Tag: complex ptsd

  • moral bankruptcy

    Arapaho National Forest

    I’ve been pretty strong and determined the last few days; since the 12th, actually. Able to hold my head up and all that. Last night, the facade crumbled.

    It all had to do with the newest jute purse. It’s going to be big enough to hold both cameras but Jared makes my liners. And I wanted him to make a round pocket large enough for my GF lenses. It was a random thought I had not long before we sat so Jared could look again at his measurement notes to cut the felt and canvas.

    And Jared had reservations about the fact that I wanted the pocket to be round, and I pitched a fit.

    Jared said he had been expecting the meltdown, when I came to enough to realize what was happening.

    I am so very lucky I married the man I did.

    And, I wore my hair in pigtails on Friday and yesterday afternoon. And apparently the trope is universal; a guy on the square gave me a big smile and someone at the football game (a man) “complimented” the style on Friday night.

    sigh

    It’s been an experiment, this hair thing. Not a sexualizing sort of thing; having even just below chin length hair is still a novelty and it’s fun to be able to do anything different with my hair after years of baldness and super short hair.

    But even as strong as I am, I have limits. And the realization that I have been objectified by the person I’ve written about is still very, very painful.

    It’s still painful in the same way that the realization that the whole situationship was really one giant trauma bond is.

    I am strong, and I put on a brave face. And I never have to see him again.

    And that is hard too: working through a trauma bond is a process.

    But it’s not the first time I have done this breaking of the trauma bond, even with this person, and I will be fine.

    Jared said last night that getting together with him in October 20th was progress; last December I had no earthly idea what to expect. This time, I was prepared with boundaries.

    But really: what kind of professional as successful as him (especially in his particular field with the connections he has) meets with someone he at least at one time pretended to care about, knowing this person is on SSDI and is desperate for a job, and offers absolutely zero assistance?

    Someone who is morally bankrupt, that’s who.

    But then, moral bankruptcy with that particular history is a given.

    I like to think the best of people. Maybe that is where I went so wrong.

    When someone tells you who they are the first time, believe them.

    Because it actually serves this person’s ends and ego to have me in an economically disadvantaged position. I am well-aware of this fact, too.

  • november 12, 1998

    Today is a trauma anniversary from 1998.

    November 12, 1998 was a beautiful day today, just like today, November 12, 2025. It was cooler that morning though, as I recall. 

    I took the photo above, of the railroad tracks, in that morning sunlight on November 12, 1998. 

    And I wrote the following on October 30, 2025, in correspondence with the perpetrator from that day, edited for my own protection: 

    “This will seem out of the blue for you. It is not for me.

    There will be no absolution, no forgiveness. I never actually responded directly to your statements last December imploring me multiple times desperately to “not be mad at you for the things you did.” I simply wanted to see if I was strong enough to face you last December. And then I did the thing I always do in the aftermath: I retreated into myself, doubting myself, deferring to you all these months after. 

    The truth is, it is my literal cross to bear that my beloved alma mater continues to “honor” someone who never probably should have graduated from its halls 25 years ago. 

    It has been my weakness, my own fragile mental illness so very well-documented at this point, that has led me to, time and again, try to befriend you.

    Your character is irredeemable, apparently. Not one thing has changed in 27 years.

    There weren’t mixed signals, as you said, on Monday the 20th. The truth is, you can’t read me anymore because I’m stronger than you. The trauma bond is broken, thank God.

    Goodbye,_____.”

    Today is that person’s birthday. He committed a trauma so vile that I won’t write it here. 

    And I withdrew with hardship due to my psychosis less than a month later, and managed to get that withdrawal the week of finals. 

    And my psychiatrist of the time who documented all then, was astounded to hear the complete story when I went back to him in 2022, about how it all played out. He said then that so much more made sense about that time, to hear what I had to say. 

    And last December that same perpetrator, when I wanted to see if I could face him, committed an equally vile trauma, I believe on purpose.

    In both cases, Jared says he is an opportunist.

    And on October 20, 2025, that person made professional missteps that really kind of shocked me, except that I knew even in the moment that he was making a severely miscalculated power play. 

    And that day, too, unprompted, he went on and on about how his program at our school was the most stressful time of his life. As if it was some sort of excuse for his behavior back in the day. 

    I wrote the following on Facebook earlier in the day today, with links to a song from Elton John’s “Love Songs” album and the “Sleepless in Seattle” soundtrack. These were the soundtracks that he played over and over in 1999 and 2000, repeat ad nauseum, as a grooming tactic. 

    “A couple of odes to my 19 year old self who could not defend herself, and also that 19-23 year old self who tried time and again to walk away, and finally did at age 23. These songs do not mean to me what the lyrics would indicate. 

    The first time I wrote this draft I ended the above paragraph with “Maybe someday I will talk about it.”

    Suffice it to say for now that groomers are very smart, and choose their soundtracks very, very very carefully, and repetitively. I cannot listen to these songs (or the soundtracks they are on) for the rest of my life without ever thinking about one specific person.”

    And today November 12, 2025, has been a beautiful day. I got to see my very nice orthopedic PA about my scoliosis, and I got to drive through my very favorite parts of Atlanta, that city I love.

    And it occurred to me, that finally Atlanta is, for me, not the scene of sadness and trauma and despair.

    Atlanta is my city, not his; Atlanta has meant what it means to my family for generations, not his. Atlanta– my very own alma mater– is mine, not his. It is my family that began a relationship with characters from that alma mater probably the decade he was born.

    That man has no claim to anything he can’t buy. He knows nothing of love, of loyalty, of kindness, of simply doing the right thing.

    I’m ready to talk about it.