Storage Locker Blues

For over a year, I maintained a storage locker in Farmington. It wasn't a convenient location for any more than a month. It had made sense at the time Tina and I decided to rent it, since I'd just sold my Mom's house and was moving in with Tina as a stepping stone towards getting a new home together.

After Tina and I ultimately parted ways for good, I eventually landed back in my home city of Minneapolis. For a time, I largely ignored the existence of the storage locker, with more pressing concerns cluttering my mind, but I was paying for it. I eventually came to realize that I'd paid over $2,000 to store possessions I'd not seen in a year. Not much in there was worth that much. I'd be better off buying replacements for just about anything in there than paying to store it any longer, I reasoned, so I began to go through it all, moving some things to my condo and throwing some things away, with the goal of closing that money-drain.

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Political Avoidance

Narcissistic abuse leads to symptoms of complex post traumatic stress disorder, including severe reduction in self confidence and decision making ability. That can make it difficult to perform any work, but complex work that engages higher mental functions can be especially hampered. Losing faith in my own mental prowess was a small but significant factor in my withdrawal from political work.

Probably the biggest reason political work became so difficult is that it became extremely anxiety-inducing: It's dealing with liars. Being forced to use logic and truth to refute falsity after falsity is exhausting after spending years doing that on a personal level. It triggered the same feelings I experienced while attempting to unravel Tina's gaslighting. It was like reentering combat while still shell shocked. I felt anxious, sometimes even panicked when confronted with lies.

According to studies by neuroscientists, long-term exposure to narcissistic abuse leads to physical damage to the brain as well as the psyche. Those physical changes in particular can account for the irrational anxiety, panic and aversion.


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Jesus Didn't Leave those Footprints

I initially guessed the footprints that appeared on my van windows must have been a prank by Maura on her way to work in the morning.

"Cute, Maura. Weirdo. That was baffling at first," I texted Maura when I discovered them. I was getting ready for work myself and had stepped outside to have a cigarette in the morning sun. My van was parked next to the stoop.

Someone's bare foot prints were on the mid-row windows on both sides of the minivan. I was up early that morning, but Maura had gotten up much earlier. She was usually already well into her work day by the time Tina and I would roll out of bed.

"What was baffling?" Maura texted back after a couple minutes.

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Write it Out

My therapist and other knowledgeable people suggest writing as part of the recovery from emotional abuse. It's definitely been important for my healing.

Putting order to my thoughts and memories is the primary use of writing out the story of my tumultuous and destructive relationship with Tina. It's an aid to finding the objective truth after having my entire perception of reality warped by a constant campaign of gaslighting. Reasserting objective reality and injecting it into the world is re-empowering. My perception matters. My experience and truth matters.

Tina's behavior could be so outrageous as to be nearly unbelievable. When I'd make certain observations, I'd stop and think along the lines of "It can't be what it looks like. Nobody would do that!" But, Tina would and did do that. Writing out the details has been necessary to avoid glossing over just how bad things were. Setting the story down in an ordered manner helps lift the mental fog that Tina brought about with her constant deception.

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At the end of the lie Barrage

I couldn't, in the moment, think of a diplomatic way to say it, so, finally, I just said it. "What's with all the lies, Tina?"

Then, I saw something that I realized in that moment I had not seen for some time. It was Tina. Lies exhausted, ammunition spent, her mask fell and she transformed before my eyes. Her voice and visage softened. I got a sense of a scared, sad, almost pleading little girl. All hope nearly lost. "You knew I was like this when you fell in love with me."

I thought it may be something she'd told herself so many times that she almost believed it. There was a lot to unpack in that sentence. It stopped me cold. All I could do was shake my head.


Read the rest at the new Adventures of Dan and Tina.