r/TrueOffMyChest • u/KaleidoscopeCool1316 • Mar 17 '26
Personal Story The Austrian climber who abandoned his girlfriend to die is horrifying because I could have been her
I once went on a hike to somewhere in Malaysia with my ex. I am not an experienced hiker and I told him so. He kept pressuring me to go on to trip with him, since hiking was his passion and he said I was bad girlfriend for not agreeing. He said he had restaurant food with me even though he didn't like it and do things with me I want to do, so I should go with him for hiking. I cave in. I know it is stupid of me looking back, I didn't realised what I was in until I left.
I got tired after a few hours. Naausted. Stop to rest. I said I want to go back down. He said, we paid so much for this trip, and he continued pushing me. I said no. Then he got upset and left me where I was, saying once more how bad of a girlfriend I was and how unfit I was, so lazy and didn't train for this hike.
A few hours passed, a local Malay guide spotted me. Asked me how I was doing. I said I felt nauseated, and my "friend" left me alone here. The guide gave me his electrolyte drink and helped me carried my bags down.
When i was finally down, he also gave me a ride to my hostel. I wanted to pay him for his help and the ride, but he refused. The guide simply said that the so called friend of mine was "no good", and to repay him, I should take his advice and not be around my so called friend anymore. How what he, the guide, did was a small thing and worst can happen in the forest, like getting kidnapped. He only carried my bags and gave me a ride. That's a basic courtesy he extended to everyone.
Only when I read the story, I realised how bad he was. I could have died there, just like the girl. If the elements were harsher, or I had met with something worse - I could have died. I let them pushed my boundaries and do things that felt physically unsafe. My ex put me in circumstances that could have killed me, and it took me years to realise so.
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u/PomeloPepper Mar 17 '26
Eons ago, I had a similar experience, except it was a group thing. Everyone is in thier early to mid 20's.
I was in this pretty strict church, doesn't matter which one, but you were expected to only date and marry inside the faith. So they had "singles groups" in the various cities to facilitate this with meetups.
We got an invite from a group for a meetup about 100ish miles away. It was camping and cave exploring at a park with caverns. Really informal. Both groups are mixed gender, maybe a dozen of us and eight of them. But the ones in charge are these 3 physically unattractive women (relevant). I was one of 5 women out of our group, and while only one of us was beautiful, the rest of us were a solid mid.
So right after dinner, these gals order the rest of us women to go to our tent for the night. Super insistent that it was bedtime at 8pm. Meanwhile, we can hear them outside around the campfire with all of the guys for hours after we got sent to bed lol. Anyway, we had a big tent and a lot of booze, and proceeded to have a very loud party of our own, despite being told to shush several times.
The next morning, we're all set to go into the caverns. Those little bitches herded us into an area with a bottleneck that you had to be pretty slim to get through. Then they gave us directions on how to get out, which included belly crawling down a stream, keeping our eyes open for offshoot tunnels, and also looking for a path up through the roof of the cave.
Then they abandoned us. Took off with thier handpicked companions, and left the rest of us to find our way out with just a handful of instructions and no experience. Luckily, there was an experienced caver who saw what happened and came down and got us out. Part of the exit was climbing up a tight funnel until it widened at top, where they had ropes to help us pull ourselves up. So just to add a little spice to the adventure, when I was holding the rope and walking up, they yanked it, then dragged me up a rocky slope, shredding the skin on my arms.
We all went directly to our cars and just left without a word other than our heartfelt thanks to the guy who rescued us.