u/Additional_Fan9553

PLEASE READ BEFORE COMMENTING:

This is an update post for my original post regarding my controlling “roommate”.

I had a lot of people request to see the videos I took of him, but I was hesitant because of the subreddit’s rules. Since then I was given permission by the subreddit’s creator to post the video as long as I blocked out all identifiers.

Now I want to answer some inevitable questions that will pop up:

Q: Why don’t you just move out?

A: I am working on it. NYC isn’t cheap and finding a new place to live isn’t as simple as a snap of a finger. The harassment still continues even during the move out process. Moving out is a solution I’m working on but it doesn’t erase the current ongoing harassment.

Q: Why is he so mad? You must have done something…

A: While this is logical and I’d ask the same question, the truth is that this particular roommate actively pursues conflict with individuals he feels don’t respect his authority. What constitutes not respecting his authority? The answer is any and all criticism regardless of how it’s delivered or intent is met with this kind of behavior. Anyone who has had to live with a narcissist (or a suspected narcissist, i’m not making claims) understands this is common behavior.

Q: The fact that the police didn’t arrest him means it’s not serious

A: This was a common comment I got on the last post. I understand that it might be common that people don’t interact with police officers, especially in domestic situations, but the fact of the matter is that it actually takes quite a lot for a police officer to arrest someone and pull them out of their home. While harassment and assault are technically illegal that does not mean the police will do anything about it. In order for them to take this seriously, it would have to have gotten so bad that it drew blood. This isn’t unique to roommate situations either, it’s well known and documented among women who are victims of domestic violence that even under those circumstances the police refused to get involved. Unless you’ve interacted with the police in this way, you’d be surprised on how much it takes to get a police officer to actually act on a crime committed domestically.

Q: What about civil court?

A: I can’t do housing court because he’s not a landlord. I could sue him in civil court. Civil court is really only good for one thing though: seeking money that you can prove you lost due to the circumstance. I have no intent to get money out of him. The only reason I ever got the law involved in the first place was for them to tell him to leave me alone.

Q: So what, you’re saying that’s it? no one can help you?

A: Yes. All I can do is leave. There have been repercussions for his actions. I informed the landlord, who in return raised his rent a ton. I got to stay here as long as I needed to find a new place to live, and right now as we speak he’s avoiding contact with me. These all sound like a “win” to me. My goal was to always be left alone and if you really want there to be consequences I guess the rent raise can be seen as that.

I’m open to answering more questions below. Inevitably there will be people who cannot fathom the idea of someone acting like this without provocation. My last post (and honestly every post on this subreddit) is filled with a select amount of people who insist I must have done something to provoke him. My only answer to that is: you either have lived with this personality type or you haven’t. If you haven’t, that’s GOOD. I’m glad you don’t understand because it doesn’t make sense. It’s a mild (imo) form of abuse that’s actually quite common. The reason it doesn’t make sense is because it comes from nowhere except inside his own head.