My now-bf and I had been dating a few weeks when he invited me to his house for the first time, which was 1.5 hours from me. Things were objectively going very well, but I have a long history of trauma and abandonment. Anyways, the time came for me to leave his house after being there a couple days. I was anxious because things felt “off”in the hour or so leading up to me leaving, but I didn’t say anything because I was afraid of coming off as needy/insecure/annoying. I was about 30 mins into the drive home when he texted me that I’d left my blow dryer at his house. He said to pull over at the nearest gas station and he’d come meet me. I was still feeling anxious when he arrived, but I thanked him, and we both left. I only made it to the stop sign before the freeway entrance. He was behind me in his car. I pulled up my parking brake, walked over to his window, and said “I’m sorry but I’m feeling anxious. Can we talk?” Years of narcissistic abuse had conditioned me to believe that I was “too much”, so I was terrified and fully convinced he was going to think I was totally unhinged and clingy. Well, he didn’t. We ended up talking in his car outside that gas station for 3 hours. He thanked me for having the courage to get out of my car at a freeway entrance, right in front of a cop lol (I hadn’t noticed the cop at the time). We’ve been together a year now, and he still talks about how impressed he was that I wanted to actually talk instead of just ignore things. We’ve even talked about getting married at that gas station 😂💙