Psychological Warfare: Back for a Final Punch

I discovered something this morning that has left a renewed scar on top of the psychological bruises Matt gave me two months ago.

“Always a victim,” he said under the name Ed West in a response to my blog post titled, Lessons from Psychological Warfare.

He couldn’t come up with a more obvious name?

And I’m not a victim. Not anymore. I was back then when I let him use me as well as several other people. I didn’t approve of the comment which is why it can’t be viewed publicly. I have the power to throw it in the trash which I will gladly do after a few fighting words.

I stumbled across his response this morning, and felt the anger rush back as if it all happened yesterday. Two months is a long time to get over an unofficial ex. You would think that I’d be done with him by now, but it’s not so easy to move on from being bullied, especially when it’s an attempt to bully me on my own blog.

Let me back it up.

Following the publishing of my blog post in February, I received a call from Matt. I deleted his number from my phone, so I didn’t know that it was him.

“Hello?” I asked.

“I’m going to need you to take down that blog post,” he said.

‘Oh hell no,’ I thought, but I didn’t say a word back.

*Click. Block.*

Penny sent me a long text a few days later requesting that she would appreciate it if I edited her out, especially the part where I called her ‘psychotic’ and ‘manipulative.’

I laughed.

*Click. Block.*

Their responses told me one thing: My voice was heard.

Not a word from either of them after that. I did, however, hear from a few people that they were in a similar boat that I was in – feeling relieved and completely shocked by Matt turning against them in such unexpected, personal and threatening ways.

Nothing happened until I came across that comment today, which still makes me question myself, saying that I took no responsibility for my actions at City Gym.

Well, one thing I will own up to 100% is that I hated that job. I didn’t want to be there. I was only there because he hired me while we were dating. I didn’t want to turn it down, because he was doing me a favor and trying to help.

I could’ve said ‘No, thank you. I’ll apply somewhere else.’ But I would’ve appeared ungrateful. Plus, I had worked at a front desk before and was fine with the job. I was actually even happy that we were able to spend more time together there.

Gag.

In the comment, he criticized me for setting up my laptop at the front desk and doing research on Army careers. (Says the guy who would watch skateboarding videos on his phone while he was at the front desk…?)

Whenever a client came in the gym, I was attentive to them. In the comment, he added that I was “ignoring customers.” I don’t know why he kept that lie around.

“There was a complaint to management on almost every shift,” he said.

No complaints were brought up to me. It’s possible that no complaints were brought up at all, because there WAS NO management. If that were true, how was I supposed to know what I was at fault for or the severity of the complaints if “management” never brought up said errors to me?

“Penny had asked her not to park in the small gym parking area when she was in town but not on the clock. She did this repeatedly. At the last event, she told Penny ‘Hey, I’m cheap. Suck it up.’”

Indeed, I parked there because I was working that day and was heading to a nearby coffee shop to work on the employee handbook – something I volunteered to do for the gym without pay.

And “in town”? Um, I live in Riverside…

I didn’t want to walk to the gym, because I didn’t want to walk home alone in the dark after my shift. There was construction going on in the parking lot, but it wasn’t my responsibility as an employee to pay for parking elsewhere. The same issue occurred with other employees. I wasn’t the only one who had been complaining about paying to park in order to get to work.

And that whole “Hey I’m cheap. Suck it up” quote was completely misconstrued. I was being sarcastic when she asked me why I was parking there, and said jokingly, “I’m cheap.” I never said “Suck it up” to my boss. I WOULD NEVER, I repeat, WOULD NEVER say that to my boss!

Is this the lie he tells clients when they ask what happened to me?

Finally, the last comment was: “The last straw came when someone called to ask about an annual membership and management heard her telling the caller to call back and ask someone else later because she was busy right now.”

What?! Wow, we’re getting pretty crafty now.

I know what he was referring to, and here’s what actually happened:

A person called asking about a Groupon, and I wasn’t sure because I had never heard of that discount before. I responded with saying that they could redeem it if they brought the Groupon with them in person to the front desk and let the person know about it when they arrived.

I texted Penny confirming the situation, and she said to call them back and tell them they can redeem it at the front desk.

I thought, ‘I literally just told them that…’ So I put my phone down and ignored her text.

Matt came over to the front desk ten minutes later and asked if someone called about a membership. I explained what happened. He grabbed the phone angrily, and started dialing.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said.

In that moment, I knew what had happened. Penny texted Matt, because she realized that I was unresponsive to her.

I threw the comment in the trash, but here’s his final punch:

“One space cadet gets fired, but it has to be a deep psychological drama where everyone else is at fault and she is a pristine wonderful person. Check back when she’s been fired from another 5 jobs. It’ll still be the same boo-hoo. Always a victim. No responsibility.”

I’m going off to fight for my country, dumb ass. What the hell are you doing with your life? Spreading herpes?

No, not everyone else is at fault. Just him and Penny. Two people who have done a fantastic job of running a terrible business, and being completely ignorant of the good people they’ve impacted.

If they’ve done one thing positive in my life, it’s that they lit a fire in me to never give up. Because there are toxic people out there like them who abuse their power to hurt others, I want to fight harder and protect innocent people.

When I face an enemy and seek to destroy them, I’ll know who to think of.