Ugh, I need to write 1667 words a day if I'm going to complete nanowrimo. It's only November 3rd and I'm struggling already. Ok, time to squeeze more words out of my head.
I was lying in bed last Saturday morning. I take my tablet to bed with me. I use it as an alarm clock. Sometimes I struggle to get off to sleep so it's there for me to listen to a podcast or audiobook to while away the time until I feel tired. Sometimes I watch some porn and masturbate before I go to sleep. The first thing I do when I wake up is look at the time.
It was about 9.30am. I saw that there was a notification from instagram. I'm a sucker for attention as much as the next person so I fumbled around for my glasses and tapped the screen to log into IG. What I saw made my blood feel twice as hot as normal. It was like being hit in the stomach. I feel shaky and ashamed as just thinking about it (which I try not to do).
My instagram is private. I don't have anything personal or lewd on it, I just don't want everyone to be able to see it. It doesn't have my name in the username either. I'm not stupid. The userpic is me and my cat but it is mostly Dante looking like a doofus and half of my face grinning in the background.
The notification on instagram said 'Lila wants to send you a message'with the AGREE or DELETE boxes to tap. The account had 0 friends and 0 followers. I gulped in a huge breath and nearly puked. I fumbled my tablet in my hand, almost dropping it. I felt dizzy, my heart was hammering in my chest. Ray's daughter is called Lila.
I tapped the DELETE box and dropped my tablet face down and jumped out of bed like I'd been electrocuted.
I paced up and down the kitchen feeling scared and ashamed and deeply embarrassed and caught out and worried I'd lost a connection to Ray.
I thought about all the things I'd learned in therapy about rationalising your thoughts. Lila's account isn't under the name Lila. Although the account that messaged me had 0 friends or followers.
Why didn't I log out before I looked at her pictures I'm such a fucking idiot.
It couldn't be her, I'm just being paranoid. She would just message me under her own account. Why would she make a fake account just to message me? I get so scared over tiny little things that turn out to be absolutely nothing. That's what happens when you grow up in a house where you get absolutely berated for the most minor, if not imaginary infractions. Everything feels like you're about to get an absolute bollocking.
I was absolutely terrified Ray's family knew all about me and were sick of me bothering them and had been talking about me between themselves and what I weirdo I am. Maybe they were going to threaten me. Maybe I wouldn't be able to see into Ray's life any more. Maybe I'd be forced to take a good look at myself.
No. No no calm down, this is just anxiety talking. Be rational. Be reasonable. There's no way some random 19 year old girl with loads of followers and an active life and a Blue Tick boyfriend even knows I exist. It was some porn spammer who happens to share the same first name.
I had this entire conversation with myself in my head about a thousand times in the past few weeks. I've made a point of logging out of instagram. I can only see one picture though, so if she posts more than one at a time I can't see them all. It's very frustrating for me.
Ray shaved his head a couple of weeks ago. I did my daily google image search of him and saw a picture of it. I didn't like it much, but it will grow. His hairline is receding a bit , but a lot of men his age are bald so I'm definitely not complaining. He's still the most beautiful man alive and hair grows back.