It would be easy to create a story that seems like he is the bad guy. He likes collection bones and lives alone in a quiet, very sparsly populated area deep in the woods at the end of a road that leads to a lake with fallen tree skeletons rottening in dark water. A gun hanging over the messy porch as a warning for trespassers. If you walk onto the property you would be greeted by a big black dog and a thin tall individual. A hunched over man his face towards the ground, not looking into your eyes, mumbling a short shy hello.

But that´s not what he really is. He can be a nice guy, just not to me. He is not killing people, he is cutting wood into slabs. That´s not dangerous, that´s laim.

I had to block him on social media, not because he has a chainsaw in his old pickup truck. I had to step back to protect my energy. We created a dynamic that was a funny game for him, but caused a lot of pain on my side. I cried a lot. Poor you! No, not at all. Now, a few years later I am able to see the good side of it. The connection caused a lot of suffering and therefor a lot of improvement for me. I learned so much about lovebombing, triangulation, benching and about intermittend reinforcement. Caution, that´s sarcastic! I desperately wanted to understand what was going on. I wanted to get a grasp on this irrational patterns. Now I know that finding out the truth in this case is impossible and at some point you just have to surrender and let go.

He said he is an autist, that was his excuse. So I did some research on that too, and the more I found out about it, I had to realize this: I was reading about me. I started to recognize me in the describtions of autistic people and autistic behaviour. I don´t know wether he is on the spectrum or not, and it actually doesn´t matter anymore. It´s not my place to diagnose him. But in this toxic rollercoaster connection he pointed out my weakness and I am grateful for this insight. Writing it down is still influenced by turbulent emotions, but I have to acknowledge this: “Thanks for showing me who I am. I am autistic. And I really mean that.”