so ty was wrong. marci and i had the conversation about borderline personality disorder she wasn't willing to have a decade ago. the diagnosis makes sense, it really does, but what ty used to frighten and intimidate me isn't. "i hate you--don't leave me!" and all the manipulation people associated with erin had nothing to do with me. have.
ty wanted me to say i was like that, but when someone's only got sexual abuse in his or her life, it seems like rejecting everyone who's a rapist or emotionally abusive is terminal. when almost everyone in an abused person's life is advocating sexual abusers and not the devastated person, it's harder to know emotionally and logically that walking away is the only thing to do.
marci and ilene said that i have a very mature, thoughtful approach to conflict, and a really intuitive, logical dissection of problems at hand, what's really going on. i told marci how perlis would constantly try to destroy my identity and negate my rape experiences by saying, "your therapists know it's all fantasies--you wish you commanded such attention. they cater to you, they tell you they know you're being raped by such&such, by so&so, but they're just trying to soothe you and keep you calm until they can get to the real work: destroying your illusions. they lie to you. you've never been raped by these guys. your therapists are just trying to work with your delicate state and then they'll bring you back to reality."
perlis, remember, majored in psychology, and still studies it. she's not a safe therapist! thankfully she doesn't want to be one.
marci's reaction was different from ilene's, who was like, "listen, fuck her. FUCK everyone's opinion. don't let her get to you; you know i say she's a dangerous friend, and anyone who lets her boyfriend abuse her and hurt her friends is a bad person. why you don't just leave i don't know!" marci just froze mid-sign, laughed with disbelief, and said, "oh, sure, let me just say...that's not how therapy works! we don't lie, let me tell you that! ridiculous!"
i couldn't really imagine that perlis (autocorrecting to perils each time is the smartest thing my phone has ever done!) meant it, was all; now i know, the night we last talked as one true friend--me--to a callous, destructive antithetical pal...she said i hadn't been telling the truth about any of my NYC attackers.
and that was that for me. keri was another person ilene really wanted me to stop talking to; she was the most vindictive, soulless person in my life. both women were wheedling because they were scared that ilene wanted their punching bag to walk away and open her own gym.
if keri is still mocking and devastating women who have been victims of SV/DV, it's time to put her in her place. she told me about her own rape just before loch was born. she needs to stand back. i also know that if she really had been asked to step down as a volunteer working with DV survivors&victims and refused, as the story goes, there were legal options to keep her away. if no one had the guts, well, that's actually a testament to her powerfully destructive abuse. she's not a safe person toward other adults.
now, joe...i wonder. what if he has BPD too? he seems to have been diagnosed as bipolar but his abuse and anger--maybe it all overlaps. still, what if instead of talking about how sad he is about all the abuse he's endured, and how hard it is to cope with mounting abuse, and being pushed away and manipulated...he's just mostly silent until the anger turns into the red tide?
that would make perfect, awful sense. he can't handle his abuse enough to talk about it, and his world as a convicted ?felon or ?justplainconvict and father without custody of his children, he is constantly thrust into his memories and forced to face and kowtow to his abusers. he's got no choice but to position himself as the deferential child, and his abusers get to lord everything over him.
because, marci just alluded, anger is apparently a common way to deal with BPD.
i wish he would listen to me. i wish he would just let go. I wish he could stop being afraid of showing the world the only thing i see: someone who can't handle his abuse except in anger and bursts of abusive violence. i never want to lose him to it, and i'm so afraid the world will.
he's so talented...he just can't find his center.
and I think i'm done with jeff. he's just as immature as joe, and the more i hear from him, the less i like and respect him. the way he deals with shit he brought upon himself is ridiculous, and i think he shouldn't get to have me in his life.
besides, i miss joe more now, thinking about how all the abuse must be pain turned into anger and impulses he can't apologize for without feeling embarrassed, so that recycles itself as more explosive anger. i'm not ready to give up on him, and the protection order is one of the reasons i'm feeling so suicidal.
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