I think my evil ex is haunting me.

The Haunting of a Survivor

I think my evil ex is haunting me. When I found out my ex-boyfriend, who broke two of my ribs and put me in a coma for a week, was dying of cancer, I thought my prayers had been answered.

He texted me: “You know you’ll never actually get away from me.”

And I rolled my eyes and sent him a gif of the Grim Reaper. He died two days later, and my girlfriends threw me a “no more restraining order” party, but then things got weird.

First it was just his cologne in my apartment, that specific Dior Sauvage he always wore that now made me want to puke. I figured maybe it was coming through the vents or my brain was being dramatic because trauma does weird things to you.

Unseen Patterns

Then I started finding stuff moved around in ways that were so specifically him it made my skin crawl. There was the coffee mug handle facing left because god forbid a right-handed person touch his special mug.

My shoes were lined up like soldiers by the door because apparently chaos would reign if they were even slightly crooked. The thermostat was at exactly 68 degrees, which meant I was freezing my butt off under three blankets just like old times.

I changed my locks even though he’d never had a key because breaking in was more his style anyway. I got a security camera that showed absolutely nothing except me looking increasingly paranoid, checking it every five minutes.

Physical Manifestations

My therapist said it was normal to feel weird after your abuser dies because your whole fight-or-flight system doesn’t know what to do with itself anymore. This sounded logical until I woke up with his fingerprints on my wrist.

Not fingerprints literally, but bruises in the exact pattern of how he used to grab me when he was pissed about something, like me breathing too loud. They were purple and green like they were days old, even though my wrists were clear when I went to bed.

I’d worn long sleeves to sleep and they weren’t even pulled up or twisted or anything. I showed my friend Clare and she did that thing where she tried to look supportive while obviously thinking I’d lost it.

The Sound of Control

Then his music started playing at 3:00 a.m. from absolutely nowhere. It was not just any music, but the specific playlist he’d forced me to listen to on those fun four-hour drives where he’d scream about every single thing I’d ever done wrong, including that time I sneezed during his favorite song.

I checked every device, asked the neighbors, and even had the super come check the vents, but we found nothing. I could hear every word clear as day coming from inside my walls like the building itself had memorized his Spotify.

I went to his funeral because I needed to see him in that box with my own eyes. I sat in the back while his mom sobbed and his friends talked about what a legend he was, nobody mentioning the three arrests or the two other girls with matching restraining orders.

Questioning Reality

I asked the funeral director probably one too many questions about whether that was definitely him in the casket and was he absolutely sure the body was dead, because you hear about these things. He looked at me like I was insane, which was fair, but things kept escalating.

I started writing everything down so I’d have proof I wasn’t making this up. I opened my laptop to find a document I didn’t create with: “You’ll never get away from me.” This was copied and pasted like a thousand times.

My car started itself in the closed garage at 2:00 a.m. and nearly killed me with carbon monoxide before the alarm went off. I came home from work to find my bathtub had overflowed with scalding water and my landlord was ready to evict me.

The Breaking Point

Ghosts aren’t real, so there had to be an explanation. Maybe his psycho brother was somehow involved, but he lived in Denver and had alibis. Maybe one of his friends was carrying out some twisted revenge plot, but the cameras showed nothing and nobody had keys.

Maybe he wasn’t actually dead and had pulled some elaborate fake death scheme, but that’s insane, even though I only saw his body from far away and funeral makeup can cover a lot. Would anyone really check that closely?

The worst possibility was that I was doing it to myself, having some kind of breakdown where I was recreating the abuse because my brain was broken from all the trauma. My therapist gently suggested inpatient psychiatric care after I showed her my journal of incidents.

Seeking Safety

But that same night, invisible hands choked me awake and left scratches on my neck that couldn’t be from my own fingers because I bite my nails to nothing. These were deep, long marks from actual nails.

I ran to a motel 200 miles away because I couldn’t stay in that apartment another second. I woke up to find: “Found you.” This was written in the bathroom mirror steam, even though I hadn’t showered and that mirror was bone dry when I went to sleep.

Maybe he was haunting me, or maybe someone was helping him posthumously, or maybe he faked his death, or maybe I was having a complete psychological meltdown. Either way, he was right about one thing: I was never getting away from him.

Fighting Back with Facts

I sat on that motel bed staring at the mirror message until my hands stopped shaking enough to think clearly. Ghosts weren’t real, which meant someone real was doing this to me and real people left real evidence.

I grabbed my phone and started taking pictures of everything in that bathroom: the mirror, the dry towel rack, the bone dry shower stall. If someone was tracking me 200 miles away, they were using actual technology, not supernatural powers, and that meant I could fight back.

I packed my stuff in about three minutes and checked out, telling the desk clerk there was nothing wrong even though she gave me a weird look. The drive back to the city took almost four hours and I spent the whole time planning what I’d say to make the police actually listen to me instead of thinking I was crazy.