It's All About Image

My name is Cristina D. Johnson

This is an angry blog. Just a forewarning.

Woke up this morning with text messages from "him" - bouncing back and forth between being nice and being an ass. I was immediately triggered.

I have never, ever in my entire life had a single human being trigger me as instantaneously as he does.

I know why that is, too.

For about eight weeks, we were still living together. We would bounce back and forth between deciding whether or not to work it out, or whether or not splitting was the best choice. He would say, "You're the one who said you were done," never realizing he made it impossible for me to stay.

Then...he would go out. Not only would he go out, but he would tell people my private business. I was horrified beyond belief. I couldn't believe he would betray my trust - my deepest trust - in such a way. But he was very clever about it. He "told just a few people" (which means anyone, really) knowing damned good and well that these towns talk - everyone talks. Never using any common sense or decency, always without regard for my own dignity.

Oh God how it hurt. I've been writing my entire life and I can't think of a single word (or set of words) that can adequately describe the pain I was going through. The lies he told me - how he misled me about the wedding and instead took my "friend" "L" (who, incidentally is apparently not much of a friend since she hasn't even once contacted me to see how I'm doing. Instead she hangs out on his boat or goes out with him). He made me feel like the lowest form of life by telling me lies, and then going behind my back. He blew things out of proportion, made himself look like a super hero and divulged everything from my issues to my financial situation to people whose business it was none of, nor was it his right to do so. Especially to an incest survivor. OH MY GOD the things I'd shared!! I was beyond terrified. And nobody checked on me. They just took his word for it - poor, poor him. The victim, the savior. Oh he made himself look like the real hero and me...well I was just nothing. As I always had been.

I attempted suicide. I was in crisis. It's not uncommon for people with my disorders. Neither is a lot of stuff - cutting, binging, drinking, drugs, etc. but the triggering...Dear God, every night he would trigger me, telling me he was going out, knowing it would trigger me and then carelessly walking away.

(Definition: Anything that brings about a symptom of PTSD. For example, a news story about the Iraq War may cause a veteran with PTSD to have thoughts and memories about the war. Triggers may include people, places, sounds, words, and/or smells. Source: http://ptsd.about.com/od/glossary/g/triggerdef.htm)

That about sums it up.

Being abandoned, being cheated on, being lied to, being talked about behind my back and then being told - when I asked - no, begged - him to please stop talking about me.

"You're just trying to control who I talk to and what I say," he would respond angrily. "It's my life."

"No, it's my information and my private business that I'm asking you not to share."

"It's none of your goddamn business who I talk to or what I say," he said one night.

He would say and do things, knowing they were going to trigger me and when the panic attacks came on, he would causally walk away, go out to his van, and go party - pretending his life was perfect as I sat alone in the house, mortified, horrified, embarrassed to be seen by anyone.

That was one of the most insidious aspects of his telling people (and of him telling me that people were talking about me): He never would tell me who he told what, and who said what so I was there, like a nothing. I had no importance, ever. I was nothing....just something to gossip about and he being him, would do all he could to protect his image. Because, after all, it's all about image.

He's not the person people think he is. He went out and made himself out to be a victim - which, in a way, he was; a secondary victim of my abuse and at times of my own verbal abuse.

When he would trigger me, I would become irrationally angry. Actually, it was profound pain that was misplaced (being triggered brings back feelings, memories, sensations, etc. from your past) and the only way I knew to react was by anger because that's what happens when you grow up on the streets: you fight.

I was also living in complete disbelief. How could someone who said they loved me, do this to me? How could he? I wasn't unreasonable - I was trying to get out as soon as I possibly could because it hurt to be there - but I asked him to please, please just wait until I'm gone before you start going out. Please.

Nope.

So it  got to the point where even hearing his footsteps or his early-morning coughing was sending shockwaves through my body. I was uncontrollably triggered and stuck.

"You can go out if you want," he would say, never considering how mortified I was that he told everyone my personal business. He even told people he fixed my car for me, never divulging the fact that it was OUR  car and it broke down because of OUR use and should have been fixed at least a year ago. It just so happened to be in my name. So he made sure he looked good.  Made sure everyone knew how much he loved me.

We can see that now, can't we? As he takes his new gf out on his fancy boat (which he cannot afford)? Yeah he loved me alright.

No....if love bit him twice in the ass he wouldn't know what it was.

Because, for him, when love gets complicated, it's too much.

So then he starts accusing me of being violent. Violent because I would grab the front of his shirt and cry and plead and beg, "Why are you leaving me? You said you wouldn't leave me! Why are you giving up on me!? You said you never would leave me!" ...this, is violence, for which he would call the cops on me if I ever did it again. (another huge trigger of mine, btw, being a child of the system - and a trigger he's well aware of).

In this morning's text messages, he flipped back and forth between being nice and being not-so-nice, even with a veiled threat about how if [my blog] begins to effect him, he'll handle it then.

Well, here I am - being real. Spread out wide open, everyone knows my secrets and my sins. Everyone knows my shame, now, because I chose to tell it - not because someone with no morals or sense of loyalty decided to spread it around. Because for me, it's no longer all about image.

It's about being real - and I'm being real.

Nothing in my blog is a lie, distortion or exaggeration.

I was so thrown off today just by his text messages this morning that the entire day was a trigger until I was exhausted.

I laid down and fell asleep, only to have a nightmare about him. Him and his brother.

They were being so cruel in my dream - heartless, cruel, vicious.

Control. Image.

It's all about that, isn't it?

Image?

What a fool I was to fall into that trap - to drown myself in this pool of high fa-looting, the-world-is-my-oyster, pretending to be someone and something I wasn't. And why? To live up to his expectations?

Well, who the hell is HE? A cheater, a liar, a fake? And *I* was trying to live up to HIS expectations?

But when the going got tough and I needed him more than anything in the world, he fled - to another woman (which he admitted to, but now denies) and is now seeing, (surely just coincidence).

Then...out of nowhere, came friends and supporters - people who aren't so obsessed with their image. People who've either been there or understand or want to help or want to be friends with me or want to help me.

I discovered in this process - this process of coming out and telling my truth and being real- who my friends truly are. Painfully, I also learned who, among those I've known for five years now, are not.

I could go on and talk about the REAL person I know - the reality of his life but he has to live with himself. He must be exhausted - just like I was - holding up such a fake facade, living up to others' expectations, trying to be something he isn't.

But unlike him - I have empathy. I pity him, despite the fact that he is the single most biggest trigger of any person ever in my life. I have never, ever been triggered by anyone as much as him - mostly because of the deliberate and intentional pain he put me through. Mr. Perfect. Mr. Wonderful. Oh but if people only knew the truth...

This is the end of my angry blog and I must say that in the past five years I've met two amazing people - R & R - father and daughter. Dad R is so authentic and lovely, wonderful and fantastic and daughter R is the same. To them I say: I miss you. I always authentically loved you both.