I fell in love with a Felon

In a world full of judgement this is a story I never wanted to share directly in detail. Over the last two years since I began speaking with him I've posted about my feelings in a round about way, not giving to many details of our story. Through my writing on here it has brought me a lot of healing and a way to process the last two years of my life. I believe as a story teller, it's always good to share the good and the bad, but also the most vulnerable parts of your life. Not only does it help me heal, but I hope that my story could be comforting for someone else that might have went through or is currently going through a similar situation.

Back in December I wrote "Thank You For Not Choosing Me." this was about him, and it ended up getting my first top story in awhile from Vocal. It was so theraputic to write that, to really reflect and be greatful for all the reasons why it didn't work out. But to also be thankful for all the reasons it happened regardless. Like I have said so many times before he inspires my writing, not just about him personally but just in general. While I am a woman or many words, it takes certain people to really bring them out of me. He brought out a side I never knew I had, and maybe that was because of him being in prison, but I don't know. Look at me now, I have already wrote 264 and I haven't even started the story. Now let's take a trip back a little further than 2022, the true fate of this story rests in the year 2018.

2018 was an extremely hard year for me. At the end of 2017 I began falling into severe anxiety and depression so debilitating I was starting to only leave the house for work and anything that was absolutely necessary. I developed health anxiety and I had began turning to YouTube to see if I could find creators that were going through the same thing as me. To my surprise I did find a few creators going through the same thing. One day I was watching a video and when it was over I seen a video suggestion of a prison YouTuber. This was defiantly not the usual content that I consumed, but I was intrigued.

After watching a few videos I decided to subscribe to her, and begin watching her videos anytime she posted. She told stories of her recovery, her addiction story, and stories of her time as a dealer. Throughout her stories she mentioned her runners, one of them being who I would later cross paths with but I of course didn't know that at the time. As her account began growing she began bringing people back on her channel, and that will take us to 2020.

Ah 2o2o, the year no one will forget really. In June of that year this creator uploaded a video with her runner. I clicked on the video, and of course I thought he was very attractive. Tall, muscular, brown hair, brown eyes, covered in tattoos, literally my type. Oh and of course lets not forget he's a bad boy! Once I got more into the video more than obviously his looks attracted me to him. His struggle with addiction was similar to what my dad and many others in my family went through. Also some of his family was from the same state as some of mine.

Toward the end of the video as they were wrapping up they mentioned putting an email that people could message him and give him words of encouragement as he had recently got out of prison as working on his sobriety. At the time he did have a girlfriend, and for me personally I didn't u-98feel comfortable messaging him especially because I wasn't sure what I would say. So I exited the video, and well that was that. Until that fateful day in 2022.

I actually made an update post on my own sobriety and struggle with alcohol here on Vocal a few days before crossing paths with him. But one night I was up pretty watching YouTube, and his update video came up randomly on my page. Even though I still followed the creator the algorithm rarely showed me her videos. Anyways the update was that he had been arrested again, and was back in jail. It took me a minute to figure out who it was as it had been a couple years and she had other people on the channel.

I decided that next morning that I would write him, I was going through a lot at that time as well and I wanted him to know he had a support team behind him. I figured since his story and information was shared on such a large platform he might not even reply to me. But something in my gut told me to just take a leap of faith, and so I did. I couldn't actually message him I had to add him, but he sent the first message pretty quick. I was extremely nervous because this was way out of my comfort zone, and I wasn't naïve to certain things that can happen in these situations. After a few messages he called me and we talked for 20 minutes. I hadn't left and felt that carefree in so long. It was nice to have some light in my life, and someone that didn't know anything about me.

As the first month past we talked and wrote each other as much as we could, I was trying my hardest not to fall for him, but looking back that first phone call I was doomed. The more we got to know each other and the more we talked the more I realized we had in common. He quickly became my comfort person, someone that understood what panic attacks and anxiety and that would try to help me with it. The first few months were bliss as it always is in the beginning.

After awhile I began having feelings that something was off, but I kept ignoring it. I began to feel like he had started talking to someone else, particularly an ex. But I kept pushing the feelings back, because I didn't want to be right. Since at the time it was the first time I had been in love for a long time and I wanted it to work. Unfortunately I ended up being right, and the day before he got out of prison he started a fight with me and I didn't hear from him again for two weeks.

Things went on like this again for a few months until finally I cut off all contact with I'm for three months to which he was re arrested again. I chose to reach out to him again, and we talked the whole time he was in there. This time though I ended up visiting his mom and going with her to pick him up once he got out. I thought things would be different this time but they weren't it was in that moment I saw the true colors I should have seen so long ago. It wasn't that we didn't get along, when we were just friends and not me fighting for him to be in a relationship but he also continued to leave me for this same girl. It would come out later that he really was just using me for money, another stab in the heart.

Even today I don't hate him, even though he broke my heart and made it even harder for me to trust someone. For a moment he made me happy and feel understood. I saw a part of him, a person I know he could be should he ever heal himself enough to do it. Should he be willing to give up the life and hustle that he's used to. He taught me so many lessons, and really made me look into myself and question why I allowed someone to do this to me and treat me this way for love. He's not the first person to break my heart by using me for money, my ex of many years did the same but he wasn't a felon and also used me for other things as well. It made me realize for myself that until I love myself, things like this will continue to happen. I don't love myself enough to create boundaries and realize to trust my instinct. I also need to love myself enough to know the love i deserve, and to be patient and wait for it.

He also showed me the truth of a broken man, and that until he heals himself he will continue his own patterns. Seeing this in him helped me deal with other relationships in my life and reflect that a lot of times the way people treat you can be a reflection of how they feel about themselves and not always to do with you. I'll never defend what he did as anything but wrong and hurtful. But I know that everything happens for a reason, so I try to find the lessons in it all.

At the end of the day I truly hope he finds his way in life, and that he's happy. I hope that he can heal himself enough so that he can truly be happy in life. This will always be a piece of my story and at the end of the day I've accepted the situation for what it is and I am happy that it happened. This situation has helped made me grow, and heal that inner child that always wants to help and please everyone even before herself.