From getting locked in a guy’s car, to shouting down the phone, this is how I ended up getting my closure.

I blew up. Big time. Like really, really, really big time. It was so dramatic, and so unlike me that it almost felt surreal. I have never been in this situation before. Only thought that it happened to other people. I had no idea how it would play out. Twice, I even asked God to help me.

Saturday morning I was sitting in the car with this guy that I had been hanging out with for over a year and a half. I call him “the guy I had been hanging out with” because that was how he wanted to define the relationship.

As I was sitting in the car, there were so many things that I needed to get off of my chest. I knew exactly what I wanted to say but I was editing my words to sound calm and mature, even though deep down I was hurting.

Boy, did I do a 180.

When “the guy I had been hanging out with for a year and a half” told me to get out of his car, I didn’t. I stood my ground because I needed to be heard.

So what did he do?

He got out of the car, took an Uber to his workmate’s place and left me in his car. But before he left, he said “If I find that anything gets damaged in any way, you’re going to have to pay.” Then he left.

After a few minutes I calmed down. By now it was 3pm. I was starving, hadn’t eaten since breakfast and needed to go to the toilet badly. So I decided to get out of the car.

The door on my side was locked. No problem. I thought I’d try the driver’s side. Locked too. So I tried pressing the unlock button and opening the door handle at the same time. No luck. I did everything I could possibly do to get out of the car without trying to damage it. I googled “How to get out of an Audi.” I even tried to get out from the boot of the car. I mean I did everything. But still no luck.

So I phoned him. I told him that I was locked in his car and that there was no way out. Then he said, “No problem, I’ve already asked my workmates to pick up the car. You just need to wait.”

At this point, I’d never even met his workmates. I didn’t want to look like some crazy maniac, which I knew I probably already did. But I didn’t want his workmates to be there judging me while I was still in this state.

Five minutes later, a car pulls into the parking lot beside me and two of his workmates, one male, one female, unlocks the car I’m in and tells me to get out. Like they had no idea what was going on, only some hashed up story he had given them about why this crazy girl was in his car. So I gladly got out of the car, and went back into mine.

It didn’t end there. No. That was just the beginning.

When I’m in my car, I phone him and tell him that it was not cool of him to get two people who had no idea what was going on to intervene in this private situation.

While I’m raising my voice at him down the phone, he tells me that his workmates have just arrived with his car.

And then guess what happens?

He passes his phone to his female workmate because he doesn’t want to deal with the situation anymore!

And guess what I say next?

I have no idea how I managed to choke down these next few words because boy did I say it with as much command and emotion as one possibly could.

I told her:

“Can you get him back on the phone? I know that you think that I’m acting a little crazy-”

Her- “No I don’t think you’re crazy at all.”

Me – “It’s just that I’m acting this way because he was the one who wanted me to fall in love with him (his words exactly) and now he’s gone off without even giving me some kind of explanation.”

Her – “He should talk to you. No woman should have to deal with that.”

And she passes the phone over to him and gets him to talk to me.

Like what just happened? Did she just agree with me? She, someone who was supposed to help him, just agreed with me. Maybe I didn’t look as crazy as I thought I did?

Like I didn’t even agree with what I was doing. I had been telling myself that I was this crazy maniac for demanding some answers, for demanding an apology. I was ashamed of myself. Have been for months trying to pretend that nothing had happened, trying to pretend that I was OK. That I was just too sensitive, too emotional and that I should just bottle up my emotions.

But here was this other woman telling me that what I was doing was actually OK? Because of what she said I found the courage to tell him exactly what was on my mind without fear. To tell him exactly what I felt. And nobody stopped me. His workmates just left him to talk to me. I could hear them in the background doing their own thing and leaving him to deal with his own personal situation like he should’ve done in the first place.

I said many things to him on that phone call. One of the things was that he had always run away everytime he had an argument/fight/break up with a girl, and that this time he was not going to run away.

He had always either moved to a new country, gone hiking up a mountain or left one way or another to avoid feeling any emotion close to love.

I also told him that everytime he had ever done anything wrong, like bully someone when he was a kid, drink and drive, or light a fire on someone, his mum or some other person had always been there to protect him and tell him that he was not going to suffer the consequences of his actions because they loved him. But today that was not going to happen, because I was going to tell him that he had done something very wrong and he was going to have to confront me instead of running away.

He stood there listening to me fuming at him for over an hour and finally said that he would come up and apologise to me in person – in 2 weeks time.

Whatever.

Let’s just say that when I woke up today, it was like a fog had cleared. I heard the birds chirping outside the window again. I felt the sun warm my room, even during this dreary Winter season.

The shame that I had held inside of me for so long was gone. The shame that had prevented me from moving forward all these months was lifted.

None of the passive techniques that people had suggested to get over a relationship – meditating, forgetting, forgiving the other person – even came close to lifting the shame that I had felt.

None of it worked, until I did what I did yesterday.

Because sometimes to get over something so painful and not let it get to your soul, you need to stand up and defend yourself, your heart and all it’s emotions.