Things have been ramping up oddly. It started with this strange engagement about me needing to acknowledge in a very specific way that T had told me that I need to address my trauma, that specifically she did it early on in the relationship, and this seemed to be the crux of the matter. I didn’t understand the importance of this. I’ve watched T cut out family and friends with cause. The surprise was not that I had made it to this spot; I understood that my inability to mitigate and work through my life traumas was fundamental to this situation. The surprise was that for the first time, someone who had been directly supporting and enabling T was now on the block, and the toxicity of this I had not even ever imagined from someone I used to believe had an exceptional moral compass.
First was the excoriating couples session, where I was literally driven to dissociative silence. When asked if I had anything to say, I was struck dumb. The switch had been flipped, full righteous, expert protection mode engaged. This changed the context for me further; all the things I had ignored and shrugged off became very obvious and interconnected.
You’re In Fourth Place
This person always let me know I was fourth. First, because if she wasn’t okay, well, she couldn’t take care of D. D, first because he will need her support and protection for his entire life. A, because that’s her honey bun and just like her, and she only shot a black babies. I need to take care of my health, stay healthy cause she wasn’t going to take care of me or wipe my ass. It was odd to have my daughter remark on this point recently; it was said so often to me that I hadn’t even realized it was said in front of our children.
I’m the Expert, and You Don’t Appear to Recognize It
This one always fascinated me, a discussion or debate about topics is not for invalidation (or at least for me it’s not), yet any argumentation or debate was considered negative, especially with any amount of sarcasm. As the expert with two master’s degrees in psychology, it was certainly interesting to watch diagnoses being made, declarations of work being done, but no ability to defuse, assist, or comprehend anything other than threat when the other person was having a trauma response.
You Never Asked Me How or If the Work You Were Doing Was Impactful
We had couple sessions every two weeks to once a month. While there were moments of trouble, the last sessions before the excoriation offered no insight or feedback other than we were doing ok and where I still felt I had work to do. Intent vs Impact matters, except when it comes to others, then it’s just if what I said was accurate, completeness, or discussion of complexities is unimportant.
You are entitled to Feel However You want, but you are responsible for your Behavior
This, too, appears to be more of a control and judgment mechanism. If a person expresses a glare, any leakage, or a smile that is found to be disturbing or out of place, these are judged to be problematic and create an unsafe environment. Apparently, young adults like A can because they believe their Mother to be threatened can say things like they’ll blind you, kill you, or otherwise be threatening, and this is ok because… The application of this is only for T.
Dinner with A
This had always been a risk, but I felt like it was important to be calm and show that this could end peacefully. Instead, after dinner, we chatted and acted like everything was ok. A starts attempting to interrogate and assert a judgmental tone (Remember impact vs intent). He starts with something along the lines of I want to know how a man can be alright with someone saying something is hurting the one they say they love. While processing this, I said I’m not going to discuss this with you. This continued to get more heated, his position more aggressive, while T seemed to console and observe that I was acting out as I did at dinner in NC. While A was just shocked and had never seen this side of me. This continued to roll further, I paid, and said I’m done. He made more threats that he didn’t feel his Mom was “safe” around me, that she shouldn’t have to bear any of my trauma, which was interesting, as he seemed to have a very well-formed view of what he thought. I dissociated a bit as I was simply not going to engage my son, and the fact that one of our children had been brought into this way was extremely disturbing to me. The nicest thing he called me during this time was old man, all the way up to nigger. He threatened to take my sight, and I’d better watch myself, or there will be a whole bunch of people. On the ride back, he noticed my smile, and was quite upset I was smiling, to which T immediately responded that’s one of his trauma responses, he’s been through a lot. I found that insanely cruel, as T, with her great education and expertise, is both allowed to make declarations but doesn’t appear to have to be kind and supportive to those she’s designated as unworthy.