after broken promise.
message she sent me one week after the start of our move-in and six weeks before i moved out.
“aren’t you reading too much into things? like texts that just…. lack warmth? i’m sure she didn’t mean them that way.”
this isn’t about overanalyzing tone or unfairly assuming bad intent from one lackluster reply. it’s about pattern and context. when every message, every silence, every “excuse me” in the kitchen carries the same frost, it stops being coincidence. it stops being “she didn’t mean it that way,” “she was just busy/distracted,” “she had other things on her mind.” i know how she used to speak to and text me day in and day out, regardless of what else she was doing or how stressed she was.
“don’t you think both of you made mistakes?”
YES. i’m not claiming perfection. perfection isn’t supposed to be the standard for not being treated poorly. i didn’t deserve to be treated like a nuisance in my home, met with iciness when i gave warmth, or maligned behind my back to my friends and coworkers– especially when she said she’d stop doing that. shared responsibility doesn’t mean it was split 50/50.
“why write about this? can’t you just let it go?”
because i can now and should. people love to talk about healing but hate to hear what it costs. she got to tell her version of the story freely for weeks without question, consequence, or accountability. i’m the one who paid for that. my words were twisted. i was judged, sentenced, and condemned by people who were my friends and aren’t anymore.
“ok but why did you quit your JOB?! you loved it. wasn’t that too dramatic? or spiteful? why let her take that too? why do that to your coworkers?”
people ask that like safety is something you can compromise on—personally or professionally. it isn’t. when your home life collapses with someone you also work with– and that person has power, seniority, and a long-established reputation– there’s no real separation between home and work anymore. she wasn’t happy i was moving out, so she wasn’t going to suddenly stop trying to turn everyone at work against me.
i didn’t leave out of spite or impulsivity. i weighed the outcomes seriously. i ran multiple, varied risk analyses on ALL my options. i left because i was unprotected. my complaint was mishandled immediately, confidentiality breached, and the same people who should have safeguarded me instead warned the person i’d reported.
leaving wasn’t “letting her take something.” it was the opposite. it was the one thing she couldn’t take: my ability to protect my professional future. staying would have meant continuing to absorb damage in a system that rewarded her control and minimized my pain. a bridge may have been burned, but i didn’t set the fire. i just walked myself off before it could collapse beneath me.
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final thoughts.
what still astonishes me is not as much what she did, but what everyone else did. not just coworker-friends, but leadership too. because it didn’t all happen privately at the townhouse, out of sight, out of earshot. the telltale signs were there. the symptoms weren’t invisible either. people saw me shrinking, becoming nervous, not myself. they heard me express concern about my job. they heard her talking about me in ways she probably never had before. they watched me grow quieter, more careful, and fearful not just of her, but of telling them— friends i’d always been open with and confided in easily– what i was enduring. some said they were “worried.” “concerned.” but their “concern” never became recognition, or action, or defense.
what makes that failure sting even more is that i had just stood up for her a few months earlier, when i believed she was being treated unfairly in a similar situation with a home-work overlap. i stuck my neck out to defend her character. i believed she deserved understanding and respect she wasn’t getting. i was reprimanded for sticking my nose in. yet when it was my turn, no one did the same for me. they threw out everything they’d always known about me and replaced it with caricatures that made her story easier to believe. suddenly i was paranoid. dramatic. stubborn. immature. irrational.
this wasn’t only personal failure; it was structural. leadership mirrored her tactics: minimizing, reframing, avoiding. the same instincts that made individuals choose comfort over conscience made the institution choose image over ethics. this is how dishonesty and betrayal become culture and policy without ever being written down.
this happened in a world that claims to know better: post- #metoo, post- “believe women,” post- education about recognizing abusive tactics, gaslighting, and manipulation. yet when it arrived in real life, they couldn’t see it. or worse, they did, and chose comfort over conscience. when it came from someone who wasn’t male, wasn’t my romantic partner, and didn’t leave bruises or broken bones, they refused to see it for what it was, refused to acknowledge the power imbalance, refused to name the behavior. they engaged in patriarchy-coded thinking, reducing us to childish women who just couldn’t– wouldn’t– get along.
but it fits the definition of abuse: emotional, psychological, and environmental. calling it anything less is dishonest. people flinch at that word because they think it only belongs to certain stories: male aggressors, romantic partners, physical assault. but abuse can be systematic; strategic. it can wear charm like armor. it can sound like concern and misconstrued good intentions. and while she was withdrawing from me, she was suddenly making an extra effort to get close to certain people– people whose opinions carried weight. that’s classic abusive behavior: when control over the narrative or their reputation is at risk, they go into overdrive to control their image and others’ perception. they recruit allies, not out of affection or emotional support, but out of self-preservation. it’s called image management: building credibility in advance so that if the victim ever speaks out, no one believes them.
i’ve had to reckon with my own capacity to harm; my own abusive behaviors. behaviors that weren’t one-offs. not things i just did on a bad day or in a bad mood. i was a chronic abuser to someone i loved. i didn’t mean to be. i didn’t want to be. i didn’t set out to be. i wasn’t “evil.” but refusing to name myself as abusive was blind; cowardly. and until i was able to face that, i was unable to do the work it takes to change from the inside. i don’t know what you want abusers to be; to look like and sound like. but if you think it’s people who mean to be abusive and don’t care about anyone, even the people they’re hurting, you’ll never, ever see it.
people wanted her to be misunderstood, not harmful. they wanted me to be emotional, not endangered. and that preference– comfort over confrontation– became complicity. worse, it became enabling. it’s exactly how abuse survives in spaces that call themselves progressive, kind, fair, inclusive…. safe. too many people who claim to “believe women/victims” only do so when the story fits a cliché archetype. when it doesn’t, they quickly blame the victim.
we still have so much unlearning to do. abuse rarely looks unhinged. it’s controlled. cool, calm, and deliberate. strategized. it builds plausible deniability into every sentence, every partial omission, every half-truth. it relies on everyone else wanting to believe the best of the abuser and not rock the boat. that’s exactly what they did. they didn’t see how she made them part of it. how she retaliated against me spending time with them by spending more time with them herself. how she covertly violated the boundaries of even the ones who said they wanted to “stay out of it” by getting them to do things like come by and let her dogs out while i was packing to leave.
abusiveness doesn’t end when the victim escapes; it ends when individuals and institutions that harbor it learn to stop looking away. the next time you hear something that sounds “complicated,” “messy,” or uncharacteristically “immature,” ask yourself who benefits from that framing. the next time someone vibrant goes quiet, notice who made them that way. comfort is easy; accountability costs something. but until individuals and organizations choose the latter– in work, friendships, and every small circle that calls itself safe or family– we’ll keep mistaking silence for peace and cruelty for misunderstanding. we have to do better.
fiery skull diaries 