Harassed by a harassed guy
Once upon a time, I was friends with a guy known as Sam in my school a long time ago. He had an excessive obsession disorder where he had a habit of getting obsessed with something he noticed in his life, which could backfire him for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, when I saw him for the first time, he was a nice guy to hang out with after classes or when celebrating his birthday every year at his place. To be honest, I never knew that he could be obsessed with people in his life, which could cause trouble to others, intentionally or unintentionally.
Basically, when I returned back home after my graduation from school in 2018, we started chatting on the phone. We used to chat about everything over the phone. Sam used to tell me how his life had been, I would tell him about how mine was going, and we would also discuss other topics. At the same time, Sam also used to express how he used to be bullied by his peers and how they would take wrongful advantage of him due to his learning challenges. Adding insult to his injuries, he also shared another anecdote of how he was yelled at by the vice-principal due to uncertain reasons. From my point of view, I used to feel bad for him because he was being judged for what he was and for his learning challenges. Therefore, I decided to help him to get out of his tough period so that he could enjoy his life peacefully and happily in the future.
Well, on one of these days, he asked me to help him to fight against a bully known as John in his school. According to him, he was giving him a hard time by calling him names and loads of vulgar words, and Sam did not appreciate any of John’s words. Then, as per to what he had mentioned to me about his actions, he provided me with John’s number, and I started texting him immediately. I started texting John by saying “Hey, I just heard you are bullying my friend Sam,” and he replied by saying, “No, it’s not even true.” I firmly responded by saying, “I have full proof of you bullying my friend.” Later he admitted that he bullied Sam at school, and I asked him “What was the purpose of your dirty acts?” He replied by saying that Sam was just a weirdo, as he only knew how to annoy people when he was in school. I gave him a piece of my mind by saying that a person like Sam was just a human being like him and me, and it was not fair to judge someone for their actions. I also added my response to John by warning him that if he kept bullying people like Sam again, I would report him to the principal of his school. In the end, he apologised to me on Sam’s behalf, and he regretted his mistake.
When I shared my conversation with John to Sam, he was over the moon, and he was really grateful for my help. In addition, he asked me if I could help him to fight against other bullies of his. I hesitantly agreed by saying that I would try to help him in that matter because I was not sure if I would be able to take time to help him with this as I was heading towards Beacon College at that point in time. On the other hand, my parents were a bit worried about if he would start annoying or harassing me in the future for more favours or requests to do something for him. I ignored their advice on this matter because I knew Sam would not do anything wrong that may be mentally disturbing for me.
However, tables started to turn around my mind as he began calling me every single day, and it began making me uncomfortable and anxious. My family was quite suspicious about what was going on, which also made me quite anxious and disturbed whenever he used to make obsessive calls or text messages. He had also crossed the line by calling me 26 times in two days for no reason, which really freaked me out. I was in excess shame and guilt about what kind of friends I had who had no control nor any boundaries to the point where they did not know how if someone keeps calling repeatedly, then anyone can be freaked out, frustrated, or annoyed by this. Luckily, I had my parents who helped me to get over this with a few motivational pieces of advice. They suggested for me to block his number and remove myself from his social media so that he could not track me to annoy me more. By the grace of God, I took my parents’ advice and decided to block Sam from everywhere it was possible during that period.
Days, weeks, and months passed on after this particular incident. I was feeling very relieved and enjoying my time with my family and at my college. Then, all of a sudden, when I was at home for my winter break, I received a call from Sam, and he sounded a bit regretful and guilty of his actions in the past. During our conversation, Sam mentioned, “Hey, I am extremely sorry for what I did to you earlier, and I did not mean to annoy or harass you in that manner.” He then asked me, “Can we be friends since I want to make things right this time?” I replied by saying yes to his request for an apology at this point in time. To restart the friendship, he decided to visit me at my residence, and I remember having a blast when we hung out in my house before New Year’s so that we can take this friendship to another level.
From then onwards, things were going well after our reunion before the New Year, and I was having a great time chatting with him on the phone before I left for college. However, things started to change after I came back home from college due to the COVID pandemic. The next morning after my return from college, he again started making me uncomfortable with obsessive calls, texts to my number, and messages on my social media, which made my blood boil because of what he was doing to me. Therefore, I decided to block him from everywhere permanently, which included his number and his social media accounts. He was then trying to catch hold of me from different numbers and different social media accounts, and I had to block him from left, right and centre. Unfortunately, I was getting more disturbed by this, and I used to get freaked out whenever he would either call or text me, each attempt being denied through the help of blocking. As I have mentioned, my parents were standing up for me like a rock, and they continued their suggestion to keep blocking Sam at any cost whenever he tried to contact me so that I would not get hassled by this.
Despite numerous amounts of blocking Sam, it did not get better. Unfortunately, at one point, things got even worse when Sam started texting me some vulgar messages, which was testing my nerves. Somehow, he managed to text me from his mother’s Facebook account, so I even blocked his mother’s account as well. Eventually, things got totally out of control when Sam was texting me through one of his friend’s numbers, which got me feeling more frightened and vulnerable afterward. My parents again came to my rescue, and they helped me to block Nathan’s number to prevent Sam from texting me with his unpleasant words in the future.
Nevertheless, my parents’ advice lasted for a short time until Sam crossed all limits last Friday. Basically, he crossed all limits by swearing at my mother via an audio message on Facebook Messenger. When I first heard it, I was fuming with fire big time. I mean, what was he thinking when he crossed the line by abusing someone’s mother online? I decided to visit my counselors at my college, but nobody was available at that time. I decided to go to a separate room where I could be left alone for an eternity. Therefore, I was in that room for four hours the other day.
Well, when I returned to my apartment, I was still under a lot of stress after what I had heard about Sam earlier. On that note, I decided to call my parents and request for them to take legal action against Sam and his family for all of the harassment. During the conversation with my parents, things went quite opposite than I thought they would, as my parents mentioned that there would not be any sense to take legal action against Sam. This was because with a mentally disturbed person like Sam, it wouldn’t make any sense to file a police complaint against him. One thing that can be done is to ignore and block Sam from whoever’s number or account he is trying to reach out to from. My parents said that the main reason he is acting like this is because he is envious of my success and how I am doing well in college in the U.S. Since, Sam has nothing to do in his life, that’s the reason he is stalking me in this manner. My parents also told me that in the end, what I can do is not get too disturbed by this and keep blocking Sam as much I can.
Honestly, I was a little confused with what my parents said to me. Somehow, their piece of advice worked with me, and I started to feel much better after what I heard about Sam on Friday. On a serious note, I learned a couple of things from this. The first is to never get too freaked out in situations like this. Second of all, there is always a solution for every problem; there is always someone looking out for you who can see and hear everything, so never feel that you are alone in any place you may be in the world.
In conclusion, I would like to end it with Shakespeare’s saying, “All’s well that ends well.” At the same time, I also hope that people will learn from my stories and try to view every negative situation from a brighter side.
